Dr. Sanjay Gupta explores new ways to treat pain CNN NEWS

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Transcript

00:00We're already getting an idea of just how busy this hospital is. I'm a trauma

00:06neurosurgeon. After decades of treating people in pain, people all around the

00:11world, I thought I truly understood pain and the life-changing toll it takes. That

00:19is, until now. I'm Dr. Sanjay Gupta. It doesn't have to hurt.

00:28You know the expression, it's all in your head? Well, actually, with pain, it absolutely

00:34is. The brain is your pain center, not the place where you actually injure yourself, your

00:40stubbed toe, broken wrist, or pulled muscle. Pain is created when signals travel from the

00:47point of injury to the brain, and then your brain reacts with sensation of pain. It's

00:52why everyone reacts so differently to pain, because everyone's brain is unique. Two

00:57people with identical injuries on an x-ray could have completely different perceptions

01:02of pain. And it's that subjectivity that makes pain, especially chronic pain, so hard to treat.

01:09I'm about to take you on a trip inside the brain. Three and a half pounds of the most mysterious

01:17tissue in the known universe, with more connections than stars in the sky. And hidden in that big

01:24galaxy of stars are the connections that create pain. It's mind-boggling, right? More than a needle in a

01:31haystack. Dr. Prasad Trivalkar will be our guide. He's a neurologist, a pain doctor, a trailblazer,

01:38and he is searching for the mystery of pain inside the brain. So for the longest time, pain was called the

01:46fifth vital sign, right? But unlike the other four vital signs, there's no objective measure,

01:51right? It's not like temperature or heart rate. So one of the holy grails of pain medicine has been

01:57coming up with a biomarker for measuring how intense or how severe somebody's pain is. This is exactly an

02:04example of the device that... So, Prasad Trivalkar has made this his life's work and has an audacious plan

02:10to try and measure pain. To start, surgery to stick multiple probes all over the brain.

02:17I guess this device kind of goes above, under the scalp and connects to one of the wires going into the brain.

02:24Scientists then simply listen to the billions of neurons in the brain and see what areas fire up

02:31when the patients have pain. And we're targeting key areas... I told you it's audacious, about as cutting edge

02:39as it gets. So, telling someone you're going to drill holes in their skull, it should raise concern.

02:46So, they tell you all this and your first reaction is what? I hung the phone up.

02:53Click. Yeah, no way. Ain't happening. After being a real daredevil in his early years,

02:5954-year-old Ed Mowry had collected a lifetime of injuries and a lifetime of pain.

03:0434 surgeries. Wow. 11 knee surgeries and my right knee replaced. I've had C3 to T1,

03:11L4 to S1, all fused, all new discs. Initially, Ed would heal and the pain would subside. But then,

03:19starting in 2009 after knee surgery, a relentless pain developed like he had never felt before.

03:26Unbelievable burning, just non-stop. Think about the worst burn you've ever had in your life and

03:32multiply it by 10 or 20. And then it never, ever stops. Yeah, it's, you know, it feels like someone's

03:38cutting the bottom of your feet. It's quite painful. I would say it's more than painful.

03:44It took 10 years and lots of doctors for Ed to be diagnosed with Complex Regional Pain Syndrome,

03:50or CRPS. It usually occurs after an injury or an operation. And while it can occur anywhere in the

03:56body, it usually affects the hands or feet. So in a sense, maybe it was the surgeries,

04:03but it seemed to have started you on the cycle of pain. Yeah. Now you might wonder, and so did I,

04:09if the surgery that kicked off Ed's chronic pain was in his knee, then why was the pain now so profound

04:15in his feet? Well, the best way to think about this may be like the phantom pain of an amputee.

04:21That's pain in a limb that no longer even exists. After all, Ed had no cuts or bruises,

04:27no visible injuries. This pain was being completely manufactured in his brain.

04:33Manufactured pain from the brain with no stimulus. It's, it's unreal.

04:39So that's just your brain creating the pain? Yes. The Lyrica and the morphine will be first.

04:44He did try a very long list of pain pills.

