Pain’s complexity
A weekly nugget or two of pain science news and ideas for patients and pros, usually 400–1000 words. The blog is the “director’s commentary” on the core content of PainScience.com: a library of major articles and books about common painful problems and popular treatments. See the blog archives or updates for the whole site.
“It’s all coming from the ____, I know it!” The temptation to boil the cause of chronic pain down to a single culprit can be almost overwhelming, but you must resist. Single causes of long term pain are almost unheard of. Nearly all chronic pain is a witch’s brew of different factors, complex by nature (not just coincidence or bad luck). This makes it harder to beat overall, but some factors are more treatable or manageable than others. Find and work with those.