There have been claims of this by commenters, but only anecdotal evidence given. Last I checked, the accepted/preferred scientific explanation was "central sensitization," though I couldn't find an experiment showing chronic sensitization exists. (Lots with decerebrated mice who were immediately euthanized, though, going back to the 1980s, if I remember correctly.) Psychosomatization, to the best of my knowledge, is non-falsifiable and conditions have been misattributed to it in the past. It hasn't yet been replicated, so far as I know, but there was a clever experiment published 18 months ago that may prove fibromyalgia (one of the chronic pain conditions most commonly regarded as psychosomatic) is actually an auto-immune disorder, which would be a big blow to "psychosomatization of the gaps" proponents. (E.G., The "Unlearn Your Pain" author.)
Is this just a case of Scott making an off-hand comment and others running with it beyond what the evidence can support?
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Which implies that painkillers and muscle relaxants can relieve pain for far longer than they're supposed to last in such cases by helping to break the cycle.
Which conforms to my personal experience as well. Though I'd expect cases of chronic pain to be filtered a bit against cases where that works.
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