{"id":36615,"date":"2026-05-04T11:22:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T11:22:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pickbydoc.com\/?p=36615"},"modified":"2026-05-04T11:22:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T11:22:11","slug":"she-survived-2-shootings-research-helps-explain-why-her-pain-persists-years-later","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pickbydoc.com\/?p=36615","title":{"rendered":"She Survived 2 Shootings. Research Helps Explain Why Her\u00a0Pain Persists Years Later."},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>In 2019, Mia Tretta, then a high school freshman at Saugus High School in Santa Clarita, California, was struck in the stomach by a round from a .45-caliber semiautomatic handgun fired by a schoolmate. Two students were killed during the attack, including her best friend, and two others were injured. <\/p>\n<aside class=\"wp-block-kff-shared-sidebar alignright \">\n<\/aside>\n<p>When she graduated from high school, she enrolled at Brown University, the scene of another shooting in December 2025, while she was studying for finals in her dorm room.<\/p>\n<p>As messages flooded in about an active shooter on campus, she felt pain where she had been shot in the stomach. The college junior experienced a phenomenon she called \u201cphantom bullet syndrome,\u201d similar to phantom limb syndrome, in which someone senses something is there that is not. It occurs whenever she feels extremely stressed, she said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s crazy to say that the first time, I was the lucky one because though I got shot, I didn\u2019t get killed,\u201d said Tretta, now an anti-gun violence advocate who is studying public affairs and education. \u201cAnd the second time, I was the lucky one because I was a few blocks away.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Tretta represents a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thetrace.org\/2025\/12\/multiple-mass-shootings-gen-z-brown\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">small but growing<\/a> cohort of young people who have lived through more than one shooting. She also embodies the findings of a recent study that links gun violence exposure to chronic pain.<\/p>\n<p>The study, <a href=\"https:\/\/link.springer.com\/article\/10.1186\/s12889-026-26386-5\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">published in BMC Public Health<\/a> in January, found that both direct and indirect exposure to gun violence are linked to higher rates of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/books\/NBK553030\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">chronic pain<\/a> among American adults.<\/p>\n<p>Rutgers University researchers studied six types of gun violence exposure: being shot, being threatened with a gun, hearing gunshots, witnessing a shooting, knowing a friend or family member who was shot, and knowing someone who died by firearm suicide. Using a nationally representative survey of 8,009 people, they found that 23.9% had pain most days or every day, while 18.8% said they had a lot of pain.<\/p>\n<p>Daniel Semenza, the study\u2019s lead author, told The Trace that whether someone has lost a person to gun violence or they\u2019ve been shot themselves, their mental and physical health are inextricably linked.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYour body, through the experience of post-traumatic stress, is going to feel as if it\u2019s happening over and over and over again,\u201d said Semenza, the director of research at the New Jersey Gun Violence Research Center and an associate professor at Rutgers University.<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block wp-block-kff-shared-newsletter  wp-block-kff-shared-newsletter--background-white\" data-type=\"kff-shared\/newsletter\" data-align=\"center\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-kff-shared-newsletter__container\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-kff-shared-newsletter__content\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-kff-shared-newsletter__text\">\n<h4 class=\"newsletter__title\">\n\t\t\t\t\tEmail Sign-Up\t\t\t\t<\/h4>\n<p class=\"newsletter__description\">\n\t\t\t\t\tSubscribe to KFF Health News&#8217; free weekly newsletter, &#8220;The Week in Brief.&#8221;\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Tretta <a href=\"https:\/\/supportholycross.org\/blog\/a-survivors-story\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">underwent surgeries<\/a> to remove the bullet, she said, and later received a nerve block to address ongoing pain from her injuries. But the bullet fragments remain in her body years later, she said.<\/p>\n<p>She was also diagnosed with psoriatic arthritis \u2014 a chronic disease causing swelling, pain, and stiffness in the joints.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have dealt with chronic pain, immunodeficiencies, and bodily differences ever since the shooting happened,\u201d Tretta said. \u201cEvery time I get a fever, it\u2019s a completely different thing than anyone else I know, or even pre-shooting for me. I shake uncontrollably, and it hurts to even touch my arm.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/link.springer.com\/article\/10.1186\/s12889-026-26386-5\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Rutgers study<\/a> is one of the first to focus on outcomes like chronic pain as part of an emerging body of work on the physical health toll of gun violence exposure.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt highlights the fact that, for the thousands of people who are killed every year, there are lots of people who knew those folks,\u201d Semenza said. \u201cThe toll of gun violence is much broader than we originally anticipated.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Efrat Eichenbaum, an inpatient psychologist who has treated gun violence survivors and their families at a Level 1 trauma center in north Minneapolis, said the study accurately reflects what she has seen in her clinical work.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou can plainly see the trauma that follows an event like that,\u201d she said. \u201cNot just for the survivors, but for their families. It does not even limit itself to family members. This is an issue that touches entire communities.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>David Patterson, an emeritus professor at the University of Washington whose work focuses on pain, says the study shows, in particular, just how far the impact of gun violence fans out and how costly a problem it is for society.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cChronic pain is a major health problem in itself, and it <a href=\"https:\/\/pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/40730349\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">costs our society billions of dollars<\/a> because it\u2019s very hard to manage,\u201d he said. \u201cYou can\u2019t cure it; it has to be managed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Back in her dorm room at Brown, Tretta explained that medical care does not end when someone leaves the hospital after a trauma like hers. It goes on for years.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYour body will never be the same as it was before,\u201d she said. \u201cThere\u2019s no time that you can\u2019t feel the 7 or 8 inches of scar tissue running through the middle of your stomach. It\u2019s just a constant physical reminder, because you can\u2019t leave your body.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>This article was reported by The Trace, a nonprofit newsroom covering gun violence in America. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thetrace.org\/newsletter\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Sign up for its newsletters here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/public-health\/gun-violence-survivor-phantom-pain-research-minnesota\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In 2019, Mia Tretta, then a high school freshman at Saugus High School in Santa Clarita, California, was struck in the stomach by a round from a .45-caliber semiautomatic handgun fired by a schoolmate. Two students were killed during the attack, including her best friend, and two others were injured. When she graduated from high [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":36616,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[171],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health-conditions"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pickbydoc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36615","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pickbydoc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pickbydoc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pickbydoc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pickbydoc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36615"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pickbydoc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36615\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36617,"href":"https:\/\/pickbydoc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36615\/revisions\/36617"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pickbydoc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/36616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pickbydoc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pickbydoc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pickbydoc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}