Steven Akerman, personal injury solicitor and director at Brian Barr Solicitors, argues that we need to stop looking at chronic pain simply as a medical problem and start recognising it as a life problem. 

We tend to think of the cost of chronic pain in medical terms. Doctors’ appointments. Prescriptions. Physiotherapy. Perhaps a specialist consultation or a course of treatment.

But that is only part of the story.

The real cost of chronic pain is often hidden in the ordinary things people can no longer do, the work they can no longer manage and the expenses they quietly absorb because they have little choice.

Our recent research, based on a survey of 2,000 UK adults, found that 44% reported living with pain lasting three months or more. That is not a small minority. It is almost half of the population we surveyed.

And for many, the pain is not something they simply have to put up with for a few months. More than a third of those living with chronic pain said they had been experiencing it for five years or more.

That changes the way we should think about chronic pain.

If you live with pain for five years, the impact is not confined to the moments when it hurts. It becomes part of how you plan your day, how you travel, how you work, how you sleep and how you spend time with the people you care about.

Our research estimated that people living with chronic pain spend, on average, £51.43 a month managing it. When scaled across the UK, that equates to almost £15 billion a year coming directly out of people’s pockets.

And that figure includes far more than medication and treatment. People told us about the everyday costs that pain creates: paying for taxis because walking is difficult, ordering groceries rather than going to the shops, buying prepared food rather than cooking, or spending more on heating because cold often makes their symptoms worse.

Chronic pain

Not an isolated expense

These are costs that are easy to overlook because, individually, they may not seem significant. But chronic pain is not an isolated expense. It is a drip-feed of additional costs that can continue month after month, year after year.

Then there is the cost at work.

For someone living with chronic pain, simply getting through the working day can become an achievement. Our research found that 16% of workers with chronic pain said it had reduced their day-to-day productivity. Seven per cent had reduced their hours or changed roles, while 8% had left employment altogether. We estimate this could equate to around 36.6 million working days lost across the UK each year.

But, most importantly, behind those statistics are people.

Someone who has had to turn down a promotion because they are no longer confident they can manage the workload. Someone who moves from full-time to part-time employment and loses income as a result. Someone who gives up work entirely because their body simply will not cooperate.

There is another cost that is harder to put a price on. Our survey found that 88% of people living with chronic pain said it restricts what they can do day to day. On average, they reported cancelling 11 social plans each year. Five per cent said they had stopped making plans altogether because they could not predict when their pain would flare up.

That matters.

Pain can gradually shrink a person’s world. It can mean fewer nights out, fewer family activities, less exercise, fewer hobbies and fewer spontaneous decisions. It can affect relationships because the person living with pain may have to say no, repeatedly, even when they desperately want to say yes.

Perhaps most concerning is that 40% of those in our survey who reported chronic pain had no formal diagnosis. Around a third had never received one and a further 6% were waiting for a diagnosis.

Pain an uncertainty

Living with unexplained pain brings its own burden. There is the physical pain, but also the uncertainty. People can find themselves moving between appointments, trying different treatments and spending their own money while still not knowing exactly what is wrong.

This is something we see in our work, in cases like fibromyalgia, CRPS and functional neurological disorder. These conditions are often described as invisible disabilities and can be particularly difficult to evidence because there is not always a straightforward scan, test or diagnosis that explains the severity of someone’s symptoms.

That does not make the pain any less real.

It is important that we stop looking at chronic pain simply as a medical problem and start recognising it as a life problem. The consequences can reach into someone’s finances, employment, family life, independence and mental wellbeing.

For those working in healthcare and the wider support system, such as legal professionals involved in personal injury claims, the challenge is to look beyond the diagnosis (or the absence of one) and understand what is actually happening to the individual. Because the hidden costs are often the ones that matter most.

A person who can no longer work as they once did. A parent who cannot play with their children. A grandparent who stops visiting because the journey is too painful. Someone who quietly stops making plans because cancelling them has become easier than explaining why they cannot come. These are not minor inconveniences. They are significant losses.

Chronic pain may not always be visible, but its impact certainly is. We need to recognise that impact, measure it where we can and, most importantly, listen to the people living with it. Because behind every statistic is someone trying to get on with their life while carrying a burden that most of us cannot see.