Chronic pain affects between one-third and one-half of the UK population, meaning that around 28 million adults are living with serious pain that has lasted for three months or longer.
That’s according to the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), with women more likely to report or experience chronic pain. But the horrible set of syndromes has been dubbed a ‘silent epidemic’ by the likes of the British Pain Society, and an ‘invisible condition’ by Versus Arthritis, the UK’s largest charity dedicated to supporting people with arthritis.
“Although often devastating to the millions who have it and being one of the biggest causes of disability in the UK, to others it cannot be seen,” says the charity. So, it often goes unrecognised, undiagnosed - and vastly underestimated.
