Of course he did.... Not until halfway through and the rest is the normal new-age influenced garbage. Central sensitisation makes an appearance as well... https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-44910438
Hahaha... Talking about his Dr he says: 'When I told him about meditating, he was quick to reclaim my body for science. "Just because you and I have nervous personalities, it doesn't mean there's nothing wrong with us," he said.' THE EXACT OPPOSITE OF WHAT WE HEAR!! I think that central sensitisation probably is an issue with SOME pain, just not most pain. May have been part of the problem for him.
So he did swimming and exercises and a lot of time elapsed. So why the hell attribute his improvement to the meditation?
If you're inadvertently kegelling 24-7 from nervous tension, that could probably cause pain and be amenable to meditation and relaxation techniques.
Why not attribute it to meditation? Just because meditation doesn't 'cure' ME doesn't mean it can't help other people manage different conditions. If the pain is associated with tension in the body (as may have been the case with this person) then doesn't it stand to reason that finding a way to relax the body could be helpful? I'm not sure it helps our cause to be negative about certain experiences and techniques helping other people with different conditions. It seems like he's saying that a combination of different things including exercise, specific stretches and relieving stress through meditation helped him. Seems reasonable to me. He's not saying that these techniques will cure every disease and he doesn't mention ME at all.
I'd be happy if the improvement he experienced was attributed to possibly one or a combination of the exercises, stretching, meditation and time. As you say, the relaxation and reduced stress he felt as a result of the meditation may well have helped. But no one can know from a single case like this where multiple methods were used which one if any was the key. The problem with this article is mainly the headline. The actual article itself is more balanced.
Yes I agree that the headline is a problem. To say 'I meditated away pain' is intensely annoying (both to meditators and to people with pain!) To be fair to him he probably didn't make up the headline himself.