Entries by The Pain PT

Your BELIEF If You Will Heal Determines Your Outcome

2019 study looking 1000 people with shoulder pain in the UK found that it is your BELIEF (self-efficacy) that determines if physiotherapy is successful or not. The most important predictor of outcome was the person’s pain and disability at the first appointment. Most of these people still had pain and disability 6 months later. The […]

Emotional Mastery: Dealing With Unpleasant Feelings

Dr. Sarno was a pioneer M.D. who found the link between repressed emotions and physical symptoms. I find emotions really interesting as we know so many people have learned to suppress and repress uncomfortable emotions from an early age on. I think this is one of the biggest and least talked about things, and especially […]

Psychosocial Factors Play Critical Roles in Chronic Pain

Psychosocial factors play a big part in ongoing chronic pain, though you don’t have that many doctors asking patients about these things. Working with people in pain for over 20 years, you hear all sorts of stories and histories. Asking the right questions and looking at the whole person and their life history is so […]

What Role Do Emotions Play in Bodily Symptoms?

One of the least talked about things in the medical community is how emotions play a role in somatic symptoms. Many of these bodily symptoms don’t have a physical or structural cause. This study was review study looking at 64 studies from 1985 to 2018. It pools all the data from many studies so we […]

Ignoring Your Emotions is Bad For Your Health

A little article in TIME magazine to remind us that our emotions have the capacity to create physical symptoms in the body. If you have ruled out structural and organic causes with your physical symptoms, one of the next steps would be to look at how you deal with your emotions. Chronic pain and other […]

Emotions & Somatic Symptoms: What Does the Research Say?

This study published June 7, 2019 was a systematic review looking at multiple studies and the role of emotions in somatic (bodily) symptoms. This is the first review to look at the combination of results in 64 studies over the years. The results show a link between emotion regulation and somatic body symptoms. This is […]

What Predicts Back Pain Becoming Chronic? Your Brain!

How common are getting X-ray and MRI’s of your back? How about a brain MRI? Well, one day hopefully we will include brain MRI’s with acute low back pain. Why? Because certain brain activation patterns predict with 85% accuracy who will still have pain a year later. This shows us 2 things: 1) who could […]

The Natural Course of Healing

Natural healing happens with time no matter what treatment you have, unless your pain goes chronic. I have known this for awhile as a PT (physiotherapist). I can’t take credit for healing, the body heals itself. In this case, this research review covers low back pain and spans 15 years in 18 different countries and […]

Learn to Go with the Flow

We hear the saying “Go with the Flow” and it sounds cliche. But there is power in opening up and letting life unfold as it does with all its ups and downs and in-betweens. This means letting our thoughts, feelings, and symptoms flow through us when they arise. If we obstruct the natural flow, we […]