I wanted to take a moment to wish you a very happy holiday season and a healthy new year as we move into 2020. It's been an honor spending this time with you in 2019. I look forward to spending more time with you in 2020 as we dive into effective ways to treat chronic pain. This podcast is important both for practitioners who treat pain and people looking for solutions. I could not do it without your participation and your help. As we move into 2020, know that I'm thinking about you and I wish y...
Dec 26, 2019•31 min
We will look at a case study as to how one physical therapist is creating and evolving peer-to-peer models for the treatment of chronic pain. Adults living with chronic health conditions are more likely than other adults to seek peer advice and support from those that are experiencing or have overcome similar health challenges.Peer-to-peer support can happen online or offline via email, phone or even through social media. In fact, a Cochrane review described positive outcomes in people with chro...
Dec 19, 2019•41 min
We are bringing awareness to the important topic of stigma and chronic pain. People living with chronic pain are often stigmatized in healthcare settings, although they are not alone. Patients with various medical conditions, those with mental illness, people who use substances, people living with HIV, refugees, immigrants, even patients with poorly controlled diabetes can all be subjected to stigma. Here to discuss stigma and chronic pain is Dr. Whitney Scott. Whitney completed her PhD in Clini...
Dec 12, 2019•25 min
In this episode, we are exploring food, mood and its connection to chronic pain. As you head into the holiday season, I wanted to make a special episode just for you because overeating and overindulging in food can be a challenge for each and every one of us. No doubt, you will attend holiday parties, office parties, celebrations with friends and families, and run into food around every corner from Thanksgiving straight through to the New Year. This is an important topic related to chronic pain ...
Dec 05, 2019•27 min
In this episode, we’re talking about making sense of beliefs and behaviors in pain care. Our expert guest is Dr. Samantha Bunzli who is a physiotherapist and has worked in clinical practice for several years before undertaking a PhD with Professor Peter O’Sullivan at Curtin University in Australia. Her PhD research was entitled, “A Qualitative Investigation of Pain-Related Fear in People with Low Back Pain.” She is a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Melbourne working to optimize tre...
Nov 28, 2019•44 min
In this episode, we are exploring physiotherapy, yoga therapy and pain science with physiotherapist, Neil Pearson . Neil is a Clinical Assistant Professor at the University of British Columbia and the founding chair of the Physiotherapy Pain Science Division in Canada . He is a recipient of the Canadian Pain Society's Excellence in Interprofessional Pain Education Award and faculty in international yoga therapist training programs. Neil develops pain care resources, collaborates in research and ...
Nov 21, 2019•39 min
On this episode, we're exploring the significance of Polyvagal Theory on autonomic resilience as it pertains to the management of chronic pain. Our expert guest is Dr. Marlysa Sullivan . She is an assistant professor at the Maryland University of Integrative Health in both yoga therapy and health promotion. She's also an adjunct professor at the Emory University in the Doctor of Physical Therapy program where she teaches the integration of yoga and mindfulness in physical therapy. She has a new ...
Nov 14, 2019•29 min
We're discussing the power of massage and manual therapy, how it can be used to manage pain and discomfort in infants and children. Our expert guest is Christine Robenalt . Christine graduated from Marquette University in 2001 with a Master's degree in Physical Therapy. Although she's worked in many different practice settings, Pediatrics is both her specialty as well as her passion. In addition to her degree in Physical Therapy, she's also a certified infant massage instructor through Loving To...
Nov 07, 2019•31 min
We’re talking about the important topic of compassion and pain care. Our expert guest is my friend and colleague, Shelly Prosko . Shelly is a Canadian physiotherapist, yoga therapist, author, speaker and educator. She is someone who is empowering individuals to create and sustain meaningful change in their life by teaching and advocating for the integration of yoga into modern healthcare. You may know Shelly as the pioneer of PhysioYoga , which is a unique combination of physiotherapy and yoga. ...
Oct 24, 2019•40 min
We have a brand-new topic and expert guest that I'm excited to share with you. We're discussing the importance of story and narrative medicine and pain care with physiotherapist, Lissanthea Taylor. I love Lissanthea's work and skillset because she is a triple threat of a physiotherapist who is up to date on the latest pain science and online author who creates meaningful content for people with pain and someone at the forefront of implementing narrative medicine and pain care. She's also the fou...
