In the first of a series looking at chronic pain and long Covid, Linda Geddes explores the growing realisation that pain can be a disease in and of itself – and the pandemic could be making it worse

• ‘Health systems should be prepared’: doctors brace for tsunami of long Covid

It started with headaches and neck pain, but no sooner had Tricia Kalinowski’s physiotherapist come up with a strategy to tackle these problems, then another area of her body would start to hurt: her lower back, her hip or her jaw.

“The physio was chasing the pain up and down my body,” says Kalinowski, 60, from Minneapolis, US. Eventually, she was referred to an oral surgeon, who believed the root cause of these issues was a problem with one of the joints in her jaw, so she underwent surgery to replace a thumbnail-sized disc.