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. ~ Paul Ingraham, Publisher
The 15 newest featured articles on PainScience.com (out of 246)
- Pyschotherapy for Chronic Pain » Oct 2020
- Reviews of Pain Professions » Aug 2020
- Chronic Pain and Inequality » Jun 2020
- Chronic Pain as a Conditioned Behaviour » May 2020
- “Windows of Opportunity” in Rehab » Mar 2020
- Vibration Therapy » Mar 2020
- The Role of “Spasm” in Frozen Shoulder » Mar 2020
- Reassurance for Massage Therapists » Feb 2020
- The False Humility of “Facilitating” Healing » Nov 2019
- Vulnerability to Chronic Pain » Jun 2019
- Painful Lessons » Jun 2019
- Achilles Tendinitis Treatment Science » May 2019
- Does Massage Increase Circulation? » May 2019
- Baxter’s Neuritis and Plantar Fasciitis » Mar 2019
The last 50 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 — 50 updates to 39 articles & books in 100 days, breaking down into 20 major updates, 13 medium, 17 minor (use the button below to include/exclude the medium and minor updates). That’s an update every 2 days in recent history; there have been 2030 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. and many tens of thousands since the early 2000s.
- 13 Kinds of Bogus Citations — New section, “Malice and fraud versus incompetence and self-delusion.” » Oct 19
- Many Pages — Several hundred typos have been eliminated from about 70 PainScience.com articles in a major proofreading effort. The project has reached a milestone, and will continue but with diminishing returns. See my blog post, “The Warr on Tipos.” » Oct 18, 20
- Does Craniosacral Therapy Work? — New section, “Can craniosacral therapy treat hydrocephalus?” Also a science update, citing Haller. » Oct 16
- 5 Main Reasons Athletes Stretch… All Flawed — Edited — Just a thorough proofreading, eliminating several of minor errors and glitches. » Oct 15
- Post-Exercise, Delayed-Onset Muscle Soreness — Correction: new evidence suggests that the phenomenon of non-local muscle fatigue isn’t quite as well-established as I thought (see Behm). » Oct 15
- The False Humility of “Facilitating” Healing — Converted from blog post to permanent article, polished, and expanded a little. (And this is a pretty simple article, so it may never evolve beyond this.) » Oct 9
- Chronic Pain and Inequality — Added discussion of “social” versus “physical” distance. » Oct 6
- 34 Surprising Causes of Pain — Added a section about smoking, expanded the discussion of poor health, and added an interesting blurb about the pre-pandemic meaning of “social distancing.” » Oct 5
- The PainScience.com origin story — Substantial revision. » Oct 5
- Vulnerability to Chronic Pain — Editorial polishing. » Oct 2
- Smoking and Chronic Pain — Science update. Added a good fresh citation to Smuck et al about the link between smoking and pain. » Sep 30
- The Complete Guide to Chronic Tension Headaches — New section, the impact of smoking — » Sep 30
- Does Massage Increase Circulation? — Proofreading. » Sep 29
- Complete Guide to Frozen Shoulder — Major upgrade, steroid injections — Much more thorough exploration of the plausibility and evidence for exploiting the “WOO” that is probably created by steroid injections. » Sep 26
- Sports Injury Prevention Tips — New section: “Heed the signs! Painful ‘niggles’ are a loud-and-clear sign of an increased risk of injury.” » Sep 24
- Anxiety & Chronic Pain — A thorough proofreading. » Sep 15
- Chronic Pain as a Conditioned Behaviour — Proofreading. » Sep 11
- Vulnerability to Chronic Pain — Science updated. Added a good example from Rechardt et al. » Sep 9
- Voltaren® Gel Review — Edited for readability. Added some images. » Sep 8
- Reviews of Pain Professions — Thorough proofreading. If anyone finds any typos after this, I will be surprised. Grateful! But surprised. » Sep 7
- Chronic Pain and Inequality — Editing. » Sep 6
- When to Worry About Neck Pain … and when not to! — New section, “Is right or left neck pain significant?” » Sep 5
- Voltaren® Gel Review — Widespread minor improvements, collectively substantial. Most notably added information on mechanism of action, some more safety information, more about brands and availability. » Sep 2
- Chronic, Subtle, Systemic Inflammation — Minor science update — added citations and detail about the anti-inflammatory potential of exercise/activity. » Sep 2
- The Complete Guide to Patellofemoral Pain Syndrome — Science update, introduction to exercise therapy — Added more about the rationale for exercise therapy, citing Fu. » Sep 2
- A Guide to Sciatica Treatment for Patients — Added more detail about pain-killers, and more and better information about the role of herniation (with upgraded citations). » Aug 31
- Save Yourself from Tennis Elbow! — General editing, and a new section, “Some important general treatment principles to bear in mind.” » Aug 30
- Complete Guide to Low Back Pain — Science update, medications — Cited Ashbrook 2020 on the value of naproxen. Added some additional detail about how/why to experiment with different pain-killers. » Aug 30
- 6 Main Causes of Morning Back Pain — New section, “Poor quality sleep and insomnia are probably major causes of morning back pain.” Also made some minor improvements to the introduction and article summary. » Aug 29
- Insomnia Until it Hurts — Added citations to Gerhart 2017 on causality, and Rohleder 2012 on the relationship between inflammation and sleep. » Aug 29
