The Pain PT Blog

Kinesiophobia and Chronic Musculoskeletal Pain

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…
The Pain PT Blog

Impaired Threat & Safety Learning With Chronic Pain

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…
The Pain PT Blog

Optimism vs Pessimism and Your Health

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…
The Pain PT Blog

Chronic Fatigue is Linked with Negative Beliefs About Activity

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…
The Pain PT Blog

Become a CEO to Reduce Your Risk of Anxiety & Symptoms

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…
The Pain PT Blog

Repressed Emotions & Physical Symptoms

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…
The Pain PT Blog

Self-Efficacy is Important for Healing Chronic Symptoms

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…
The Pain PT Blog

20 year study shows how anger can cause health symptoms

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…
The Pain PT Blog

Anxiety the cause of many physical symptoms

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…
The Pain PT Blog

Chronic pain is a memory of the pain in the brain

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…