Central Sensitization, Chronic Pain, Favorites, Fibromyalgia, Nervous System, Pain Neurophysiology Education, Pain Science


You’ve probably noticed that my blog is all about central sensitization— the process through which the central nervous system can change over time and become more sensitive to pain.

Personally, I find learning about central sensitization to be empowering.  I spent years trying to find an answer for the pain and other symptoms I felt, only to be told by various medical professionals that my problems were in my head, the possible result of depression or anxiety.

I knew, deep down, that this just wasn’t true.  It’s not that I was unwilling to believe that mental health factors could play a role.  But it just didn’t resonate. I didn’t feel anxious or depressed.  I felt like I was in pain, and wanted it to stop.

That’s why, when I first heard the phrase central sensitization and looked up what it meant, I was so struck.  Because there was a way to explain why my nervous system was acting funny, and causing me to feel things other people didn’t feel, that wasn’t based on my mental health.

So.  How do we know about central sensitization?

A neuroscientist named Clifford Woolf discovered the process of central sensitization back in the early 1980’s.  In 1983, he published a well-known and often-cited letter to the respected scientific journal Nature outlining his theory, entitled “Evidence for a central component of post-injury pain hypersensitivity.”

Although the scientific community didn’t quite accept Woolf’s ideas right away, ultimately he ended up sparking a new wave of research, and his theory of central sensitization is generally accepted today (although much more work still needs to be done).

Basically Woolf ended up discovering central sensitization more or less by accident, in the process of researching something else.

(Now, I’m not a huge fan of animal research, so I don’t love what I’m about to describe to you.  But I am grateful for the results, so for the sake of understanding, here we go).

Woolf was studying the “withdrawal reflex” that caused the rats to jerk their paws away from a painful stimulus.  He tested them over and over again, over the course of a day, and he noticed that he started to get different results at the end of the day.

After a long day of testing, the same rats were much jumpier.  It became much easier to trigger their withdrawal reflex.  They would jerk their paws away even at things that shouldn’t have been painful, or wouldn’t have triggered the withdrawal reflex at the start of the day.

Woolf realized he was seeing completely different behavior in the same rats, and under the exact same conditions.  Only one thing had changed: their nervous systems had been “practicing” the withdrawal reflex all day long, and were now responding to stimuli differently.  He hypothesized that somehow, the central nervous system had changed to become more responsive to pain, after exposure to repeated stressors.

Woolf’s theory was pretty revolutionary at the time. Generally speaking, the scientific community believed the central nervous system always processed pain the exact same way, like a simple machine performing the same task over and over.  Woolf’s discovery turned all of that on its head, by suggesting that actually, the central nervous system can be changed and shaped by its experiences.

His ideas were not widely accepted right away, but his work, along with that of others such as Muhammad Yunus, has now formed the basis for a wide body of research on central sensitization and chronic pain that’s going on today.


We do still have a long way to go.  Much more research is needed, not to mention new treatments to be based on that research.

However, the reason I wanted to go into detail and describe the rat experiment for you guys is this:

If you have chronic pain/fibromyalgia, people are going to tell you it’s in your head.  Unfortunately, even sometimes people who have a passing understanding of central sensitization will imply tell you it’s in your head.  In my experience, people can understand the concept of the nervous system working differently in principle, yet still think it must somehow be related to mental health.

So this is what I want you to know: central sensitization happens in rats.

Your thoughts, beliefs, and fears about pain, and your mood– those can all play a role in your experience of central sensitization/chronic pain.

But those things don’t cause central sensitization, any more than they did in the rats in Clifford Woolf’s lab.

Remember that the next time you feel someone isn’t taking you seriously.  You can’t create your whole experience of pain by “overthinking” any more than a rat can overthink something.

In some ways, your nervous system is its own being.  There are aspects of your nervous system which have way more in common with a rat nervous system than with your conscious, human mind.  (I know, think about that!  That’s evolution for ya).

So if you have chronic pain, don’t blame yourself.  Don’t scold yourself for overthinking; don’t wonder if you’re crazy.  Your body is just doing what it was always going to do, in response to whatever stress/pain/injury you experienced.

There are ways to move forward– promising ways, which I talk about on this blog.

