Recap From London Chronic Pain SIRPA Conference

Had a fantastic trip over to London for the 2022 Chronic Pain SIRPA Conference. Very educational and inspiring to see so many leaders and practitioners in one place. I want to thank my mentor and head of SIRPA Georgie Oldfield for putting this event on. Some takeaways from the conference are that we are moving in the right direction with more and more research coming out to support this work. Dr. Schubiner highlighted how the brain can produce many symptoms in the body. Emotions were front and center as well as Dr. Dave Clarke, Dr. David Hanscom, Leo Russell, and Silje Reme all talked about how emotions, anxiety, and stress contribute to somatic symptoms in the body. Tor Wagner, a prominent neuroscientist, shared how the brain networks change with chronic pain and highlighted the fantastic results from the Boulder back pain study that he headed up. It was really nice to meet many SIRPA practitioners I hadn’t met before and also catch up with old colleagues who are out there doing this work each day to spread the word. I am pumped to continue this work and will do so to help as many people as I can. Thanks SIRPA!!