Dr. Sanjay Gupta

We were talking throughout that entire process and, you know, he's a ultra man athlete, you know, just, I think he was shocked at how much his post-op recovery sort of took.

Now, one thing that Rich would say if he were here was that he'd been dealing with chronic pain really for 13 years, since 2012.

And part of the reason that it took a lot longer for him to heal, and he's still not completely recovered from a pain standpoint, his pain, which was acute back in 2012, started to basically be encompassed by all this baggage that we talk about.

Yep.

And Rich, as smart as he is and as resilient as he is, probably wasn't addressing the baggage that came with this.

That idea of even a guy like him, so this should, you know, he's an ultraman, he's an athlete, he takes great care of himself, yet he still had this because of that added baggage.

I think now that he's addressing that more, I think in a very, very intentional way, he's starting to get relief from his pain.

Absolutely.

Previous history of pain is a big one.

If you've had pain in the past, then you have a relationship with pain.

And for many people, that amplifies a future pain experience.

Depression.

About 40% of people with chronic pain also have depression.

anxiety.

Mostly untreated forms of this, but even in people who have some forms of treatment, they may still have added chronic pain.

Poor sleep.

That was a big one.

And again, it's a bi-directional sort of relationship.

Pain worsens sleep, sleep worsens pain.

But those are some of the big things I think that have always felt a little squishy in terms of the relationship to pain.