PainSci Updates
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Latest posts
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Hypnosis for pain: you’re getting very sleepy and unimpressed [2m]
I’ve been meaning to write something, anything, about hypnosis as a pain treatment for my whole career. (One small touch a few years ago: gut hypnotherapy .) I was waiting for the topic to come to me, assuming something newsworthy would turn up eventually. But I’ve barely heard…
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Can you get stronger instantly? (And would it fix your pain if you could?) [4m]
Instant strength is a staple of pop culture and fantasy: Popeye, Hulk, Asterix! Shazam, He-Man! Samson’s hair. The “hysterical strength” of mothers lifting cars off children. The idea is everywhere — and it has special appeal for people in pain, thanks to the nearly universal…
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Scary-looking spinal stenosis on MRI doesn’t mean much [2m]
I’ve probably never met anyone with severe spinal stenosis who didn’t think it meant surgery, and the sooner the better. Lumbar spinal stenosis is a narrowed spinal canal in the low back, irritating nerve tissue and causing pain, numbness, weakness, and weariness in the legs…
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Meralgia paresthetica and the usual suspects: what a simple pinched nerve gets mistaken for, and blamed on [5m]
My old friend Bex asked me recently about meralgia paresthetica, a common thigh-nerve predicament: “Super frustrating that it seems like such a common problem, but there’s basically no real info or support about it!” So I wrote a detailed guide for her. And you. And everyone.…
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Treating fibromyalgia like an autoimmune disease [3m]
Fibromyalgia is a regular guest star here: the common disease of widespread pain and fatigue, still unexplained. For many years people have been speculating that it might be some kind of autoimmune disease . It’s easy to understand why: there are more autoimmune diseases than…
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PainScience.com just sped up [3m]
PainScience.com is on a new server, and quite a lot faster : roughly 3× faster where it counts the most, like displaying member account pages and books. I’ve boast-posted about speed-ups and server upgrades in the past, but this one is another league. This isn’t just a shiny new…
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Sleep apnea and pain: not the clear link you’d think [3m]
It seems a little fishy to me that practically everyone who gets tested for obstructive sleep apnea ends up with a CPAP machine prescription. It reminds me of the way everyone who ever steps on a foot scanner gets a diagnosis and sales pitch for orthotics . Or how you can’t walk…
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Not so much natural painkilling going on [1m]
“Your body’s natural painkillers” — AKA endorphins, endogenous opioids — is a cliché based on overconfident speculation about why treatments like massage , exercise , and acupuncture allegedly relieve pain. A new study reports good evidence that endogenous opioids barely move…
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How stretching increases flexibility: a science update [4m]
For whatever it’s worth, most people do get more flexible when they stretch … but how does that work exactly? 🤔 What specifically changes in the body? Mechanisms have been floated and debated over the years, and it still surprises many people to learn it’s probably not a…
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Homeopathic arnica: corrections and updates, better late than never [6m]
I have published a batch of substantial corrections and clarifications in one of my oldest articles , the one about homeopathic creams for aches and pains, especially Traumeel (now T-Relief in the US and Canada), which contain several herbs but mostly feature Arnica montana .…
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Reverse referral: when sore spots are echoes, not causes (Member Post) [20m]
Does finding a “trigger point” that recreates your pain at another location prove you’ve found the surprising source of that pain? Sadly, nope — it might be exactly the reverse. One of the more impressive experiences you can have during a therapeutic massage is the discovery of…
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Pseudoscience is like porn: you know it when you see it [3m]
Or do you? It’s a fun comparison, but you can only know pseudoscience when you see it if you have enough relevant expertise . You have to actually know things about genuine science to spot the knock-offs , because the whole job of pseudoscience is to seem like good science.…
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Load me up? Adding weight to back exercises [90s]
Ranzani et al . is the rare exercise study asking a genuinely well-aimed question: does adding load to back exercises buy anything over weight-free back exercise? And the rare clear and useful answer is … nope! Somewhat higher intensity did not help. So maybe “strength” isn’t…
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New long-term follow-up on dubious old Pain Reprocessing Therapy evidence [3m]
Remember that too-good-to-be-true study of Pain Reprocessing Therapy back in 2022? It hasn’t been replicated, but it has been extended : more of the same, five years on. There is now a 5-year follow-up report on the long-term durability of that trial’s freakishly good results…
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Melatonin is not a painkiller [1m]
Melatonin could plausibly help people with chronic musculoskeletal pain, presumably by improving sleep . Unfortunately, a new review of 23 trials ( Wu ) shows that it doesn’t get the job done. It might improve their sleep slightly, but that does not appear to translate into pain…
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PRP for arthritic knees: a science update [4m]
I have long been critical of platelet-rich plasma (PRP) — injections of your own concentrated blood, still supposedly “ regenerative ” despite piles of underwhelming evidence. In July I posted about an interesting new trial that was, predictably, “ a credible negative for PRP .”…