- The Myth of Healing Hands — Added a section about the popularity and mainstream traction of vitalism, based on a particularly fluffy New York Times article about it. » Aug 27
- Reviews of Pain Professions — Added osteopathy. (Several sections were added all at once in early August when I rebooted this article. This is the first “post-reboot” addition.) Also added a reference about physiotherapy. » Aug 22
- Does Massage Therapy Work? — Added information, types of massage therapy — Compared and contrasted the practice of massage in other “manual therapy” professions like chiropractic, osteopathy, and physiotherapy. » Aug 22
- The Chiropractic Controversies — Added a little information about osteopathy and its similarities to chiropractic to the introduction. » Aug 22
- The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Science update, — No obvious changes, but I carefully reviewed and upgraded and fine-tuned some of the referencing in this section. I also added a bit about the history of prejudice against whiplash patients. » Aug 21
- Does Massage Increase Circulation? — Added new section about cerebrospinal fluid circulation and craniosacral therapy, and another one about hemodynamics and the variables that affect pushing blood through capillary beds. » Aug 20
- Does Craniosacral Therapy Work? — Added a brief but important point of logic, about CST being a “solution in search of a problem.” » Aug 20
- Complete Guide to Plantar Fasciitis — Science update, calf tightness — Substantially improved referencing, with some small but genuinely useful and interesting implications. Best kind of science update! » Aug 9
- Complete Guide to Plantar Fasciitis — Science update, nature of the beast — Minor but interesting extra detail about exactly how common plantar fasciitis is (spoiler alert: very common). Upgraded referencing on the topic of plantar fascia thickness. » Aug 8
- Quite a Stretch — Reorganized — Split this mega-article up into four smaller ones. Three major sub-topics were exported to new pages. This article now provides a high-level summary, plus coverage of a few miscellaneous and minor subtopics that don’t fit anywhere else. There are now a total of 9 articles on PainScience.com specifically devoted to stretching. » Aug 7
- 5 Main Reasons Athletes Stretch… All Flawed — Edited — Content is like-new after being extracted from stretching mega-article and converted into a stand-alone article on the sub-topic of athletic goals for stretching. » Aug 7
- Stretching for Pain (and Pleasure) — Editing — Content is like-new after being extracted from stretching mega-article and converted into a stand-alone article on the sub-topic of stretching as a treatment for pain. » Aug 7
- Stretching for Flexibility — Editing — Content is like-new after being extracted from stretching mega-article and converted into a stand-alone article on the sub-topic of athletic goals for flexibility. » Aug 7
- Reviews of Pain Professions — Completely rebooted, truly “like new.” » Aug 3
- Kinesio Taping Review — Added short new section about some silly research: “Bemused scientific post script: does the colour of the tape matter?” Spoiler: no. » Aug 3
- Vibration Therapy — “Massage guns” were strangely missing from this article, as well as any discussion of their efficacy, so I corrected that. I also substantially revised everything to make this a more general article about the theme of vibration in both medicine and quackery. » Aug 1
- Chronic Pain and Inequality — Added a substantial section about the “myth of feminine fragility.” » Jul 27
- The Functional Movement Screen (FMS) — Science updated: cited Fuller et al about the relationship of pain to FMS scoring. Updated the conclusion to be more clearly negative, in tune with the steadily emerging evidence that FMS cannot predict injury risk. » Jul 24
- Electromagnetic Sensitivity Absurdity — Several minor improvements. Some detail was moved to foonotes. Added more information about the role of psychology in EMS. » Jul 24
- Complete Guide to Frozen Shoulder — Minor addition, introduction — Expanded on the summary of symptoms just a little, emphasizing the quality and potential severity of the pain. » Jul 20
The last 20 blog posts
- Pets don’t want snake oil » Oct 23, 20
- Hydrocephalus and craniosacral therapy » Oct 17, 20
- Teh warr on typohs » Oct 17, 20
- Two kinds of pain: sexual and non-sexual? » Oct 13, 20
- Chatting trigger points with Matt Phillips for Run Chat Live » Oct 12, 20
- The “dull and rusty” science of pain » Oct 5, 20
- “Social” versus “physical” distance » Oct 5, 20
- Handy short links for all PainScience.com articles » Oct 1, 20
- Google strikes again! » Sep 30, 20
- The significance of painful “niggles” during exercise » Sep 24, 20
- Abstract vs. paper » Sep 24, 20
- He’s hypothesizing, you know » Sep 24, 20
- Article reborn: Pain professionals reviewed » Sep 10, 20
- Lack of “originality” is a feature here, not a bug » Sep 10, 20
- Your shoulder may hurt because you’re unfit » Sep 9, 20
- Hacking the signs » Sep 4, 20
- Not actually Eastern/ancient » Sep 4, 20
- Stretching article does “the splits” » Sep 3, 20
- Women’s health and chronic pain » Aug 20, 20
- Pushing and shoving blood, and cerebrospinal fluid circulation » Aug 20, 20
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, and the pages for those papers are like blog posts about them.
