Chronic pain affects millions, but many patients and clinicians may not fully appreciate the nervous system's role in producing and maintaining it. During Pain Awareness Month this September, Dr. Eric Anderson, a neurologist and Chief Medical Officer of Lin Health, the virtual health care company based in Denver, CO, is drawing attention to a brain-based understanding of chronic pain that could change how it is treated.
"Pain is always produced by the brain and the nervous system," Anderson said. "When someone hears 'it's in your brain,' they often hear 'it's imaginary.' But it's quite the opposite. Your pain is very very real. It's generated by real circuits in a real nervous system." In chronic pain, he explained, that interpretation can contribute to the nervous system becoming oversensitive, a process called central sensitization, where even a light touch can trigger a pain response.
Anderson emphasized that this understanding opens new treatment avenues beyond simply targeting the part of the body that hurts. "The nervous system is plastic, meaning that what it may have learned, it can unlearn," he said. "And I think that that is the most encouraging news in pain medicine right now."
Lin Health's model is built on that premise, combining modern clinical understanding with evidence-based behavioral therapies. The program is delivered virtually and matches each patient with a trained pain-recovery coach after a medical review. Patients then receive a personalized plan that may include Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Emotional Awareness and Expression Therapy (EAET), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), and Pain Reprocessing Therapy (PRT), among other approaches. These therapies are designed to help patients understand how pain is processed, reduce fear and reactivity around symptoms, and develop new responses to pain.
Patients work with their coach through weekly live sessions and in-app messaging, with access to daily exercises and resources via the Lin Health app, available on the Google Play Store for Android and the Apple App Store for iPhones.
The company reports notable outcomes: 92% of patients experience significant improvement in pain and level of function, pain intensity is reduced by 45%, and 59% of patients with medium-to-high pain reduce their pain to low or no pain after six months. Lin Health also holds a 4.8 rating on TrustPilot.com.
For patients living with persistent pain, this approach could offer a more effective path. By targeting the nervous system, Lin Health aims to fill a gap in traditional care, where such interventions are often inaccessible due to being high-touch and not included in standard medical training. The company states its care is broadly covered by insurance and designed to produce measurable outcomes. More information is available at linhealth.onlinepresskit247.com.
