Welcome to It’s Not in Your Head Podcast
with Dr. Dan Bates and Justine Feitelson
Dan is a Sports Physician, Justine is a Pain Coach and patient. We’ve come together to find ways to manage complex pain better for both patients and providers.
“You are not imagining pain. It is not in your head.
But understanding what is happening, can make it better”
The current explanations of chronic pain typically include two main aspects that make it difficult for the patient and provider to most effectively work together. There are multiple better ways to think about pain we’ll dive into on the podcast.
The challenge of chronic pain is deciphering how much is due to underlying drivers that may or may not be treatable, co-existing diseases, psychosocial or metabolic factors, and other amplifiers of sensitization that all add to the output of symptoms.
There’s a lot of information on pain, increased access to diagnostics and interventions, a multi-billion dollar fitness/movement industry, and yet here we are. With over 50 million people a year in chronic pain in America alone despite all these advancements. How come despite all this, we are not getting better outcomes with chronic pain patients?
The answer is the limitations of the system we all operate in, access to diagnostics and therapeutics, the biases we develop as clinicians, and the breakdown in education and empathy for patients. The key to improved outcomes is better matching the physician skillset to the patient presentation, and changing the way we look at pain – from a misinterpretation of a signal, to a warning system that is asking us to take a look.
Improving understanding and communication between patients and providers, while minimizing blame and harm done from insinuating pain is in people’s heads, is at the heart of our mission. Patient education and advocacy is crucial to be able to get what you need done. You are the boss of your care team. Being able to explain and navigate your experience in a way that helps the physician see the different types of pain and be able to investigate and treat them effectively, is critical to get the care you need.
Personal ownership helps combat some of the challenges the system presents. Patients must understand and take accountability for the pieces of pain they affect. Clinicians need to understand it’s OK to say ‘I don’t know, but this is what we’re going to do’, and have a way to work through different types of pain and the complex symptoms central sensitization/amplification presents.
On It’s Not in Your Head Podcast, Dan and Juz will help you more effectively treat chronic pain by introducing new ways to think about the different types of pain, explain pain, assess pain, understand therapeutics, effectively manage pain with treatment algorithms and patient frameworks, build the right mindset, improve patient/provider communication, work through nervous system dysfunction, and more.
“Pain is a thief. Take back what’s yours.”
— Dr. Dan Bates
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