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What’s New on PainScience.com?

New featured articles, updates to articles, recent blog posts, and noteworthy new scientific papers

See also the about page, complete articles index, and sitemap.

I have been expanding and upgrading this website for 20 years now, and full-time since 2010. Useful new references are added almost daily. I am always working on an endless list of improvements, and corrections and mea culpas are always the highest priority items. This page lists everything that’s new or changed lately … or just Google for content that’s new in the last month or year. ~ Paul Ingraham, PainSci Publisher

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The 10 newest featured articles on PainScience.com (out of 240)

  1. Bone on Bone » Jun 2024
  2. DMSO for Pain » Jun 2024
  3. Manual Therapy: What is it, and does it work? » Jan 2024
  4. Reluctantly Reconsidering RESTORE » Dec 2023
  5. Whole Body Cryotherapy for Pain » Nov 2023
  6. Does Pandiculation “Reset” Muscle Tone? » Jan 2023
  7. The Double-Edged Sword of Imaging to Diagnose Pain » Mar 2022
  8. The Tibiofibular Joint and Knee Pain » Feb 2022
  9. Ozone Therapy for Pain » Dec 2021

The last 60 updates to featured articles and tutorials

Like good footnotes, update logging sets PainScience.com apart from most other health websites and blogs. It’s fine print, but important fine print, in the same spirit of transparency as the editing history available for Wikipedia pages. I log any change to articles that might be of interest to a keen reader.

Current Update Stats — 60 updates to 40 articles & books in 167 days, breaking down into 19 major updates, 24 medium, 17 minor. That’s every 2.8 days in recent history; there have been 1794 updates since comprehensive logging started in mid-2016 ?Comprehensive update logging started in the summer of 2016. Prior to that, I only logged major updates for the most popular and controversial articles. (about one every other day) … plus very roughly ten thousand more since the early 2000s. See the complete update archives.

