Pain Becomes Personal for Sanjay

Summary

Chasing Life with Dr. Sanjay Gupta

Episode: Pain Becomes Personal for Sanjay
Date: December 30, 2025
Main Theme:
In this deeply personal episode, Dr. Sanjay Gupta confronts the complexities of pain—both as a clinical phenomenon and as an intimate family ordeal. By merging his professional insights and lived experiences, he explores why pain can be so challenging to treat, how acute pain can evolve into chronic suffering, and the urgent importance of compassionate, investigative medicine for the millions struggling daily with persistent pain.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Personalizing Pain: Sanjay’s Mother’s Story

• Setting the Stage:

  • Sanjay frames pain as a universal experience, but draws a sharp line between understanding it as a physician and as a loved one when his own mother, Dementi Gupta, undergoes life-altering agony.
  • ”I thought I truly understood pain and the life changing toll it can take. That is, until now.” – Dr. Sanjay Gupta [00:49]

• The Incident:

  • In April 2023, Sanjay’s mother, Dementi, suffered excruciating pain after a seemingly simple fall, later revealed to be a vertebral fracture.
  • ”Out of 10? It was, like, 80.” – Dementi Gupta, describing her pain [02:11]
  • Her incapacity shocks the family, given her resilience as a refugee and glass-ceiling-breaking engineer.

• Emotional Impact and Family Perspective:

  • The narrative switches between Sanjay, his mother, and his father, Subhash Gupta, highlighting the helplessness and fear pain brings loved ones.
  • ”She doesn’t complain about anything… If she’s complaining about this, this has got to be bad.” – Dr. Sanjay Gupta [02:34]
  • Partner’s perspective: ”You try to do the best you can.” – Subhash Gupta [03:48]

• Medical Emergency and Decision-Making:

  • Dr. Jeffrey Henn, her neurosurgeon, describes the injury: “Imagine if you had a broken arm and it wasn’t in a cast. Every time you move, the bones would kind of crunch on each other.” – Dr. Jeffrey Henn [04:55]
  • Kyphoplasty is proposed, balancing the urgency and risks of surgery at age 81.

• Surgery and Recovery:

  • Post-kyphoplasty, Dementi’s pain rapidly improves:
    • From “80/10” to “5-6/10” immediately, and a “blessing” at “three” a week later [07:20–07:32].
  • Long-term, she regains much of her function: “My strength is coming back… I’m blessed that things have gotten better.” – Dementi Gupta [07:40, 07:54]

• Lessons Learned:

  • Sanjay reflects on resilience and the unpredictable trajectory of pain: “How you handle is important.” – Dementi Gupta [08:05] “She was able to take her pain score from ‘I want to die’ to a two or three out of ten.” – Dr. Sanjay Gupta [08:10]

2. From Acute to Chronic: Pain with No Clear Source

• Transition:

  • Sanjay notes his mother is “one of the lucky ones”—her pain source was clear and treatable. For many, pain is a puzzle, often invisible and resistant to diagnosis or relief.

• Blake Hardwich’s Migraine Odyssey:

  • Blake suffers chronic migraines for over 20 years, starting as episodic but turning relentless after motherhood.
    • “I remember being in the ER, just holding my head as hard as I can, tears coming down my face.” – Blake Hardwich [11:09]
    • The emotional toll and guilt as a mother: “I didn't want to hear it. And I thought, how bad, as a mother, not to want to hear the laughter and pit pattering of feet.” – Blake Hardwich [11:53]
  • Numerous doctors, little validation; frequent misattribution to psychological causes, especially for women.

• Medical Gender Disparity:

  • Dr. Joel Saper, renowned headache specialist, highlights longstanding gender bias in pain treatment: “If you were a woman and you had headaches, well, then you must be neurotic or anxious or depressed. It wasn't taken seriously.” – Dr. Joel Saper [13:27]

• Detective Work and Breakthrough:

  • Dr. Saper’s investigative approach uncovers a critical history: a cheerleading accident and neck fracture in high school. “Trauma can occur years before its manifestations. … all these different things just keep nudging it until it finally goes over the cliff.” – Dr. Joel Saper [15:04]
  • Targeted treatment (epidurals, physical therapy, medication) finally brings Blake relief after decades of dismissal and suffering.

