Pain isn't always proportional to tissue damage, and that fact, well established in pain science, explains a lot about why some chronic pain doesn't respond the way we'd expect it to.
Pain is a signal the nervous system can amplify or dampen
Physiologists Ronald Melzack and Patrick Wall's gate control theory of pain (1965) proposed that pain signals pass through a kind of gate in the nervous system before reaching conscious awareness, and that gate can be opened wider or closed down by psychological and emotional factors, not just by the physical injury itself. Stress, fear, and unresolved emotional states can keep that gate more open than the tissue damage alone would justify.
This doesn't mean chronic pain is "in your head" in the dismissive sense that phrase usually implies. It means the nervous system's volume control is a real, physical part of the pain experience, and it's a part that can be influenced.
Why painkillers alone sometimes aren't enough
Medication can address the signal at the gate, but if the gate itself is being held open by an unresolved emotional or nervous-system pattern, relief is often partial or temporary.
What actually addresses the amplification
Root-cause subconscious work addresses the nervous system state that's keeping the gate open, working alongside appropriate medical care, not replacing it.
If chronic pain hasn't responded the way it should, book a Discovery Call.
References
Melzack, R., & Wall, P. D. (1965). Pain mechanisms: A new theory. Science, 150(3699), 971–979.