showing of 60 recent updates

LJan 29What Works for Chronic Pain? — Added a new section: “‘Prehab’ works (for preventing pain after surgery).”
SJan 28Vitamins, Minerals & Supplements for Pain & Healing — Refinements to the discussion of indirect harms. That section is now called: “6 ways being a sucker for supplements can go wrong.”
LJan 24Most Pain Treatments Damned With Faint Praise — A rare update to this old article, acknowledging that I may have been too dismissive of small effect sizes over the years. See the new section, “Give small a chance.”
MJan 23Masking Pain is Under-Rated — General editing and improvements.
SJan 22The Power of Barking: Correlation, causation, and how we decide what treatments work — Some light editing and revision. Started to nude this article in the direction of becoming a more general guide to all the ways that we can get fooled into thinking a treatment is helping when it actually isn’t.
MJan 22Chronic Pain as a Conditioned Behaviour — Added a significant citation to Madden, a 2017 study that I’d somehow missed. There’s now a substantial new footnote about that one. Also added a point about the general difficulty with experimentally reproducing conditioned pain.
SJan 18Placebo Power Hype — Miscellaneous minor improvements to the section, “Placebo for sale! Is it okay to pay for a placebo?”
MJan 14Does Acupuncture Work for Pain? — Substantive update to evidence of serious publication bias for acupuncture research in China. See an entire new section tucked into a footnote: “Does China only publish good science news about acupuncture?
MJan 11Heat for Pain and Rehab — Two small new sections, “Comfort vs analgesia” and “Heating time: how long does it take?” There’s actually more new content tucked away in a footnote about Bartholdy et al. on heated mittens.
LJan 7What Happened To My Barber? — New section, “An activator incident: can a light tap injure the neck?”
SDec 20Does Ultrasound or Shockwave Therapy Work? — Added a new citation to the shockwave evidence highlights, plus some older ones.
LDec 15Tissue Provocation Therapies in Musculoskeletal Medicine — Substantial revision and expansion.
LDec 13Does Ultrasound or Shockwave Therapy Work? — Major expansion of “Adding injury to injury: shockwave therapy’s big idea.” This nerdy new members-only section roughly doubled in size over the last couple days of writing and revision, and now most notably includes a much more complete discussion of the biological effects of shockwave therapy.
MDec 11Does Ultrasound or Shockwave Therapy Work? — Several improvements to the review of clinical studies of shockwave therapy. More still coming.
LDec 10Complete Guide to Plantar Fasciitis — Science update, shockwave therapy — A small but important update: new good quality negative evidence. Sigh.
MDec 8Does Ultrasound or Shockwave Therapy Work? — Science update: several citations about shockwave for erectile dysfunction (just one line in the article, but the footnotes are practically a mini-article unto themselves).
SDec 6Vitamins, Minerals & Supplements for Pain & Healing — Minor science updates and additions about creatine.
SDec 6The Insomnia Guide for Chronic Pain Patients — Added a little more about creatine and it’s potential to treat sleep deprivation.
SDec 3Trigger Points on Trial — Minor editing for clarity and currency.
SDec 3How to Treat Sciatic Nerve Pain — Added a comprehensive list of the major diagnostic possibilities.
SDec 3Does Epsom Salt Work? — Added sidebar, strange magnesium claims — Added a sidebar for colour and whimsy: “Weird health claims about magnesium.”
MDec 114 Kinds of Bogus Citations — I finally added “The Zombie.” Better late than never!
LNov 30Achilles Tendinitis Treatment Science — Substantial science update and general upgrade to the topical glyceryl trinitrate section.
MNov 30Salamander and Regeneration Science — New section, “Every therapy in the rehab business thinks its ‘regenerative’.”
SNov 26What Happened To My Barber? — Added a good quality diagram of artery dissection.
MNov 26Alternative Medicine’s Choice — Added a significant sidebar, “The epic double-standards for mainstream and alternative medicine.”
MNov 23The Complete Guide to Trigger Points & Myofascial Pain — More content, dry needling — Added a substantial new sub-section, “Overestimating success rates for dry needling,” which explores the way clinicians are mostly unaware of their substantial failures with dry needling.
LNov 22Alternative Medicine’s Choice — Improved a section I added a while back and forgot to log: “Alternative medicine: hung up on pseudoscience and anti-science.”
LNov 19Cramps, Spasms, Tremors & Twitches — Added a new section about the instructive extreme of the spasticity of rabies infections — a disease that literally kills with cramps.
MNov 15Chronic, Subtle, Systemic Inflammation — New content, exercise is anti-inflammatory — Added a more general summary of the case for exercise being “anti-inflammatory.
MNov 15Chronic, Subtle, Systemic Inflammation — Science update, treatment — Updates, clarifications, and additions based on new evidence.
MNov 14Strength Training for Pain & Injury Rehab — Added many photos of “women who lift heavy things.”
MNov 14Chronic Pain and Inequality — More detailed section about the myth of women's fragility, and the risks of pelvic organ prolapse with heavy lifting, plus a substantial footnote about going “beyond kegels” to build strength to prevent POP.
MNov 11Complete Guide to Frozen Shoulder — Science updated, steroids section — Added an encouraging anecdote about steroids working really well for frozen shoulder, and a section about the huge GRASP trial of steroids vs. exercise (not for frozen shoulder, but still relevant).
LNov 9Does Hip Strengthening Work for IT Band Syndrome? — A long overdue update to this topic, but … I was waiting for worthwhile science. It finally arrived (Leppänen) and it challenges my bias quite effectively. But it’s still just one study.
MNov 9Does Ultrasound or Shockwave Therapy Work? — Improvements to the section, “Adding injury to injury: shockwave therapy’s big idea.”
MNov 7Does Ultrasound or Shockwave Therapy Work? — Continued improvements to shockwave content. Today I added more detail about shockwave’s ability to cause microtrauma and break up calcifications.
LNov 5Vibration Therapies, from Massage Guns to Jacuzzis — Added new section, “The shockwave evidence,” which isn’t great and reflects poorly on the even weaker evidence for massage guns.
LNov 5Does Ultrasound or Shockwave Therapy Work? — More extensive changes and reorganization, with substantial upgrades to all the information about shockwave therapy.
SNov 1The Pressure Question in Massage Therapy — Enriched the intro with a little “deeper” perspective on the appeal of deep tissue massage.
MOct 30Does Ultrasound or Shockwave Therapy Work? — Minor but widespread improvements, and some science updates. Shockwave therapy is becoming a more prominent part of the article as it replaces low-intensity ultrasound in the marketplace.
MOct 27The Insomnia Guide for Chronic Pain Patients — Science update. Added more nuanced information about creatine. Does it compensate for the effects of the sleep deprivation it causes?
LOct 26Strength Training for Pain & Injury Rehab — Added sub-topic, “Weightlifting as medicine for pain and injury.” This article has always mostly been about the systemic, anti-aging, and injury prevention benefits of resistance training. To the extent that it discussed resistance training as a rehab tool, it was mostly to push back against the dominent physical therapy paradigm of “corrective” strength training intended to address perceived biomechanical deficiencies. Despite that problem, resistance training probably is directly analgesic and/or therapeutic — and that optimistic perspective has now been added to the article, finally. And there’s a bunch more coming.
LOct 25Tennis Elbow Guide — Added a “story about pain relief from doing the most painful thing,” which was just simple strength training.
MOct 23Complete Guide to Frozen Shoulder — Added — A new entry for the hall of treatment shame: “Tok sen massage (hammer-and-wedge, from an extremely popular internet video).”
LOct 22The Chiropractic Controversies — Added a section, “But is it chiropractic? Hammering home the profession’s PR challenges.” This is similar to the recent blog post, but with significant revisions and additions. I also updated the “chiropractors are not trusted” citation at the top of the article — still the same statistic after almost 20 years (and probably much longer).
LOct 21Placebo Power Hype — Added a section about therapy theatre.
SOct 16Psoas, So What? — Science update: added a minor but interesting citation about the role of iliopsoas in sprinting.
LOct 9Guide to Repetitive Strain Injuries — Substantial editing, revision, and upgrades for the (very large) members only section of this article.
SOct 9Progressive Training — Minor science update.
SSep 30What Works for Chronic Pain? — Added “a new generation of pain-killers” as a third category of legitimately promising “advanced” approaches to pain.
MSep 19The Complete Guide to Patellofemoral Pain Syndrome — Science update, patellar circulation — At last, some long-awaited new patellar circulation evidence, plus significant revision and other improvements, especially the addition of a new discussion about the therapeutic implications (does exercise improve circulation, mainly).
LSep 16Quite a Stretch — New — Substantial new sidebar, “Reciprocal inhibition invalidated,” about how a major premise for “advanced” PNF stretching was largely disproven in 2009.
SSep 16Pain is Weird — Science update, pulsatile pain — Added a dash of extra science about how the rhythm of pulsatile pain is set (if it’s not the heart rate).
MSep 8Chronic Pain and Inequality — Science update: added a citation to Jin, showing strong links between systemic racism and chronic pain, with a particularly robust footnote on the topic.
MSep 6Cramps, Spasms, Tremors & Twitches — New section about magnesium for cramps.
LSep 5Placebo Power Hype — Added a section about placebo analgesia — very better-late-than-never in the evolution of this article! Also added a new summary for the article, and a nerdy but critical clarification about the difference between the placebo “effect” versus “response.” There are two important new citations to Evers and Hohenschurz-Schmidt.
SAug 28Does Ultrasound or Shockwave Therapy Work? — Science update for ESWT for plantar fasciitis.
SAug 28Zapped! Does TENS work for pain? — Science update for pulsed electromagnetic field therapy.
MAug 22The Complete Guide to Low Back Pain — Science update, intro to the nature of the beast — First update to this section in eight years, because the basic point has been sound the whole time. What changed? Better science, just a particularly good and relevant study that supports the gist of this introduction more strongly than anything that was available before.

