The House of Pod Pain
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Feb 10, 2026 Anthony Kaveh, anesthesiologist blending interventional and integrative pain care. Andrew Johnstone, palliative physician focused on total-person approaches. They explore pain beyond a 1–10 scale. They discuss emotional and cultural drivers, sciatica and neuropathic puzzles, central sensitization and ketamine, nerve blocks like the stellate ganglion, and aiming for function and meaning over pain numbers.
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Pain Is More Than A Number
- Andrew Johnstone says the 1–10 pain scale limits understanding by reducing pain to a number instead of function.
- He urges treating the "total person" including psychosocial and spiritual elements for real relief.
Treat The Whole Person
- Pain includes physiological, psychosocial, social, and spiritual domains that interact to shape suffering.
- Addressing all domains produces a more effective and humane pain plan than focusing on receptors alone.
Isolation Intensifies Suffering
- Andrew describes hematology patients isolated with mucositis who suffer extreme pain alone in hospital rooms.
- He contrasts this with homebound patients supported by family to show social environment's role in pain.