Detailed guides to painful problems, treatments & more

Pain Science Reading Guide for Skeptics

A tour of PainScience.com for readers who have doubts and concerns about the validity and efficacy of popular treatments for injuries and chronic pain

Paul Ingraham • 4m read

I hope that skeptics, critical thinkers, and scientists will feel right at home on PainScience.com, and come to think of it as a valuable resource in combatting pseudo-scientific nonsense and old wives’ tales about aches, pains, and injuries. Of course I debunk classic quackeries like subluxation theory, acupuncture, and homeopathy, but that’s the tip of the iceberg.

There is a lot of obscure and underestimated pseudoscience in the world of pain and musculoskeletal medicine. You can find many deep dives here on all kinds of topics that receive surprisingly little critical analysis elsewhere, like ultrasound, electrical stimulation, stretching, arnica, posturology, trigger points, t’ai chi, fascia, orthotics, and many, many more.

This page lists articles with a particularly strong skeptical angle; see also the complete index of treatment reviews.

What skeptics should read on PainScience.com