3. Understanding Chronic Pain and the Brain

• The Pain Memory Loop:
  • Sanjay and Dr. Saper discuss how acute pain can persist as chronic pain, due to enduring brain circuits: “The brain remembers the pain long after the physical damage is healed.” – Dr. Sanjay Gupta [16:08] “Acute pain can evolve into chronic pain because, as you know, Sanjay, the circuits in the brain interact with each other.” – Dr. Joel Saper [16:45]

4. Advice for Patients and Hope for the Future

• Empathetic Medical Practice:
  • Dr. Saper urges patients to persist: “There may be no treatment available today, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't try.” – Dr. Joel Saper [17:33]
  • Blake emphasizes agency and persistence: “Find you a doctor that will really listen to you. … Try to get to the root cause.” – Blake Hardwich [17:41]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “I thought I truly understood pain… That is, until now.” — Dr. Sanjay Gupta [00:49]
• “Out of 10? It was like 80.” — Dementi Gupta [02:11]
• “If she’s complaining about this, this has got to be bad.” — Dr. Sanjay Gupta [02:34]
• “Imagine if you had a broken arm and it wasn’t in a cast…” — Dr. Jeffrey Henn [04:55]
• “How you handle is important.” — Dementi Gupta [08:05]
• “There has always been discriminatory behavior, whether it’s toward women or toward black people.” — Dr. Joel Saper [12:43]
• “Find you a doctor that will really listen to you… Try to get to the root cause.” — Blake Hardwich [17:41]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:49 — Dr. Gupta frames the transformation in his understanding of pain.
• 01:49 — Dementi Gupta describes her all-consuming pain.
• 02:11 — The extremity of pain: “80 out of 10.”
• 04:36–04:55 — Surgical risk discussion and graphic injury analogy.
• 07:12 — Immediate improvement post-kyphoplasty.
• 08:05 — Family discusses resilience and recovery.
• 11:09 — Blake Hardwich recounts her ER visits for migraines.
• 12:43 — Dr. Saper exposes medical bias against women in pain.
• 13:52–14:54 — The “detective” process and critical high school injury discovery.
• 16:08–16:57 — The brain’s role in chronic pain.
• 17:33–17:55 — Advice for patients suffering from chronic pain.

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Conclusion & Tone

Throughout the episode, the tone is empathetic, candid, and occasionally vulnerable. Sanjay’s dual roles—as both neurosurgeon and son—imbue the conversation with urgency and tenderness. Technical discussions are grounded in human stories, while experts stress the need for attentive, investigative care for people enduring chronic pain—hopeful that science, empathy, and persistence can converge to heal even in the most challenging cases.

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Next Episode Tease:
The story will continue, delving deeper into the “root of all pain” and stories of hope for listeners struggling with pain.
"When we're back with part two of it doesn't have to hurt." – Dr. Sanjay Gupta [18:07]

Transcript

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[Subhash Gupta]

We're already getting an idea of just.

[Interviewer/Host]

How busy this hospital is.

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

You may know this about me, but.

I'm a trauma neurosurgeon.

And after decades of treating people in pain, people all over the world, you.

Get an idea of just how challenging. I thought I truly understood pain and the life changing toll it can take.

That is, until now.

I'm Dr. Sanjay Gupta and here is part one of it doesn't have to hurt.

Have you ever been in pain? I guess it's sort of a silly question, right? Because who hasn't? In fact, nearly 21% of the U.S. population, more than 51 million adults, they deal with pain all the time. It's pain that simply does not go away. And 17 million of those people are in so much pain that it restricts their life. As a doctor, I treat people in pain every day. But over the years, my understanding of pain, the role that it plays in our lives and the exciting new ways to treat it have transformed me into who I am as a doctor as well as a person. What you're about to learn in this hour could change how you treat and manage your own pain. From everyday headaches to life changing injuries.

I'll never forget that day in April 2023. Pain, terrible pain. Visited my own family and everything I thought I knew changed.

[Dementi Gupta]

I never experienced that kind of pain in my life.

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

Meet my mom, Dementi Gupta.

[Interviewer/Host]

If you had to rate it on a scale of 1 to 10, where'd it fall?

[Dementi Gupta]

Out of 10? It was like 80, 80.

[Interviewer/Host]

Do you remember what you said to me? You talked about the fact that if this pain didn't go away, you didn't think you wanted to live anymore.

[Dementi Gupta]

I could not even stand on my two feet. I could not brush my teeth. I could not change my clothes. I could not comb my hair.

[Interviewer/Host]

I remember like kind of that your.

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

Stomach sort of dropping a bit because you're like, well, she doesn't complain about anything.

[Interviewer/Host]

If she's complaining about this, this has.

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

Got to be bad. Whatever it is.

You have to understand, my mom is always on the go, always chasing life.

