Weekly nuggets of pain science news and insight, usually 100-300 words, with the occasional longer post. 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.
“Disc” pain ∞
In this 2003 study of 31 Olympic athletes with back pain/sciatica, only about half had signs of disc degeneration or bulging. These are elite athletes, not malingerers. If they say they hurt, they hurt! Yet MRI failed to identify a disc problem in half of them. Just one of many studies of this sort cited in my low back pain tutorial.
