Sometimes it is good to reflect on what we believe. I have had to do quite a bit of that as a physio lately. Things that I have been taught at Uni haven’t quite stood the test of time with research questioning the ‘truth’ that underpinned my understanding of the way our bodies work. In some […]
“Perception is the brain’s best guess about what is happening in the outside world. Perception is inference.” Atul Gawande Our brain does a fair bit of guess work. It is constantly reviewing, sorting, filtering, ignoring, acting on a constant barrage of conscious and subconscious information that it receives both from inside the body and from the environment. It […]
She denies being the artist, although it seems to be a good likeness. OK, maybe I embellished the image somewhat. When her older sister was a toddler, the carpet got covered in black texta. She denied involvement too, but the fact that it clearly spelled TARA was a bit of a giveaway. We live in an […]
We get asked that a lot. It is usually then followed by a somewhat despairing recount of their personal pain story. You can tell they have told it many times. I then find myself writing the same email back to them that I have written many times previously. How are we different? What do we actually […]
Pain is a bit like a musical number in the brain. It has lots of variations and speeds, different lengths and volumes depending on the audience. The music that is played when you stub your toe as you go up on stage to accept a prestigious award might have the volume and length turned right […]
Humans, very similarly to animals are designed with a highly sophisticated threat detection and response system that is responsible for keeping us safe and ensuring we survive. Whatever the perceived threat, whether it be a teeny tiny foreign organism like a virus, being bullied by a colleague at work, surviving a serious motor vehicle accident, […]
Almost every person with persistent pain will find themselves going through a number of different health professionals over the course of their pain experience. The process often begins with our GP, then possibly a Physiotherapist or Chiropractor, quite possibly a specialist surgeon and then later maybe a pain specialist as well. For acute pain just […]
It is tempting to brush aside chronic pain advice from well meaning health professionals because they don’t understand your pain. The advice is often geared towards just coping and getting on with life – functioning despite the pain. It often comes at the end of a course of treatment where nothing has really made much […]
Pain is problematic. As a society, chronic pain is said to cost $33billion per year (and those figures are from 2007). It is estimated that 1 in 4 Australians have chronic pain that has defied normal healing time. Pain gets a pretty bad rap. The thing is, it is necessary. How wonderful would it be […]
Persisting pain can be isolating. It can feel like a dark place at times that you aren’t really sure how to navigate your way out of. It pervades every part of life. It becomes the thing that you have to evaluate in every decision that you make. Do I go shopping? Will a car trip […]