[Blake Hardwich]

All right?

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

I've never done this before, so.

Whoa.

Here we go.

She grew up in refugee camps after the bloody partition of India, but still went on to become the first woman automotive engineer at Ford Motor Company. She's a pioneer, a glass ceiling breaker. She wears adversity like a badge of honor, a source of pride. But then pain. This pain at 81 years old from a simple fall right outside her apartment.

[Subhash Gupta]

I did not know what was going on. I just put her in the bed.

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

This is my dad, Subhash Gupta. They've been together for nearly 60 years.

[Interviewer/Host]

Had you ever seen her in this sort of pain before?

[Subhash Gupta]

Never.

[Interviewer/Host]

What is the partner to do in a situation like this when your loved one is in that kind of pain, helpless?

[Subhash Gupta]

You try to do the best you can.

[Dementi Gupta]

Something was not right.

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

The first thing to know about pain is that as difficult as it is, it usually serves some sort of purpose. Teaches you a lesson like touch a hot stove. You do that once, you're probably never going to do it again. It can also be your body's warning system, communicating to the brain that there's a problem that needs attention. That was certainly the case for my mom, telling her it was time to get help.

[Subhash Gupta]

Welcome to Fort Myers.

[Interviewer/Host]

Thank you very much.

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

Great to be here.

[Subhash Gupta]

Thank you.

[Interviewer/Host]

I want to say thank you first of all for taking care of my mom.

[Subhash Gupta]

Of course.

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

This is Dr. Jeffrey Henn, my mom's doctor. He's a fellow neurosurgeon like me.

[Subhash Gupta]

This was the problem right there at L1, but I was very concerned. It's maybe 80% collapse. And then part of the bone was actually sticking backwards into the space that's supposed to belong to her spinal cord.

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

Mom broke her back when she fell, and now her spine was literally collapsing.

[Subhash Gupta]

I think as an analogy, imagine if you had a broken arm and it wasn't in a cast. Every time you move, the bones would kind of crunch on each other. I mean, we can all imagine. That's got to be horrifying.

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

Dr. Henn wanted to move fast, not just because of the spinal collapse, but also because of the pain. In fact, he called it a pain emergency.

[Subhash Gupta]

I think as a compassionate human being, it's hard to sit by and watch Somebody suffer.

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

Dr. Henn recommended a procedure called a kyphoplasty. Here's how it works. A hollow borne needle is inserted directly into the broken vertebra and then a balloon is blown up to sort of realign the broken bone. Then with a dollop of cement, the bone is stabilized. Think of it as an internal cast for the broken bone. While it is A quick, minimally invasive procedure with light sedation. Any surgical procedure for someone in their 80s is. Is risky.

[Subhash Gupta]

You can become paralyzed by the risks of. What if. I remember you telling me you were not sure. Should we wait?

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

I've had to make many tough calls as a neurosurgeon, but in some ways, this was probably the toughest. After all, this was my mom. With no surgery, the worst case scenario, possible paralysis, and likely a lifetime of powerful pain medications, something I know she didn't want.

And then, of course, there was the pain itself.

My mom was in acute pain, sharp and severe, which usually only subsides once the source heals. But if left untreated, it could become chronic pain, refusing to go away.

[Interviewer/Host]

How much of your life was sort of consumed by pain at this point?

[Dementi Gupta]

Totally.

[Interviewer/Host]

It's your whole identity at that time.

[Dementi Gupta]

Yes.

[Interviewer/Host]

What if there was no option, Surgical option. What would you have done?

[Dementi Gupta]

I don't think I had even the courage to think about it.

[Subhash Gupta]

This is where we did your mom's kyphoplasty.

[Interviewer/Host]

So she was here?

[Subhash Gupta]

Yep.

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

Five days after her fall, my mom was wheeled into this operating room.

[Subhash Gupta]

Number one, we didn't have any complications. Number two, we accomplished a lot of things that I was hoping to accomplish.

[Interviewer/Host]

Did you notice that your pain had changed?

[Dementi Gupta]

Yeah, right away. At least I could stand up now without pain.

[Interviewer/Host]

It was 80 out of 10.

[Dementi Gupta]

In fact, maybe five, six. Maybe even less.

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

As the inflammation that accompanies any injury subsided, so did the pain. A week later, she was down to a three.

[Dementi Gupta]

That was a blessing to have a three.

[Subhash Gupta]

Yes.

[Interviewer/Host]

To go from 80 to three.

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

Yeah.

[Interviewer/Host]

But it got better than that, even.