The last 20 blog posts

Blog posts are smaller and more ephemeral than the articles in PainSci’s main library. I blog about many topics as I work on books and permanent articles. There are 1221 posts dating back to 2010.

  1. Is Chinese acupuncture research more like propaganda than science? 🔈 » Jan 31, 25
  2. 6 ways being a sucker for supplements can go wrong » Jan 28, 25
  3. Conditional trust in science (and the condition is "must agree with me") » Jan 28, 25
  4. Plenty of disagreement, not much “arguing” » Jan 28, 25
  5. “Old news” comments » Jan 23, 25
  6. Arithmetic + exercise = better rehab? » Jan 22, 25
  7. Can we adapt to painful things? » Jan 22, 25
  8. High-level acupuncture summary » Jan 22, 25
  9. Is it okay to pay for a placebo? » Jan 17, 25
  10. Does bending and lifting cause disc herniations? » Jan 16, 25
  11. Hot hands: a surprising test of powered mittens for arthritis » Jan 10, 25
  12. An activator incident: can a light tap injure the neck? 🔈 » Jan 7, 25
  13. Why those positive studies aren’t good enough 🔈 » Jan 3, 25
  14. STUDY: Contradictory new data on nitroglycerin for tendinitis 🔈 » Dec 18, 24
  15. Adding injury to injury: shockwave therapy’s big idea (Member Post) 🔈 » Dec 13, 24
  16. Not everyone can exercise » Dec 12, 24
  17. Goodbye and good riddance, Google Analytics » Dec 6, 24
  18. Can creatine treat its own insomnia side effect? » Dec 5, 24
  19. Weird health claims about magnesium » Dec 3, 24
  20. Shockwave therapy: ultrasound reborn! 🔈 » Nov 30, 24

The last 20 bibliography items with beefier summaries

Many scientific papers added to the bibliography are boring and utilitarian, but some are much more interesting, like small blog posts about the science — like the recent highlights are listed here. The are roughly 4000 more items in the whole bibliography, ~800 of them more substantively annotated.

