The Pain PT News

This is one of those research articles I refer to often. It's titled: 'Predicting transition to chronic pain'. What is so interesting about this research is they did brain scans at the time of an acute…

The Amygdala is known as the emotional center of the brain. It has been implicated in anxiety and depression and now studies are clearly showing it is implicated with chronic pain. This study showed exactly…

Pain Catastrophizing is a 'tendency to magnify and ruminate about pain and having a helpless attitude toward actual or anticipated pain.' Studies show that people who catastrophize about their pain have…

Article titled: "The Neuroscience of Mindfulness: How Mindfulness Alters the Brain and Facilitates Emotion Regulation" Some of the same areas of the brain that become weak (prefrontal cortex, etc) or overactive…

When looking at the brain's impact on chronic pain, we have to look to the prefrontal cortex. 2020 review of the research says: 'Its predominant role in aversive learning and memory puts the medial prefrontal…

July 2020 publication in the Journal 'Pain' looking at what's called Intolerance of uncertainty (IU), which the study authors state is 'a dispositional fear of the unknown'  and is related to anxiety…

2020 study out of Europe looking at fibromyalgia and how these people have a harder time dealing with their emotions.  As we know how we deal with emotions affects pain levels. Emotions are the biggest…

Let's continue with the science around emotions and now IBS. Study Titled: "Higher Emotional Awareness Is Associated With Reduced Pain in Irritable Bowel Syndrome Patients: Preliminary Results" Conclusions This…

Great to see these guys out of Stanford put out an article asking the scientific and medical community to bridge the gap between pain and emotion, as we have severed the mind from the body with pain for…

Very interesting study that shows 'Alexithymia' was the only factor that predicted chronic pain 12 months after breast surgery. I call alexithymia the most important unknown word in chronic pain. It is…

2020 study showing again how when we hold emotions in they can cause and exacerbate physical problems. In this case, anger repression and less anger expression was linked to asthma in adolescents. One…

Researchers at Penn State University have found that emotions themselves can act as stressors to create inflammation and pain in the body. In this study they found a link between emotions and rheumatoid…

One of the things to closely look at with chronic pain and chronic health issues are emotions.  As I have talked about before, the definition of pain is an 'unpleasant sensory and emotional experience'.…

One of the most important things I look at with people in chronic pain is their emotion regulation style. Remember the definition if pain is a "sensory and emotional experience." The more chronic the pain…

The power of fake knee injections is real and lasting in people with knee osteoarthritis(OA). See study link below. What is this? It's called the placebo, but it's really the power of your mind. It is…

People have this belief that running is bad for their knees. And especially for knees with osteoarthritis. Well this systematic review of more than 1200 people over the age of 50 puts this belief to bed.…

2020 study that looked at the association of MRI findings and long-term disability in chronic low back pain patients over a 13 year period. The goal was to assess whether long-term disability is associated…

One of the biggest issues with chronic pain and other chronic health ailments is that the sympathethic fight or flight nervous system is commonly in overdrive. We need to learn to activate the parasympathetic…

This was a systematic review for Acute low back pain. Basically nothing was shown to be better than the other. What it tells me is the body heals by itself, not by a certain treatment. We just need to…