[erentz]

It's not quite as unknown as commonly believed. At least 40% of fibromyalgia have observable neuropathy on biopsies pointing to a process that is damaging nerves. The "what" is still unknown. But the parent is correct to say for fibromyalgia patients the optimal solution is a treatment (or cure) targeting that damaging process, rather than a pain killer.

This is not to say better pain killers aren't valuable, they obviously are, it's just that for many of these chronic pain disorders there is some underlying cause that if we can treat would be the better solution.

[misnome]

This is a bit like, and as helpful as, saying “Chemotherapy is pointless, just find a cure for the cancer”

[proverbialbunny]

Chemotherapy is the known cure for cancer, so a more accurate statement would be saying, "Pain killers are pointless, just find a cure for the cancer."

But no one is saying painkillers is pointless. Parent is saying painkillers should be temporary. I suspect they forgot to mention the "in an ideal world" bit.

[erentz]

No, that doesn't really make sense. Note in your example of cancer that pain killers are in fact given to cancer patients, they're one of the biggest users of our strongest pain killers. But nobody claims painkillers treat the cancer. So how could we claim pain killers treat other illnesses such as fibromyalgia?

Chemotherapy is a treatment that targets the actual cause of the pain (the cancer) and (hopefully) kills it, leading to remission and (hopefully) return to normal function of the person as a cancer free individual.

A pain killer is something that does not target the cause of pain, does not treat or reverse or cause remission for that cause, and does not cause the individual to be illness free.

It just makes the person feel less pain, so they can be more comfortable.