But to me, the first step is to stop blaming yourself.   You are okay.  You didn’t cause this, any more than the rats.

Central Sensitization, Chronic Pain, Favorites, Pain Neurophysiology Education, Pain Science, physical therapy, Treatment Approaches

A little bit more about how pain neurophysiology education works


For example, if you have back pain, your PT will probably give you strengthening exercises to build up the muscles in your back and your core.  If you have a knee injury, she’ll  probably give you exercises to strengthen the muscles around the knee.  This is why when most of us picture physical therapy, we imagine a patient grunting and sweating in a gym while the therapist looks on.


Pain neurophysiology education, however, draws from a different treatment model.  This model is not based on the idea that the patient’s pain is coming an injury in one specific part of the body.  Instead, it targets the sensitized nervous system directly as a source of pain.


acute pain graph



chronic pain graph 2

This second graph is an accurate representation of the state I was in when I was first introduced to pain neurophysiology education by my physical therapist Tim.  I had a very high level of pain, but it was not correlated with a high level of injury in my body.  This is why I hadn’t seen much improvement with any of my past physical therapists– my pain was coming from my nervous system, not from a specific injury in my body.








This graph shows the general goal of treatment:




P.S. I adapted this post from Part 3 of my series on my own patient experience with pain neurophysiology education, entitled “How a physical therapist helped me through my lowest point.”  I’m experimenting with different ways to present information, to find out what works best for people.  Definitely check out that series if you’d like to know more!  I would love to hear any comments or questions you might have.

Photo Credits:

  • Strength training equipment pic: colonnade
  • Balance training equipment pic: kbrookes
Central Sensitization, Chronic Pain, Creative Writing, Pain Neurophysiology Education, Pain Science, physical therapy

There is reason to hope.


I saw a comment on Twitter today which really broke my heart, so I wanted to write this and make it clear:

If you are experiencing pain hypersensitivity (through central sensitization), there is every reason to hope.

If your nervous system has changed one way, it is possible to change it back.

It won’t be easy, and the way forward won’t always be obvious.  But you can do it.

If you are experiencing central sensitization (as the result of an injury, a trauma, or other extreme physical or emotional experience) you have become more sensitive to pain than you used to be.  Your body is using pain as a way to protect you, but it is treating you like you are made of glass.  It is trying to protect you from everything.

Scientists are still researching the myriad of ways in which this happens.  So far, they have identified multiple different mechanisms within the nervous system which can cause this extreme response to pain.

However, the good news is that we don’t need to know everything, yet, about how this process occurs to start treating it.  (Although our treatments will only get better in the future, with more knowledge).

But you can start, right now, by learning what your body is capable of, and identifying the things your nervous system is warning you about that aren’t actually dangerous.

For me, it took a really smart and capable physical therapist who had studied with Neil Pearson.   I expect that you will need a guide as well– someone who you trust, who can walk you through and help identify the ways it is safe for you to try to push through the pain.

Your best bet will be a physical therapist who has advanced knowledge of recent pain science.  (A PT with this knowledge might not easy to find, at first, but luckily it’s becoming easier and easier.  If you email me at sunlightinwinter12@hotmail.com, I can help you get started).

What you need is someone you trust, who you will believe when they tell you your body is capable of more.

Someone who is able to think flexibly and come up with more than one way to do an exercise, if you tell them the first way they gave you doesn’t seem to work.

Someone who will understand that it’s not only about what they learned about the body in school…  it’s also about you, your nervous system, and your experience as a patient.  Your nervous system has to be convinced that your body is safe, before it’s going to stop making things hurt.

Changing your beliefs about pain can have a direct impact on the pain you ultimately experience.  When you truly learn and understand that your body is giving you pain in order to protect you, it stops being so threatening.  This is known as changing your pain from the top down— from the brain to the body.

But then, of course– it’s equally important to keep working on your pain from the bottom up– from your body to the brain.   

If you have chronic pain, or have suffered from some type of injury, your muscles are probably tightened into protective spasms.  This, in turn, will make them weak, if it goes on for long enough.

If you are weak, you are going to have pain and be at risk for additional injuries.  (This is why I went on to develop so many additional problems after I first suffered from compartment syndrome as a teenager, because I had ended up so out of shape).