Oct 17, 2019•43 min
In this episode, we are discussing how to move effective pain education forward in developing countries. Our expert guest this week is Professor Felipe Reis. He is a Brazilian physiotherapist and professor of physical therapy at the Federal Institute of Rio de Janeiro. His research focuses on pain education, emotion and cognitive neuroscience. He is a visiting researcher at McGill University, an Associate Researcher with the Pain in Motion Group and Chair of the Pain, Mind and Movement Special I...
Oct 10, 2019•28 min
We are discussing the importance of values in pain care and how values are approached through the lens of acceptance and commitment therapy. In acceptance and commitment therapy, the term values refers to activities that give your life meaning. Values can be looked upon as the people, the causes and the activities that are deeply important to you. When you connect to your values, you’re able to move your life forward in meaningful directions even in the face of very difficult and very painful ex...
Oct 03, 2019•55 min
We’re going to take a deep dive into how the vagus nerve can help reduce pain and control inflammation. Joining us is Dr. Navaz Habib . He is a functional medicine practitioner, author and speaker who empowers his clients to dig a little bit deeper and find the answers to what’s holding back their health. His office, Health Upgraded , works with entrepreneurs, executives and professional athletes who want to take their health to a new level, allowing them to contribute and serve more people. Hav...
Sep 19, 2019•38 min
We’re talking about Integrative Health Programs for mental wellbeing. Joining us is Dr. David Tomasi. He’s a psychotherapist, researcher and philosopher, as well the author of the bestselling book called Medical Philosophy and the co-author of a paper called Positive Patient Response to a Structured Exercise Program Delivered in Inpatient Psychiatry , which was published in 2019 in the Journal of Global Advances in Health and Medicine. It was also the most read research item from the University ...
Sep 12, 2019•45 min
We’re going to be talking about the co-occurrence of chronic pain in PTSD. In the general population, chronic pain and PTSD co-occur in about 10% of the cases. When we look at our population of veterans, 50% to 80% of those are PTSD also have chronic pain. This is an important topic with regard to the care of our veterans as well as for the practitioners who treat them. Joining us to discuss ACT chronic pain and PTSD is Dr. Matt Herbert. Matt is a research psychologist at the San Diego VA and an...
Sep 05, 2019•31 min
We’re taking a deep dive into Acceptance and Commitment Therapy with its Founder, Dr. Hayes. He is a Nevada Foundation professor at the Department of Psychology at the University of Nevada and author of 44 books and nearly 600 scientific articles. He developed the Relational Frame Theory, an account of human higher cognition and has guided its extension into Acceptance and Commitment Therapy which is a popular evidence-based form of psychotherapy that uses mindfulness, acceptance and values-base...
Aug 29, 2019•54 min
We're talking about an important topic. It's the effect of bullying on chronic pain in children and adolescents. When I did an interview with Dr. Christine Chambers , a psychologist who treats children and adolescents with chronic pain, I said that I was going to be dedicating more episodes to this important topic because if we can prevent pain in children, it won't carry over to having pain in adults. We won't have the mass of chronic pain that we have now. When I saw this topic on a med search...
Aug 22, 2019•25 min
On this episode, we’re talking about the relation of self-compassion to functioning among adults with chronic pain. Our expert guest is Karlyn Edwards . She is a clinical psychology graduate student at the University of New Mexico working with Dr. Kevin Vowles and Katie Witkiewitz. She studies important psychological factors that impact chronic pain as well as psychological interventions that can improve the lives of those living with chronic pain. She also studies how opioid and other substance...
Aug 15, 2019•27 min
We are talking about the controversial topic of whether Manual Therapy for trigger point should be used for the alleviation or the treatment of chronic pain. How is one physiotherapist doing some interesting work to help people taper off of opioid medications using psychologically-informed physical therapy principles? My guest is Diarmuid Denneny . He is a professional lead physiotherapist at the Pain Management Center at the University of College London Hospital’s NHS Foundation Trust. He has w...
Aug 08, 2019•35 min
We are talking about how to use mindfulness to treat or alleviate chronic pain. Our expert guest is Dr. Ronald Siegel. He’s an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Harvard Medical School where he has taught for over 35 years. He’s a longtime student of mindfulness meditation and serves on the board of directors and faculty of The Institute for Meditation and Psychotherapy. He teaches internationally about the application of mindfulness practice in psychotherapy and maintains a private clinical p...
