In this episode, Dr. Dan and Justine introduce their 'Central Sensitization Algorithm' designed to help healthcare providers diagnose and treat central sensitization and related neuroinflammatory disorders more effectively. The algorithm categorizes symptoms into distinct buckets of nervous system dysfunction, allowing providers to more quickly and efficiently identify and prioritize their treatment plan.

In this episode of "It's Not In Your Head," Dan and Justine dive into the nuanced aspects of how to more effectively communicate about pain with patients, focusing on the significance of specific language and its impact on patient outcomes. They caution against phrases that suggest pain is purely psychological and inadvertently blame and shame the patient, emphasizing pain is a complex interplay of physiological and psychological factors. They stress the importance of clinicians avoiding language that can be perceived as dismissive or condescending, instead advocating for a collaborative, empathetic approach.

Trigger warning: This episode deals with the topic of suicide.

Dan and I have an interesting and important discussion that bridges the gap between patients’ clear and obvious frustrations with how different versions of “it’s in your head” affect them and providers’ lack of awareness around the issue. How can this be the case? And how does being told pain is in your head possibly increase suicidal thoughts by 500-1200%? We explain how it occurs and compare it to what we’d accept from other therapies.

From the uterus, to witchcraft, hypnotism and more, we go through the history of what unexplainable symptoms have been blamed on and how they've been explained through history all the way up to more modern day classifications like Briquette's syndrome, somatoform, conversion, or functional disorders.

In this episode, we expand upon 'Number Needed to Treat', tying that concept into overall therapeutic limitations and some other examples beyond medications, including one you are definitely going to want to hear about - the effect of pain neuroscience education in and of itself.

The hard truth is it's normal for treatments, especially medications, not to work. But how many patients do you actually have to treat to improve things for just one even? This is where the concept 'number needed to treat' is critical to better understand so that expectations don't lead to resentments.

In this episode, we will bring the different types of pain together in an alternative way introducing the 'The Pain Pie,' and using this learning tool as an alternative to 'Pain is a Sound System' to tease apart the different potential pieces of pain including nociceptive, neuropathic, and nociplastic pain, as well as other contributors to the output of symptoms patients experience.

Learn how central sensitization really presents. We share our model for categorizing central sensitization into various buckets so you can more effectively and efficiently recognize and investigate vague, persistent symptoms that often accompany chronic illness and more complex pain presentations.

Diagnosing and treating neuropathic pain can be very challenging. Justine and Dan break down how to best approach different pathologies, from medications to more invasive interventional options like neuromodulation, intrathecal therapies and low dose opioids.

Welcome to the podcast! We are so excited to reveal this project to you. In our initial episode, Dan and I will cover why we called the project "It's Not in Your Head", and what we want to accomplish through it.

It’s Not in Your Head’s first guest episode with Dr. Krishnan Chakravarthy, MD, PhD and Founder of the Empower You Chronic Pain Foundation!

Complex pain is, well, complicated. Explaining it effectively can be even more so. In this episode, Dr. Dan shares his metaphor to think about and better explain pain called, ‘Pain is a Sound System.’

Nociceptive pain is the most common type of pain. This episode will break down the different types of nociceptive pain and how to approach treating them.