So you have to work on the pain from both angles.  You need to calm your nervous system down, and help it understand that not everything is dangerous.  But you also need to give your body what it needs, and do everything that you can to help it function optimally.


Doing both of these things is a balancing act.  Getting back in to shape is not about pushing through the pain.  It is not a “no pain, no gain” mentality.

Instead, it is about being mindful.  Being careful.  (And again, ideally, having a trusted coach by your side).

To respect your nervous system, and to accept your body where it is currently at.  Not trying to do too much, too soon, but instead starting where you can.  If you can only walk for 5 minutes, walk for 5 minutes.  If you need to ice your injured knee before you work out, ice your injured knee.

It’s about bringing all of these different things together, and figuring out what works for you.


I touched upon this once in an earlier post, and I have to say, I think I phrased it really nicely:

“There is a middle way, where you learn to respect your body’s pain without automatically assuming you are injured.  This means you respect the pain and don’t try to push through it, but you also know not to freak out because you recognize that your nervous system sometimes gives you false alarms.  It’s about being okay with the possibility that maybe you strained something and need to take it easy, while knowing that you probably didn’t.”

This is the balance you eventually need to find, and having a trusted coach by your side who can help you understand what’s going on in your body can make all the difference.

This is the physical therapist I hope someday to be.  The person who understands and can walk you through, even when the path ahead seems scary.  I have been there myself and I know what it’s like.

I also know what it’s like to regain trust in your body.  To go from feeling as though you are made of glass, to knowing what you are capable of– while also knowing your body has limits, and learning to honor them.

This is the balance you need to find.  It won’t be easy, but it is possible.

Central Sensitization, Nervous System, Pain Science, Quotes, Scientific Articles


Tonight, I’m going to try out a type of post I’ve been wanting to write for a while: taking a scientific journal article on central sensitization, and translating it into plain English for my readers.

I got the idea from Paul Ingraham of PainScience.com.  He has a fantastic “jargon-to-English” article on central sensitization on his site (a translation of a paper by renowned pain researcher Clifford Woolf), which I really love.

There is no reason why you, as a patient and chronic pain sufferer, should not be able to know a little bit about the scientific research being done on your condition.  You are going to need to be able to advocate for yourself, stand up for yourself, and remember there is a legitimate explanation for your pain, even if other people don’t always see it that way.  Knowing there is research to back you up helps.

Ever since I first learned of the term “central sensitization” back in 2011, I found so much comfort in reading these articles.  Even if I didn’t understand every word, just knowing there were people out there who would believe me about my pain, if I met them, provided me with the sense that I wasn’t alone.

These changes to our nervous systems are real, even if some of the people in our lives don’t always understand.


So anyway.  The article that I want to take a stab at tonight is “Central Sensitization: A Generator of Pain Hypersensitivity by Central Neural Plasticity” by Alban Latremoliere and Clifford J. Woolf.  (In the interest of keeping things manageable, I am just going to outline the abstract, which is basically a summary of the article).

The article discusses central sensitization, which is the name of the process through which our nervous systems learn to become more sensitive to pain.

Let’s look at it in bits and pieces:


This basically means that the parts of the nervous system responsible for sending pain signals become more active than they were before.

“Increases in membrane excitability” means that it will take less stimulation for nerves to send a pain signal.

An increase in “synaptic efficacy” means that the nerve is going to learn to be more efficient with the neurotransmitters that it has.  So, even though the nervous system still has the same chemicals floating around in it, it is going to learn to start sending stronger and stronger pain signals with those same chemicals.

Reduced inhibition.   Your body has many intricate systems of checks and balances within it.  It is how our bodies maintain control over our internal environment.

One way our body maintains control is by “inhibiting” some of the signals our nervous system sends.  This serves a really practical purpose– we do not need to be bombarded with reminders that our socks are a little bit itchy at all times.  Your nervous system chooses to block out certain signals when they are not useful, or in emergency situations (which is why people can feel no pain when they are in shock).

But in the case of central sensitization, our body’s ability to “block out” or “turn the volume down” on pain signals is reduced, meaning we ultimately experience more pain.

“Central sensitization is responsible for many of the temporal, spatial, and threshold changes in pain sensibility…”.

