Can Virtual Reality Help Manage Chronic Pain?

A virtual reality device may help train you to change your emotions and thoughts about pain to reduce your pain and keep you moving. Here's what you can do.

Do you have lingering pain in your lower back? You’re hardly alone. About a quarter of Americans had low back pain during the past three months. If it lasts for that long, your pain may be diagnosed as chronic.

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), training to change your emotions and thoughts about pain, may help you keep moving and reduce the amount of pain feel.

Now there’s a virtual reality device, approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), you can use at home for CBT. Called EaseVRx, the device includes a virtual reality headset and controller. You’ll also get a breathing amplifier to provide feedback on your breathing exercises.

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How the device works

EaseVRx gives you physical feedback as you learn and practice various principles of CBT over eight weeks. Each of the 56 sessions is 2 to 16 minutes in length.

The FDA approval came after a study compared results from patients who practiced CBT with the device and a control group. At the end of treatment, almost half of the EaseVRx group reported that their pain had dropped by more than half, compared to only a quarter of the control group.

A month after the program ended, the participants who EaseVRx said they had maintained a drop in pain in their level of pain by at least 30 percent, and that pattern continued two and three months later. In the control group, pain reduction was not lower, if at all.

The headset was uncomfortable for some participants, and just under 10 percent of people experienced motion sickness with nausea, but there were no other adverse reactions. The FDA granted EaseVRx a breakthrough device designation, which means it offers a new technology with significant advantages over approved options.

The device can coach you in a variety of skills, among them deep relaxation through breathing, distraction, and regarding yourself compassionately.

This is not to say your pain is “all in your head”

Your brain processes pain. As the master of your nervous system, your brain brings pain to your attention. It is also the source of your emotions about pain, the idea that pain is unpleasant and should be avoided.

Humans have six kinds of pain neurons that, when activated by a stimuli like heat, send a signal to the spinal cord where it reaches the central nervous system. But the brain can override this network by releasing its own painkillers, including endorphins and adrenaline.

CBT is a way of taking charge and consciously using the brain’s authority to minimize pain. If CBT helps you, that doesn’t mean your pain wasn’t “real.” It means you learned powerful skills, much as athletes train themselves to use and experience their bodies differently.

Research on virtual reality and pain goes back some 20 years. The earliest research focused on virtual reality devices that seemed to have success with burn victims and cancer patients. The exact mechanisms at work when a virtual reality device helps us overcome pain are still under study.

Research on CBT and chronic pain goes back even further.

Pain medication

Opioids are no longer recommended for chronic pain. These medicines not only increase your risk of addiction but also make your pain worse. Although it’s tempting to want a prescription handy for emergencies, there is also the risk of someone raiding your medicine cabinet to abuse opioids, or you can you abuse them yourself. Over-the-counter pain medications and steroid injections may help. Other options may include surgery or electrical nerve stimulation.

What you can do

Follow an exercise plan, ideally with support from a physical therapist. A diet low in the fats most common in processed food may help. Steer clear of canola, corn, cottonseed, soy, safflower, grapeseed, and rice bran oil. That can be hard if you are used to eating various processed foods. Try to cook at home with butter, coconut oil, or olive oil and eat fish like salmon and tuna as often as possible, while cutting back on meat.

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