The Pain PT News

I had the pleasure of catching up with Rebecca Tolin, who has not only recovered from her own debilitating chronic fatigue, but has since gone on to helping others heal as a mind-body coach.  Rebecca…

Do you know your amygdala (the part of your brain that generates negative emotions) has been shown to cause and also cure physical symptoms? Incredible and probably not believable by many. But just because…

Title of this 2019 review study from the British Journal of Sports Medicine is: 'Role of kinesiophobia on pain, disability and quality of life in people suffering from chronic musculoskeletal pain: a systematic…

This 2022 study in the Journal Pain found what I see daily with chronic pain patients. The researchers 'conclude that chronic back pain is associated with altered threat and safety learning. This ambiguity…

We have tons of clinical data that show positive optimism is related much better health outcomes while negative pessimism relates to poorer health outcomes. One of the ways pessimism shows up is with catastrophizing…

One of the more common chronic symptoms I treat in people is fatigue. CFS/ME as it's called, really stops people from moving forward because of the crippling fatigue symptoms it brings. The fatigue…

Those who follow me know I am big fan of the science supporting the work I do to help people heal from chronic health conditions. I love it when the title of a complex brain study says exactly what we…

Here is an article describing how repressed emotions can affect us and also cause physical somatic symptoms. It's something I see in my practice and something many of you will relate to as well. What happens…

One thing that's not talked about much in the chronic pain world is what's called self-efficacy. Self efficacy (SE) is defined in this review study as "the personal confidence to carry out an activity…

In this study the authors were looking at whether chronic anger expression or what's called stonewalling predicted cardiovascular or musculoskeletal complaints in married couples over a period…

Anxiety is probably the biggest thing I see in my practice that causes physical somatic symptoms in the body that are not originating from a physical structural cause. The symptom list is vast, check out…

Researchers at Northwestern University have been studying the brain-chronic pain connection for well over a decade. Based on their multiple studies "we argue that the state of the brain’s emotional and…

I've posted before about how we see stronger one-way brain signals from the amygdala to the pre-frontal cortex in anxiety and how this is one-way signaling can cause the amygdala to hijack someone into…

What this fMRI brain study and many others are showing is a loss of whats called cortical control over the pain system. This is where the prefrontal cortex loses its power (strength) and firing rates with…

This 2020 study in the New England Journal of Medicine from Harvard Medical School looked at people taking statin medications for high cholesterol. It really highlights the power of the brain in producing…

Central sensitization is something I see in a lot of people with chronic health ailments and something we need to address for healing. According to the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP)…

Radiating leg pain from a lumbar disc herniation is often attributed to either mechanical compression of the nerve root by the herniated disc, and/or local inflammation. This study of 53 subjects…

How we deal with and handle anger can have an influence on our pain levels. This recent 2022 research review article highlights that either overt anger expression like blowing up or anger suppression like…

Two of the biggest mental health issues out there are depression and anxiety. It is important to screen for both these emotional conditions as they can both manifest physically in the body with symptoms.…