There are several ways in which these changes to our nervous systems manifest themselves.

We may find that, when something happens that we find painful, we end up experiencing it as painful in a larger part of our body than we might have otherwise.

I’ve really found this to be true with back pain.  When my back pain was at its absolute worst (before I discovered pain neurophysiology education) one tight muscle or muscle knot could make my entire back hurt.


This means that, in a sensitized nervous system, pain is no longer an accurate measure of the presence of an injury, or the degree to which our tissues may have been damaged by an injury.  The central nervous system is now doing its own thing, and you can’t really go by the pain to know what’s wrong.


This means that we now start to feel pain in response to things that are not harmful, and which would have felt painful to us before.

To give you an example, I once knew someone who also suffered from chronic pain, and she said there were days she simply could not bear the feeling of clothing against her skin.  Just the feeling of a lightweight sweater against the skin of her chest made it burn and throb.

This person wasn’t crazy.  She knew her clothes weren’t “hurting” her.  But her nervous system was reacting as though those clothes were somehow damaging her skin.  There was a disconnect between her rational mind, which knew it was only clothing, and the parts of her nervous system which were contributing to her pain hypersensitivity.

(So… lest I end the post on a gloomy note, not to worry.  That’s where pain neurophysiology education comes in, to try to fix this disconnect).


Phew.  Okay.  That was not quite as easy as I thought it would be, all the times I thought about writing this post.  But hopefully you made it through!

Everything I write on this subject is meant to be a trial, of sorts.  I’m experimenting with what types of stories and explanations make the most sense, because I really have it in my heart of hearts to develop a set of educational materials on these nervous system changes.

So I want to see what works– what makes sense, what resonates.  (And what doesn’t).

I suffered for so long, thinking I was crazy, when the whole time there were answers out there.  And there was no good reason for it, except that most people (including many medical professionals) still do not know anything about central sensitization.

So I, and my blog, and my future potential physical therapy practice, are hopefully going to be doing something about that.

Please let me know if you have any questions, or any feedback on what sorts of things would be helpful in the future!  I do take requests!

Central Sensitization, Pain Neurophysiology Education, Pain Science

Todd Hargrove: Seven Things You Should Know About about Pain Science

As I’ve mentioned recently, two things make me really happy, which I plan to focus on more in my blogging in 2017:

  1. Great explanations of pain and the nervous system
  2. Amazing writing and creative use of language

Well, this fantastic article on pain science by Todd Hargrove at Better Movement has both, so of course it had to be my next post.

This is one of those moments where I would just blatantly copy and post the whole article if I could, because it’s that good.  However, in the interest of avoiding copyright infringement, I’m not going to do that, and will instead highlight some of the quotes that really resonated with me.

Basically, the term “pain science” reflects an understanding of the concept that pain is more complicated than our body relaying us a simple message about something being wrong.

That brings us to our first quote:

Pain is defined as an unpleasant subjective experience whose purpose is to motivate you to do something, usually to protect body parts that the brain thinks (rightly or wrongly) are damaged. If you feel pain, it means that your brain thinks the body is under threat, and that something has to be done about it.

The key phrase here is “rightly or wrongly.”  Your brain will cause you to feel pain if it thinks some part of you is in danger.  And the brain is not always right about this– it’s not that simple.


When a body part is damaged, nerve endings are triggered and send warning signals to the brain. But no pain is felt until the brain interprets this information and decides that pain would be helpful in some way – for example to encourage protective behaviors to minimize further damage and allow time for healing.

Pain is not a simple game of “telephone,” where your nerves send a direct message to your brain about what’s happening in your body.  Pain is something your brain chooses to have you experience, in order to motivate you to do something about it.

This is why there have been documented cases of people who were experiencing extreme injuries or states of physical trauma, yet felt no pain.  When I took my neuroscience course, my professor told us that this phenomenon was reported somewhat widely during World War I, where were soldiers who lost entire limbs in battle and yet felt no pain.  This is because, at the deepest level, their brains understood that they were now going home to safety, away from the battlefield.  In the grand scheme of things, the injury could actually be saving their lives.  That is why their brains did not need to make it more painful– they were already heading home to safety.