Aug 01, 2019•50 min
We’ve got an episode that is full of some good news that I can’t wait to share with you. When I first started this podcast over a few years ago, the CDC had released information about the opioid crisis as well as the overprescribing of opioids and its contribution to addiction, abuse and fatalities. Since then, the CDC guidelines have been pushing toward early non-drug or what is known as non-pharmacologic treatment options for patients with pain. We are definitely making some progress. Along wi...
Jul 25, 2019•23 min
I'm super honored and grateful that you decided to join me and read this episode where we are talking about the evolution of integrative healthcare and its influence on pain care. As I was putting together the pieces of the podcast, I realized that the word integrative and integrative health is one that's thrown around with not on a very solid definition. Integrative healthcare is simply an individualized holistic and evidence-based approach to healthcare as well as pain care. A true integrative...
Jul 18, 2019•43 min
We're discussing the important topic of how to improve children's pain management. If you're not aware of the lack of pain management that children or adolescents experience, it's because it doesn't receive a lot of attention. I want to share a vital statistic that our guest speaker shared with me. Did you know that more than two-thirds of children in hospitals experienced painful procedures with absolutely no pain management? They don't receive any pain management. This includes pain management...
Jul 04, 2019•37 min
As you have followed along with each episode of this show, you probably got the feeling that I'm a little bit passionate about how nutrition can be used to treat chronic pain and other chronic diseases. I have had physicians on the show discussing nutrition, health coaches, chiropractors, nurses and physical therapists all talking about how nutrition can impact chronic pain. As I reflect back on these 140 episodes, the one thing we have not discussed is how to treat acute pain using nutrition an...
Jun 27, 2019•41 min
We have clinical psychologist, Dr. Jill Stoddard. She's going to be talking about the topic of Experiential Practice in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for Chronic Pain. Jill is the Founder and Director of the Center for Stress and Anxiety Management , an outpatient psychotherapy clinic specializing in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy as well as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for anxiety. She received her PhD in Clinical Psychology from Boston University and completed her postdoctoral fellowshi...
Jun 20, 2019•49 min
I’m super honored that you're spending this time with me. As many of you know, the month of June is Gay Pride or what is known as LGBT Pride Month across the globe. This is a time of celebration as well as one of increased awareness where the LGBT community promotes their equality, builds community and celebrate sexual diversity and gender variance. If you've been following along with the blog, I interviewed clinical psychologist, Lore Dickey , about transgender healthcare. Now, you'll meet Dr. ...
Jun 13, 2019•36 min
It's a pleasure to be spending this time with you. One of the activities that I do each week is I set aside some time to sit down and brainstorm about all the various topics that are related to chronic pain. The reason why I do that is it helps me find interesting and inspiring people to share with you on this show. If you follow this show for probably for a couple of years I've been doing it, you know that I've spoken about popular topics such as pain education, pain psychology, exercise, physi...
Jun 06, 2019•46 min
If you're following the latest in pain science or maybe you've attended certain lectures, you know that pain science education is on the tip of everyone's tongue these days. Whether you come from the explain pain camp, that's my personal favorite, or maybe the pain neuroscience education camp, pain biology and intervention, more and more professionals are using to treat chronic pain. There's a good reason for this. We have a growing body of evidence that states that pain education can improve th...
May 30, 2019•39 min
If you follow this show for some time, you know that one of the aims of this show is to help reconceptualize pain from a biomedical perspective and increase the awareness of a biopsychosocial approach to pain care. Chronic pain has long been recognized as an experience that can threaten your need for safety, both physically and psychologically, but what about feeling safe from a social context? Social context can be a powerful mediator and influence how pain is experienced. The social context of...
May 23, 2019•36 min
I’ve been so excited to put this all together for you and to share with you. You will meet an exceptional physical therapist who is helping women with chronic pain and anxiety by combining physical therapy with functional nutrition. Lauren Bahr is a licensed physical therapist. She’s a health coach and she’s a graduate of the Functional Nutrition for Chronic Pain certification program at the Integrative Pain Science Institute . Lauren combines physical therapy together with functional nutrition ...
May 16, 2019•40 min