[Dementi Gupta]

Yeah. My strength is coming back.

[Interviewer/Host]

And you never really had pain?

[Dementi Gupta]

Nope.

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

More than a year later, she still has some soreness in the mornings.

[Interviewer/Host]

Does the walking help with your pain?

[Dementi Gupta]

You know, I think so. I'm blessed that things have gotten better.

[Interviewer/Host]

What did you learn from all this in terms of pain?

[Dementi Gupta]

You know, things are going to happen in the life. How you handle is important.

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

At that time for my mom, she fell, and we thought it was a trajectory towards terrible things, but she was able to bounce back from that, and she was able to take her pain score from I want to die to a two or three out of ten. That's a pretty remarkable thing. I saw what happened to my mom.

[Interviewer/Host]

And I think it's deeply inspiring.

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

Now you will soon learn that my mom was actually one of the lucky ones. The source of her pain was clear and it was treatable. But for millions of people, that's not the case.

[Blake Hardwich]

Almost ready to throw in the towel.

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

Chronic pain and a pain detective when we come back. But first, some pain points. How to best describe your pain to your doctor? First, close your eyes and really identify your pain. How does it feel? Hot? Cold? Tingling? Use your best adjectives. When does it appear? Morning? Nights? Is it better when you move or is it worse? Where is it exactly? Can you point to it with one finger? What makes it better or worse? Answering these questions can make all the difference. When best describing your pain and getting relief.

[Anderson Cooper]

Hey, I'm Anderson Cooper. On my podcast All There Is, we explore grief and loss in all its complexities.

[Kelsey Grammer]

There's some grief you'll never let go of, but there is an obligation to get on with your life.

[Anderson Cooper]

Kelsey Grammer was 20 when his sister Karen was murdered. She was 18.

[Kelsey Grammer]

When I finally finished the book, I suddenly thought, wow, that's it.

[Anderson Cooper]

Kelsey Grammer's new memoir is titled A Brother Remembers. Is there something you've learned in your grief that would help others in theirs?

[Kelsey Grammer]

Allow yourself to spend more time in the life they lived. Let them be remembered.

[Anderson Cooper]

Talking grief, building community New episodes of all there is come out Tuesday nights. Listen and follow wherever you get your podcasts.

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

So here's the thing about pain. Sometimes, like with my mom, there is a clear cause. She broke her back. Doctors knew it and they could treat it. But for many, there is pain. Chronic debilitating pain that seems to have no root cause. Migraines, irritable bowel syndrome, flu, fibromyalgia. It's often a mystery. So putting together the pieces of the pain puzzle is not that easy.

Fairhope, Alabama. The beautiful eastern shoreline of Mobile Bay. It's quiet here and peaceful. It was a piece that resident Blake Hardwich was so desperate to find but never could.

[Blake Hardwich]

I remember being in the er, just holding my head as hard as I can, tears coming down my face. I kept saying, it feels like I've had a cement block sitting on top of my head.

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

Blake suffered with chronic pain from migraines for more than 20 years.

[Interviewer/Host]

How long would they last?

[Blake Hardwich]

At the beginning, one to two days.

[Interviewer/Host]

And that time period, you were basically not able to function.

[Blake Hardwich]

Yeah, I was trying to get in the darkest room. No light.

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

Her first migraine hit in law school decades ago, and then she only got them occasionally. But after she had her children, Blake suffered from debilitating migraines every single day.

[Blake Hardwich]

As a mother, when I would have these migraines, I felt so guilty. You know, I've got twins, two years old, running up and down hardwood floors, screaming, giggling. And it was killing me, like I didn't want to hear it. And I thought, how bad, as a mother, not to want to hear the laughter and pit pattering of feet.

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

Blake saw many neurologists and other specialists over the years, but no one could figure out the root cause of her chronic pain. She got medications, but they provided little relief and lots of side effects. She would be woozy, dizzy, foggy, and forgetful.

[Blake Hardwich]

I did think I was going crazy at that time. Some of the times when I go to, like, to the ER visits, I was kind of written off as a nutcase.

[Dr. Joel Saper]

Well, that doesn't surprise me at all, because there has always been in the health care fields discriminatory behavior, whether it's toward women or toward black people.

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

Dr. Joel Saper is a pain pioneer, a renowned neurologist, and a headache specialist.

[Dr. Joel Saper]

Hey, Sanjay.

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

How are you, sir?

[Dr. Joel Saper]

I'm doing fine.

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

It has been too long.

[Dr. Joel Saper]

It's been a long time.

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

I've known him for years.