  1. Assessment of the degree of pelvic tilt within a normal asymptomatic population. Herrington et al., 2011, Man Ther. » added Jan 2025
  2. Classical Conditioning Fails to Elicit Allodynia in an Experimental Study with Healthy Humans. Madden et al., 2017, Pain Med. » added Jan 2025
  3. Does shockwave therapy lead to better pain and function than sham over 12 weeks in people with insertional Achilles tendinopathy? A randomised controlled trial. Alsulaimani et al., 2024, Clin Rehabil. » added Dec 2024
  4. Topical glyceryl trinitrate (GTN) and eccentric exercises in the treatment of mid-portion achilles tendinopathy (the NEAT trial): a randomised double-blind placebo-controlled trial. Kirwan et al., 2024, Br J Sports Med. » added Nov 2024
  5. The Effects of Shock Wave Therapy on the Symptoms and Function of Individuals With Dupuytren Disease: A Systematic Review. Yazdani et al., 2024, Arch Phys Med Rehabil. » added Oct 2024
  6. The effect of progressive and individualised sport-specific training on the prevalence of injury in football and handball student athletes: a randomised controlled trial. Hagum et al., 2023, Front Sports Act Living. » added Oct 2024
  7. Heavy Slow Resistance Versus Eccentric Training as Treatment for Achilles Tendinopathy: A Randomized Controlled Trial. Beyer et al., 2015, Am J Sports Med. » added Oct 2024
  8. The anti-inflammatory effect of exercise: its role in diabetes and cardiovascular disease control. Pedersen et al., 2006, Essays Biochem. » added Oct 2024
  9. Impaired hemodynamics of the patella in patients with patellofemoral pain: A case-control study. Ophey et al., 2024, J Exp Orthop. » added Sep 2024
  10. Pain neuroscience education is not superior to spinal physiology and ergonomics education within a short multidisciplinary rehabilitation program: A randomized controlled trial. Adenis et al., 2024, Musculoskelet Sci Pract. » added Sep 2024
  11. Antagonist muscle activity during stretching: a paradox re-assessed. Etnyre et al., 1988, Med Sci Sports Exerc. » added Sep 2024
  12. Does throbbing pain have a brain signature? Mo et al., 2013, Pain. » added Sep 2024
  13. Neurophysiological reflex mechanisms' lack of contribution to the success of PNF stretches. Mitchell et al., 2009, J Sport Rehabil. » added Sep 2024
  14. Placebo analgesia in physical and psychological interventions: Systematic review and meta-analysis of three-armed trials. Hohenschurz-Schmidt et al., 2024, Eur J Pain. » added Sep 2024
  15. Effects of exercise therapy in axial spondyloarthritis: A systematic review, meta-analysis and meta-regression of randomized trials. Zhang et al., 2024, Arch Phys Med Rehabil. » added Aug 2024
  16. The impact of stressful life events on centralized pain and pain intensity: A combined model examining the mediating roles of anger and perceived injustice among racially minoritized adults with chronic pain. Jin et al., 2024, J Pain. » added Aug 2024
  17. Physical activity paradox: providing evidence-based guidance while closing research gaps. Pronk et al., 2024, Br J Sports Med. » added Aug 2024
  18. Is radial extracorporeal shock wave therapy (rESWT), sham-rESWT or a standardised exercise programme in combination with advice plus customised foot orthoses more effective than advice plus customised foot orthoses alone in the treatment of plantar fasciopathy? A double-blind, randomised, sham-controlled trial. Heide et al., 2024, Br J Sports Med. » added Aug 2024
  19. Long distance running and knee osteoarthritis. A prospective study. Chakravarty et al., 2008, Am J Prev Med. » added Jul 2024
  20. DMSO induces drastic changes in human cellular processes and epigenetic landscape in vitro. Verheijen et al., 2019, Sci Rep. » added Jun 2024

What’s new on this page about new stuff?

Ironically, I’ve actually updated this page quite a few times without logging the change. 😜

2023 — An update to the updates page?! It’s so meta! It’s not going to happen often, but I just finished improving the whole update-logging system in several ways. Most of the upgrades are "under the hood," but there is now much better filtering for the update list, and the foundations have been laid for more improvements in the future.

2016 — Publication.

PainSci Member Login » Submit your email to unlock member content. If you can’t remember/access your registration email, please contact me. ~ Paul Ingraham, PainSci Publisher