In this podcast episode, Dan and Juz explore the concept of pacing and give it a bit of a re-brand, going through their structure and personal examples to learn how to break down managing your timing, tasks and tolerance more effectively so you can reclaim activities and passions pain may have limited. 

In this podcast episode, Dan and Juz explore an at-a-glance, step-by-step approach to managing patients with lower back pain. They begin with busting some significant yet persistent myths when it comes to patient recovery, and continue the conversation by identifying key patient concerns, focusing on red flags and understanding their ability to cope.

Dan and Justine dive into the basics of conservative pain management, covering the starting points of her MARSMethod and where you need to begin as a patient no matter what types of chronic pain you have.

In this episode, Justine and Dan go over a number of different assessments tools you can use to define what types of pain you have, what amplifiers may be playing a role, and how symptoms are affecting you functionally.

Dan and Juz cover the neuropathic pain algorithm, taking you through first through fourth line treatment options from most to least conservative. They cover trialing and combining various medications including opioids, topicals for focal areas of pain, and various interventional options all the way up to neuromodulation (peripheral or spinal cord stimulators), and pain pumps.

In this episode, Dan and Juz focus on the importance of communicating and assessing pain through the use of pain diagrams, which help both clinicians and patients gain insights into the sources and amplification of their presentation.

Agency is crucial as a chronic pain patient - especially when you feel most helpless and scared with pain at its worst. Flares are always difficult to navigate, but they don't have to make you feel so helpless and reactive. What are the phases of a flare, and how can you manage each one? This episode is a critical resource to learn how to identify and sooner recognize your own flare patterns so you end up in 'the hole' less, and can navigate your way out more effectively when it does happen.

In this episode, Dan and Justine break down how they each set goals and manage expectations with their patients. We dive into why your 'why' matters, how to connect your purpose to your plan, create discipline, tap into motivation, identify your purpose and cultivate confidence, so patients can better tie their actions to their goals and create long-term progress. This episode aims to help patients improve communication and have more effective appointments with their clinicians, and clinicians link their interventions to the goals of the patient in a more compelling way to improve buy-in.

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.

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.

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.’

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.