Curable App Review: Can This App Really Relieve Chronic Pain?

I’d been suffering from migraines for years, but they became an increasingly debilitating problem in 2020. I went from having one every couple of months to two or three per week, with some lasting up to two days.

I absolutely hate taking prescribed medication, but by that summer, they were so bad I caved and saw a doctor who prescribed triptans. Those pills were a godsend and stopped a migraine in its tracks when I felt one coming on.

The bad news was, the migraines were still getting more frequent every month.

By November, I was desperate to find a cure, and that’s how I came across the Curable app, which claims to help you find pain relief by rewiring your brain.

**This is not a sponsored article, and I am not in any way associated with Curable. These opinions and thoughts are my own.**

What is Curable?

Curable is an app for pain management based on neuroscience and the discovery that the brain and central nervous system are much more involved in chronic pain than once thought. In fact, all pain originates in the brain. Emotions, past experiences, and significant life events also play a prominent role in how pain becomes chronic.

The co-founders use pain psychology to cure their own chronic pain and developed a program using the same strategies to help others using an accessible and affordable app.

The app is an annual subscription, but you can usually get it for 50% off, which works out to $6.03 per month.

Clara, The Virtual Pain Coach

The idea of learning about pain psychology and neuroscience to manage symptoms can seem a bit overwhelming.

Cue Clara: the virtual pain coach who walks you through the content in a chat format. Clara explains each exercise and why it helps, using gifs and emojis as though you are texting with a friend. This user-friendly approach makes the content accessible and even fun.

As you work through the content with Clara, the lessons accumulate as a “road map” in the top right corner of the app. You’re encouraged to revisit these lessons and “star” your favorites.

Exercises

Each time you log into the app, Clara gives you a choice of four different exercises: Education, Meditation, Writing, and Brain Training. You can choose whichever activity you feel like doing, and each has a different role to play in your healing.

Education

The education portion of the program isn’t so much an exercise as it is valuable information about pain psychology.

The whole premise of including education in the program is because studies show that even understanding and fully absorbing your brain’s role in pain is part of getting better. It’s even acknowledged as a type of medical treatment, known as TNE or Therapeutic Neuroscience Education.

The education portion serves to change the way you view pain, which in turn can help you manage it.

Meditation

The app has several guided meditations that help you tap into whatever emotions you feel and how they relate to your pain. The meditations are designed to help you become more aware of the mind-body connection and help your brain understand that you are safe.

There are also meditations for accepting change, releasing childhood guilt, addressing pain, practicing gratitude, and more.

Writing

The writing exercises are arguably the most vital part of the program. It’s also the exercise that requires the most work. The Curable app calls the writing exercises the most common “breakthrough point” where users start to feel relief from their symptoms.

The reason writing works so well is that it’s an outlet for releasing pent-up feelings or trauma and working through things that you’ve had difficulty addressing consciously. These exercises take 20–30 minutes per session. Sometimes they involve free-writing about a specific topic, while other times, it asks you to make columns and lists.

Brain Training

The brain training exercises consist of tips to help you change how you perceive pain and contain visualization exercises. For example, the first thing the app teaches you is swapping the word “pain” with a term that has less negative imagery, like “pressure.” (The Curable community on Facebook even takes to calling pain “bananas.”)

The visualizations help you control your brain’s pain. For example, in the “Control Room” visualization, you imagine climbing into your brain’s control room and turning down the dials on pain.

Other Features

There’s a “panic button” in the shape of a lightning bolt at the top of the screen that you can tap whenever you are experiencing an episode of pain. The first thing the app does is ask you to spend a minute taking a few deep breaths. Then it gives you a list of techniques to choose from to help manage your pain, like a visualization, meditation, pep talk, or the “panic buster.”

In the app’s menu, you’ll also find interviews with pain experts, inspiring recovery stories, and the “Ask a Therapist” podcast.

My Experience

I used this app every day for about six weeks. The first thing that stood out to me was how easy it was to use, and I thought Clara was a fun touch.

My favorite exercises were brain training and meditations, and I found myself choosing those exercises the most.

I was amazed that the “Control Room” visualizations did help me feel a bit better during a severe migraine attack, and I still use that technique to this day whenever a severe headache comes on.

But truthfully, I hated the writing exercises, which shocked me as someone who pretty much lives to write. But I think that’s because it’s not creative writing but delving into yourself and your subconscious, which is pretty uncomfortable. But that’s the point; it’s designed to bring up difficult emotions so you can face them. I also found it hard to get started knowing that I’d have to carve out 20–30 minutes for it.

I was able to stick to them a couple of times a week for a month, but then I let it slide and kept falling back on the meditations, and brain training, which was more fun and “passive” since the only work I had to do was close my eyes and listen.

After a month, my migraines had not changed in intensity or frequency. Then I quit coffee, and after a few weeks, I noticed the migraines dropped off radically.

I stopped using the app regularly after that, but I still come back to it when I’m having a migraine attack for the visualizations and meditations.

Truthfully, I don’t think I spent enough time on the writing exercises. I plan on taking another run at them soon; caffeine may have been my primary trigger, but the underlying cause of my migraines has yet to be addressed.

Final Thoughts

Although I didn’t notice a difference in my migraine frequency through the app alone, Curable did help me change the way I think about pain and how I manage it. There are many success stories in the Facebook group and Curable podcasts. I think it would have worked better for me if I had stuck with it, particularly the writing exercises.

Overall, it’s a beneficial app, and if you have chronic pain, it’s worth investing in, if only to learn more about the science of pain and begin making that mind-body connection.

Originally published in In Fitness And In Health on Medium.