Tracking back to the source of this article, I find this: http://www.anzca.edu.au/communicati...kthrough-blood-test-reveals-colour-of-chronic Looking up Prof. Hutchinson - he is the director of the Centre for Nanoscale BioPhotonics at Adelaide Medical School (Australia). Here's a list of his publications: https://researchers.adelaide.edu.au/profile/mark.hutchinson#publications I can't see one specifically about this test, so maybe he's spoken about it at a conference last year, but not yet had it published.
The thing which actually piqued my interest is, if the science is valid, how it might be useful so people could know if their pet is in pain or not. Animals are notoriously good at masking pain sometimes; I've heard it said it's a survival trait so predators don't pick them out. But it might be very useful for vets, and thereby also for pet owners.
...and children, when their ME symptoms are doubted by doctors. I suspect it might be another one of those things that'll turn out to be more complicated than it looked at first sight, though – that's usually what happens!
Interesting to see that now in 2019 he's got 4 PhD positions open, all related to biomarkers of pain - in livestock. https://researchers.adelaide.edu.au/profile/mark.hutchinson e.g.
Well I guess if it’s being considered as potentially of use with people who are unable to communicate their pain it’s not too much of a leap for them to grasp that it could potentially validate people who do communicate pain but are disbelieved. Complicated though - if it’s roughly accurate it could still improve things by picking up pain in some dementia patients who aren’t currently getting pain addressed. But some would still be overlooked and it might make them more overlooked. Similarly if you say you’re in pain and this test is negative you’re probably worse off than before. Many of us had the “all your results are normal” experience.
I am concerned that such a test, if perceived inappropriately, could be a quick and 'easy' route to a MUS type diagnosis, without all the tedious need for a 'professional' medical type person. My reasoning is thus; Lots of people with a MUS style diagnosis report chronic pain (assumption on my part, I don't have figures), Nothing, that the medical type person, has 'found' suggest an organic cause, which is the why for a MUS diagnosis, If people in such a situation are found to test positive under such a test, with no other objective evidence, then this risks becoming a quick blood test for MUS - a fasttrack to diagnosis. They (the BPS mob) have a history of misappropriation of anything they can't explain away, of turning it to their, adapted, narrative. Of course as mentioned above the opposite is also true, that a person in chronic pain without a positive result will also likely have this treated as evidence of MUS. Yes I believe that they would cut it both ways, catch 22 style. It is how they do things.
Or they will just refuse and say the blood test is unnecessary because I don't believe you are in pain and I don't want to encourage your illness beliefs
It does sound pretty incredible. Maybe it makes more sense if he's talking about changes in markers on the outside of white blood cells influencing light reflectivity? But the article says a couple of times that the different colour is in the cells; so I don't know what that might be. But with all that goes on inside a cell, it would be pretty remarkable if a change in the cell could be picked up as a colour. I don't understand this differentiation between chronic pain and acute pain; I've heard it made a bit recently, with the suggestion that you can think your way out of chronic pain. If you stub your toe, that is pain due to tissue damage. Isn't it the same thing if an arthritic process, or degeneration of vertebrae causes tissue damage? So are the processes for causing the pain really different? Is Hutchinson saying that if the acute pain goes on for a long time, becoming chronic, then the immune cells have different internal structures or chemical compositions?
Similar questions crossed my mind. The colour thing is OK though. Cytochrome is called that because it has a particular colour - i.e. absorption spectrum. Same with haemoglobin of course. As molecules of this sort do their work they often change their colour. There seems to be an assumption that chronic pain is something different or leads to some systemic effect that alters blood cells. If I get a huge pain from standing on a black berry thorn I don't think my blood cells will change colour before I have slipped my shoe off and removed the thorn. The biggest problem for me is that pain has to be the best indicator of pain. It is its own gold standard. OK you might use a test to tell if someone who could not understand your language had pain but in most other situations people can say yes to 'are you in pain', or lift a finger if mute. I sense some hype on this year old article!
It would be very useful in some situations. I know somebody who has a severely autistic son who cannot communicate much at all. He recently had a brain tumour removed. Him not being able to communicate pain is a big worry for them. They would not know if he was understanding the question "are you in pain?" And in general yes that would be nice if reported pain was the gold standard measure, but too often doctors just assume the patient is exaggerating, and in some cases tell them outright "you are not in pain".
