It's Not in Your Head

In this episode, Dr. Dan and Justine introduce their 'Central Sensitization Algorithm' designed to help healthcare providers diagnose and treat central sensitization and related neuroinflammatory disorders more effectively. The algorithm categorizes symptoms into distinct buckets of nervous system dysfunction, allowing providers to more quickly and efficiently identify and prioriti

In this episode of "It's Not In Your Head," Dan and Justine dive into the nuanced aspects of how to more effectively communicate about pain with patients, focusing on the significance of specific language and its impact on patient outcomes. They caution against phrases that suggest pain is purely psychological and inadvertently blame and shame the patient, emphasizing pain is a com

Trigger warning: This episode deals with the topic of suicide.Dan and I have an interesting and important discussion that bridges the gap between patients’ clear and obvious frustrations with how different versions of “it’s in your head” affect them and providers’ lack of awareness around the issue. How can this be the case? And how does being told pain is in your head po

From the uterus, to witchcraft, hypnotism and more, we go through the history of what unexplainable symptoms have been blamed on and how they've been explained through history all the way up to more modern day classifications like Briquette's syndrome, somatoform, conversion, or functional disorders. We tease apart risk factors and other patterns that have been identified to lead t

In this episode, we expand upon 'Number Needed to Treat', tying that concept into overall therapeutic limitations and some other examples beyond medications, including one you are definitely going to want to hear about - the effect of pain neuroscience education in and of itself.So how much does understanding pain actually decrease pain? It depends, but not as much as you'd think..

The hard truth is it's normal for treatments, especially medications, not to work. But how many patients do you actually have to treat to improve things for just one even? This is where the concept 'number needed to treat' is critical to better understand so that expectations don't lead to resentments.Managing expectations as a patient is hard, it's even harder when they're unreali

In this episode, we will bring the different types of pain together in an alternative way to "Pain is a Sound System', introducing 'The Pain Pie' to tease apart the different aspects of pain that contribute to the output of symptoms patients experience.As a provider, you can use this thinking tool to better see the different presentations as you go through the diagnostic process. A

Learn how central sensitization really presents. And yes, it’s a big deal that is currently essentially glossed over due to the lack of identification and treatmentsThe symptom clusters this type of pain creates long term are diseases caused by the central nervous system. The issue is that we currently lack an effective way to investigate and treat the various ways nervous system

Diagnosing and treating neuropathic pain is very challenging. Now that you understand nociceptive pain, we’ll help you see the clear difference between that and neuropathic presentations.Justine and Dan break down how to best treat different types of pathologies, from first line medications and navigating side effect vs benefits, through fourth line more invasive interventional o

Nociceptive pain, or body part pain, is the most common type of pain. Dr. Dan will break down the differences between somatic and visceral pain within this main category, and get into its different features includingMyofacial PainMechanical PainVascular PainJustine and Dan will also talk about the different challenges both patients and providers face in communicating and diagnosing