Pain is like learning

I have discussed central sensitization before– the unfortunate truth that the more chances the nervous system gets to “practice” sending pain signals, the better it becomes at doing it.

Well, here is another way of explaining things that I absolutely loved:

One unfortunate aspect of pain physiology is that the longer pain goes on, the easier it becomes to feel the pain.  This is a consequence of a very basic neural process called long-term potentiation, which basically means that the more times the brain uses a certain neural pathway, the easier it becomes to activate that pathway again.


I love this metaphor about carving a groove through the snow.  The more times you go over the same thought pattern in the brain, the more firmly you establish it.  This is true for learning a new skill, and it’s true for sending pain signals.

And again, it’s important to remember– this sensitization does initially serve a purpose:

Most of the time an injury will increase the level of sensitization, presumably so that the brain can more easily protect an area that is now known to be damaged. When an area becomes sensitized, we can expect that pain will be felt sooner and more strongly (so that we do not reinjure it).

There are many complicated mechanisms by which the level of sensitivity is increased or decreased…For our purposes, the key point is that the CNS is constantly adjusting the level of volume on the pain signals depending on a variety of factors. For whatever reason, it appears that in many individuals with chronic pain, the volume has simply been turned up too loud and left on for too long.

Basically, our bodies cause us to become extra sensitive to pain following an injury so that we rest the area.  (After all, as my neuroscience professor liked to ask, if you were a cave person with a broken foot, what good would it do you to go out and try to do battle with a saber-toothed tiger?  You’d get eaten.  Better to rest).

However, the problem with central sensitization is that, sometimes, our bodies don’t know how or when to stop– “the volume has simply been turned up too loud and left on for too long.”

The good thing about pain science is, of course, that it provides us with some really interesting entry points to try to break in to these complex pain problems and develop ways to treat them.  (I don’t know why I’m saying “us.”  I’m not part of the “us” yet.   But I so want to be).

So… not to worry.  Just because your nervous system has become sensitized and ended up one way, that doesn’t mean it isn’t possible to change it back.  (And that, my friends, is the main reason for my blog).

Further Reading

If you’d like to read more about pain science, well… I have so many things I think you should read!  But here is what is probably a more manageable list:

Anything and everything by Neil Pearson

Lorimer Moseley & Body in Mind

The nervous system and chronic pain

Understanding pain as your body’s alarm system

Understanding pain as an overprotective friend

What is pain neurophysiology education?

My new and updated “Resources” section!  I have been working on polishing it up recently, so you may find a few cool new things in there that weren’t there the last time you looked.

That’s all for now– please let me know if you have any questions!   Happy reading!

Central Sensitization, Chronic Pain, Pain Neurophysiology Education, Pain Science, physical therapy, Treatment Approaches

What is pain neurophysiology education?

In a nutshell, pain neurophysiology education is the type of treatment for chronic pain that changed my life and inspired me to become a physical therapist.

I’ve mentioned it in passing on this blog, but I decided it’s high time I give the topic its own post.


In my series “How a physical therapist helped me through my lowest point,” you can read the story of how my life had ground to a halt because of chronic pain, until I finally met Tim, a physical therapist who had studied with Neil Pearson.

Tim treated my pain in an entirely different manner than all the physical therapists and doctors I’d seen previously.

He explained to me that after all my body had been through– running 45 miles a week, only to develop compartment syndrome and barely be able to stand, to live like that for two years, and then to undergo surgery– my nervous system had gotten confused.

All the pain doctors hadn’t been able to explain– it wasn’t because I was crazy.

In fact, the reason I was feeling all this pain was because my body was trying to protect me.

My nervous system had decided the world was a dangerous place.  It was tired of me taking chances– it didn’t want to have to deal with another injury.  So it was making everything hurt.  It was making me feel as though I were made of glass.

But I wasn’t made of glass, Tim assured me.  My body was strong; it was capable.  And this attempt on the part of my nervous system to protect me had over-served its purpose.

Tim explained that the surgery I’d had for compartment syndrome had been successful, and despite how much my legs might hurt at times, I wasn’t going to be able to bring it back just by walking down the street.


The pain neurophysiology approach worked when nothing else had, because it gave me a real explanation for the pain that actually made sense.