[Dr. Joel Saper]

I had one very important neurology professor one day came to me and said, joel, why are you going to waste a brilliant career in neurology to treat those crazy headache patients?

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

Wow.

[Dr. Joel Saper]

That was the prevailing attitude. If you were a woman and you had headaches, well, then you must be neurotic or anxious or depressed. It wasn't taken seriously.

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

And that makes diagnosing and treating the pain difficult, if not nearly impossible, as it was for Blake. That is, until after two decades of pain, she was finally given Dr. Saper's number.

[Interviewer/Host]

I've known him for a long time, and I think part of why I sent him so many patients was he was a little bit of a Sherlock's Holmesian kind of guy.

[Blake Hardwich]

I totally agree with, like, the fact that he knew more about me than I thought he would. I felt validated that, you know, he understands what I'm going through. He gets me.

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

It was November 2023. Saper and his team admitted Blake to the hospital for several days, and they ran a series of tests together. Blake and Dr. Saper became pain detectives. They were digging through her history in a way no one had before. And finally, a clue. A high school memory, something that happened 30 years ago at cheerleading practice.

[Blake Hardwich]

We were practicing for national competition. I fall, and then I feel her fall on my back of my head, which slung my head forward, and I could not move. I was slumped over.

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

Blake then spent a week in the hospital with a spine fracture, and she wore a brace for months afterward. The break did eventually heal.

Was That a sort of aha moment for you?

[Dr. Joel Saper]

We have learned from experience that the trauma can occur years before its manifestations. So when she said that she fell from the top of a pyramid and then someone fell on her, that mattered. It's like nature put your headache boulder on the ledge of a cliff and all these different things just keep nudging it until it finally goes over the cliff.

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

For Blake, who Saper learned already had a family history of migraines, that fall in high school had pushed her migraine boulder over the cliff. So Saper decided to zero in on her neck to help treat her head.

[Interviewer/Host]

No one was connecting the dots between that significant fracture and the migraines now.

[Blake Hardwich]

I was.

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

You were.

[Blake Hardwich]

Because I kept saying I had a bad fall, you might want to check my neck. They would do a CAT scan, but nothing would show up.

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

You're probably wondering if there is no identifiable injury or if it's seemingly healed, then why is there still pain associated with it? Well, remember what I told you about acute pain. It can evolve into chronic pain. And that's because the brain may take a routine acute pain experience. In Blake's case, it was that fall. And it can then prolong it to chronic pain. Think of it as an experience or a memory that, that just keeps getting played over and over again, kind of on an endless loop. For reasons not yet fully understood, the brain remembers the pain long after the physical damage is healed.

[Dr. Joel Saper]

Acute pain can evolve into chronic pain because, as you know, Sanjay, the circuits in the brain interact with each other.

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

So Saper tried a short circuit for Blake, first with spinal epidurals every few months and then a combination of physical therapy and a fine tuned regimen of medications. And it worked.

[Blake Hardwich]

After I got back from treating with Dr. Saper, I came back and I was like ready to go. And my husband said, whoa, whoa, whoa, I'm not used to this. Blake. We're going to have to, you know, learn to get used to this. Blake.

[Interviewer/Host]

What message do you want to give the tens of millions of people out there who are suffering with chronic.

[Dr. Joel Saper]

Pain not to give up? There may be no treatment available today, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't try.

[Blake Hardwich]

Do your homework. Find you a doctor that will really listen to you. You've got to have doctors that are willing to take the time, that are willing to hear the patient and try to get to the root cause based.

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

On, you know, what we know on.

Friday, a trip to the root of all pain.

[Interviewer/Host]

The pain's gone, pain's done.

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

You're not kidding me.

[Interviewer/Host]

I'm not kidding.

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

When we're back with part two of.

It doesn't have to hurt. Thanks for listening.

Hey there.

It's Sanjay. And I wanted to take a moment to simply say thank you. Thank you for being here. You know, I've been thinking about this past year a lot on chasing life. Over 83 episodes, more than 32 hours of science and storytelling. But I gotta tell you, what really stuck with me was you, the listener, and the questions. During paging Dr. Gupta, for example, you asked so many questions, you left so many comments. You gave us your thoughts, and health is intimate, so there's many, many things that you're sharing that are deeply personal sometimes. The questions didn't always have easy answers. So we dug and dug, and those questions pushed us to keep learning and growing ourselves so we can understand ourselves, all humans, more deeply. So I just want to say thank you. You've helped make this show what it is. Stay curious. And here's to another year of Chasing Life.