04:46Yes. And these are all the ones that I was on. God. So hydrocodone,

04:53Norco, Celebrex, Vicodin, Percocet, Oxycodone, Dilaudid, Demerol, Tramadol, Tamazepam,

05:00Gabapentin, Methocarbamol, Baclofen, Valium, Flexerol. I don't even know this one.

05:07Did you ever had zero pain even when you were on these meds? No.

05:10Eventually, he had enough and was willing to do anything, even brain surgery.

05:16I thought, you know, let them do whatever they got to do just to get me out of pain.

05:22In the fall of 2024, Ed had electrodes implanted deep into his brain.

05:28You're seeing here Ed's brain and all of these little colors represent probes.

05:33And there are as many neurons in your brain, if not more, than there are stars in the sky.

05:38Yeah, exactly.

05:39It's like throwing a telescope up at the sky and just seeing what you see or hearing what you hear.

05:44Yeah.

05:45That's exactly, yeah.

05:46It's quite a daunting task.

05:48We're actually recording activity from each one of those 140 contacts to try to identify where to

05:55stimulate but identify what is the signal, the biomarker, that tracks his pain.

05:59And for the first time ever, they obtained a real-time pain map.

06:04What you're looking at is Ed's brain in pain.

06:09And then they pass an electrical current into Ed's pain centers.

06:14And watch what happened.

06:16Both drop to zero.

06:17To zero?

06:18Yeah.

06:18You don't feel pain right now?

06:19I don't feel nothing.

06:20I feel my feet.

06:22Yeah.

06:22Like I can, but yeah, the pain's gone.

06:24Pain's done.

06:25You're not kidding me.

06:29I'm not kidding.

06:29I believe you.

06:30I'm not kidding.

06:31It dropped.

06:32I mean, it's barely broken out of one on both of them.

06:35That's incredible.

06:36Yeah.

06:36It was like a veil lifting.

06:39It was like a ton of bricks falling off your shoulders.

06:41It was all at once, all that, all at once.

06:44And it was euphoric.

06:46But that was the first time in a long time, Ed, that you had not been in pain.

06:50Mm-hmm.

06:51Yeah.

06:51It's like the best drug I ever did, and I didn't do any drugs.

06:56Yes.

06:57We were not expecting that at all.

06:59It surprised me how quickly he responded, but you hit a particular spot and it, you know,

07:03changes their life.

07:04I'm able to tell you exactly the number of my pain.

07:09I visited Ed in his hometown of Albuquerque, New Mexico, to see just how much it had changed his life.

07:15Walking, exercising, just enjoying time out with friends, and also traveling the world with his music.

07:23Hey, buddy.

07:25Hey, what's up, guys?

07:26He continues to meet with Schvalker's team to monitor his implants remotely, checking in from New Mexico.

07:32All right.

07:32There you go.

07:33Nice.

07:33Look at that.

07:34We're in here.

07:34Since the brain is a dynamic organ, they are always tweaking the settings.

07:39He even felt it turn on during our interview.

07:42I can feel the pain go .

07:44Wow.

07:44Yeah.

07:44Geez, Ed.

07:45You know, I got to say, because I've been a neurosurgeon for, you know, a long, long time,

07:50I haven't heard that level of description before.

07:53Yeah.

07:53That's pretty wild.

07:54Yeah.

07:54It's, it's, I think it's pretty much what makes me one of the first cyborgs in the United States.

08:02It's 100% changed my life.

08:04Ed is a pioneer.

08:06You know, Ed is, one, to help himself, but really to, to help humanity,

08:12to make this world better.

08:12And that's, that's just, uh, it's priceless to me.

08:17I feel like I owe him my life.

08:19Invasive brain surgery for pain.

08:21Obviously, this won't be an answer for the masses, but look at what we have learned.

08:26Pain lies in the brain.

08:29It is measurable.

08:30It is predictable and preventable.

08:33There's hope.

08:34A lot of scientists are tirelessly working around the world,

08:36uh, to try to make your life better in the next five to 10 years.

08:41Okay.

08:42Five to 10 years.

08:43We'll come back and check in.

08:43All right.

08:53We'll see you next time.

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