- Relief as a reward: hedonic and neural responses to safety from pain. Leknes et al., 2011, PLoS One. » added Oct 2020
- Association of Therapies With Reduced Pain and Improved Quality of Life in Patients With Fibromyalgia: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis. Mascarenhas et al., 2020, JAMA Intern Med. » added Oct 2020
- Treating pain with pain: supraspinal mechanisms of endogenous analgesia elicited by heterotopic noxious conditioning stimulation. Sprenger et al., 2011, Pain. » added Oct 2020
- SARS-CoV-2 Spike protein co-opts VEGF-A/Neuropilin-1 receptor signaling to induce analgesia. Moutal et al., 2020, Pain. » added Oct 2020
- Pain as a reward: changing the meaning of pain from negative to positive co-activates opioid and cannabinoid systems. Benedetti et al., 2013, Pain. » added Oct 2020
- Temporal Links Between Self-Reported Sleep and Antibody Responses to the Influenza Vaccine. Prather et al., 2020, Int J Behav Med. » added Oct 2020
- Craniosacral therapy for chronic pain: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. Haller et al., 2019, BMC Musculoskelet Disord. » added Oct 2020
- Non-local muscle fatigue effects on muscle strength, power, and endurance in healthy individuals: A systematic review and meta- analysis. Behm et al., 2020, SportRxiv. » added Oct 2020
- Effectiveness of corticosteroid injections in adhesive capsulitis of shoulder: A meta-analysis. Wang et al., 2017, Medicine (Baltimore). » added Sep 2020
- Smoking Is Associated with Pain in All Body Regions, with Greatest Influence on Spinal Pain. Smuck et al., 2020, Pain Med. » added Sep 2020
- Running coaches and running group leaders' engagement with, and beliefs and perceived barriers to prehabilitation and injury prevention strategies for runners. Linton et al., 2020, Phys Ther Sport. » added Sep 2020
- Perspectives on Exertional Rhabdomyolysis. Rawson et al., 2017, Sports Med. » added Sep 2020
- Exertional rhabdomyolysis: physiological response or manifestation of an underlying myopathy? Scalco et al., 2016, BMJ Open Sport Exerc Med. » added Sep 2020
- Lifestyle and metabolic factors in relation to shoulder pain and rotator cuff tendinitis: a population-based study. Rechardt et al., 2010, BMC Musculoskelet Disord. » added Sep 2020
- Sciatica: a review of history, epidemiology, pathogenesis, and the role of epidural steroid injection in management. Stafford et al., 2007, Br J Anaesth. » added Aug 2020
- Impaired mesocorticolimbic connectivity underlies increased pain sensitivity in chronic low back pain. Yu et al., 2020, Neuroimage. » added Aug 2020
- The therapeutic management of back pain with and without sciatica in the emergency department: a systematic review. Ashbrook et al., 2020, Physiotherapy. » added Aug 2020
- Relationships Between Sleep Quality and Pain-Related Factors for People with Chronic Low Back Pain: Tests of Reciprocal and Time of Day Effects. Gerhart et al., 2017, Ann Behav Med. » added Aug 2020
- Effects of deep cervical flexor training on impaired physiological functions associated with chronic neck pain: a systematic review. Blomgren et al., 2018, BMC Musculoskelet Disord. » added Aug 2020
- Hip muscle response to a fatiguing run in females with iliotibial band syndrome. Brown et al., 2019, Hum Mov Sci. » added Aug 2020
