ManagingLife, an AgeTech Collaborative™ startup participant, is on a mission to help people with chronic pain live their best lives. Based on best practices in pain psychology, the company’s app, Manage My Pain, empowers people living with pain to leverage data to get the care they need while learning how to self-manage their condition.
We spoke with founder and CEO Tahir Janmohamed, who discussed the unique challenges facing those who have chronic pain and how current treatment options often fall short.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Please tell us about ManagingLife.
We focus on improving the lives of people who live with chronic pain, which is pain that lasts longer than three months. It crosses all sorts of underlying conditions such as back pain, fibromyalgia and arthritis. It affects about one in five people, but that proportion increases dramatically as people get older.
One of the challenges for people living with chronic pain is simply being believed: More than 50% of people with pain can share a story of their pain being dismissed by a healthcare provider. There’s no X-ray for pain, so to speak, but our solution allows people to track their symptoms, generate reports and take them to their doctor and say, “My pain is real. It looks like this. You can’t dismiss me.”
How does your solution work?
We have an app-based solution called Manage My Pain, where people can record details about their pain and related factors. Then, as they continue to use the app, it can highlight patterns and trends — perhaps someone’s migraines get worse during certain kinds of weather, for example. We also have a remote monitoring portal for clinicians who treat people with pain, so they can see how their patients are doing between visits.
We also help people self-manage their condition by teaching them how pain works, how the mind and body are connected, and how to deal with alarming thoughts. Pain management is often separated into different “buckets” — a physiotherapist might take one approach, a surgeon another and a private pain clinic yet another, but rarely do any of them try to equip people with the skills to self-manage their pain. That’s the gap we’re trying to close.
Is Manage My Pain an alternative to pharmacological or other treatments?
It’s a complement to what someone is already doing. Pharmacological interventions can work for some people; the challenge is to find the right balance between your medication, your pain severity and your ability to function. You have to find a manageable balance that allows you to live your life in a meaningful way.
We focus on the psychological aspect of pain. Seventy percent of people who live with pain also live with anxiety and depression, so unless you provide psychological support alongside your pain treatment, surgery may not be as effective, physical therapy may not be as effective, and medications may not work as well. So we close that gap as a complement to existing interventions for pain.
What was the catalyst for founding the company?
My mom has fibromyalgia, and while I was growing up, I saw her trying desperately to get doctors and even family members to believe her when she said that she was in constant pain. Later in life, as a computer engineer I began to understand the power of data — but I wasn’t always excited about the ways data was being applied in the world. I wanted to make a different kind of impact in people’s lives, and I thought, “If I can bring more data to the conversation between a patient and their doctor, I can give people in pain a voice so they can get the treatment they need and deserve.” At the same time, that data can equip doctors with more information so they can come up with better, more appropriate treatment options.
Clearly, anyone with chronic pain can benefit from Manage My Pain. Are there particular benefits to people who are 50-plus?
There is a more widespread need among older adults, because so many more older adults live with chronic pain than younger people. Yet, the same needs remain: You still have to be able to describe your symptoms to a doctor, you still need to find a treatment plan, and you still need to have psychological support. This represents a big opportunity to help people live a meaningful life as they get older, because pain shouldn’t be a limiting factor, especially as you get into your twilight years.
What’s next up for ManagingLife?
We’ve helped over 100,000 people across 130 countries in seven different languages. Collectively, they have recorded over four million pain records in our system; it’s the world’s largest dataset of pain in existence. So we have some exciting plans for leveraging that data to help people self-manage their condition even more effectively.
For example, when it comes to psychological support, one-on-one visits with a pain psychologist can be expensive and hard to find. Group sessions can be infrequent or be hours-long. So we’ve been working to create a digital, self-guided pain psychology program based on Acceptance and Commitment therapy. It’s accessible, and it’s the first of its kind. We’re not discounting other interventions — we just want to complement what people are already doing.
We work with clinical providers, insurance companies, health systems and employers, and we’re always looking for new partners. If anyone wants to learn more — especially if they’re interested in piloting new use cases — they can go to our website and reach out.
Learn more, or reach out to ManagingLife, at their website.
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