Before that, all the physical therapists I’d seen (and I’d seen a lot) had taken one of two approaches:

A) You have some underlying soft tissue problem or scar tissue or whatnot that we have to fix with a special treatment, or

B) I can’t really find anything wrong with you, so the pain must be in your head and you should probably see a psychologist.

Neither of these approaches ever made a difference for me.  The “special treatments” for the hidden, subtle issues in approach A never fixed anything or reduced my pain (except temporarily, because I felt like I was doing something).  And approach B never fixed anything, because ultimately these problems were not reflective of my overall mental health.

Instead, I learned, my pain was the result of a specific phenomenon that occurs within the nervous system: central sensitization.  Basically, the underlying principle here is that the more practice the nervous system gets at sending signals, the better it will get at sending those signals.  And that is true of pain signals, along with everything else.


Tim didn’t really use the words “pain neurophysiology education” while I was seeing him for treatment.  Instead, I first found this phrase while I was looking through Neil Pearson‘s website, as Tim had urged me to do.

From there, I discovered the names of other physical therapists and researchers who had contributed to developing pain neurophysiology education, or PNE as I’ll be referring to it in the future.

Names such as David Butler of the Neuro Orthopedic Institute, and Lorimer Moseley of the research group Body in Mind.

From there I have discovered so many interesting resources, and articles, and interesting people doing work on the subject.


For 2017, I’m trying to get back to my roots on this blog.  I started blogging to educate people on the science of chronic pain, and I really enjoy doing that.  So I’m planning to start channeling more energy towards that again.

So I’m going to start fleshing out this section of the blog again.  I’ll be providing a lot more explanations, linking to great resources, and also quoting excerpts from articles that I think explain things really well.

And I’ll be telling my own story, when it comes to my struggle to understand my body, and learning to deal with central sensitization.


For now, I want to leave you with two posts I wrote on some of the main concepts I learned through my experience with PNE:

Understanding pain as your body’s alarm system

Understanding pain as an overprotective friend

These posts tie in a couple of anecdotes from Neil Pearson and Lorimer Moseley that I found particularly helpful.  (Let me say, once again, that I am so, so grateful for their work!).


I hope you find this post, and the related articles I linked to, to be helpful!  I’m really excited about the things I plan to write about in the future, and I hope you stay tuned!

Central Sensitization, Chronic Pain, Nervous System, Pain Science, Resources

The best TED talk ever: Elliot Krane on the Mystery of Chronic pain

Tonight I’m throwing it back to this amazing 2011 lecture on chronic pain given by Dr. Elliot Krane of Stanford University.

I found his talk around the time I was first starting this blog, back in 2012, and it really inspired me to try to tell my own story with complex pain problems.

Dr. Krane is a pediatrician and an anesthesiologist.  He specializes in treating children with chronic pain disorders at the Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford University.

In this talk, Dr. Krane outlines the case of a young girl who developed CRPS following a wrist sprain, and was successfully treated at his hospital.

He has some really great quotes and soundbites about chronic pain– things I want to remember, and things I think will be useful in trying to explain the multi-layered nature of pain to people who don’t quite get it (yet).

So here, I’m just going to take a few notes so I (and you, if you’re interested) can come back and remember some key points really quickly:


Most of the time, we think of pain as a symptom of a disease– the result of an infection or a tumor, an inflammation or an operation.  But about 10% of the time, after a patient recovers from one of those events, the pain persists for months or even years.  In those cases, pain can become its own disease.

Chronic pain is “a positive feedback loop…. It’s almost as if somebody came into your home and rewired yours walls so that the next time you turned on the light switch, the toilet flushed three doors down, or your dishwasher went on, or your computer monitor turned off.  It sounds crazy, but that’s what happens with chronic pain.”

Glial cells (a particular type of cell found in the nervous system) were once thought to be unimportant.  When I learned about them in my PT prerequisite classes, we thought of them as the supportive “glue” that provides a safe environment for neurons, the more interesting cells that were actually responsible for sending messages.

But, Dr. Krane explains, it turns out that glial cells can play a vital role in the “modulation, amplification and, in the case of pain, the distortion of sensory experiences.”  Once glial cells are triggered by chronic pain, they become overactive and help initiate that the positive feedback loop he mentioned.

Some other quotes:


On treatment:

“We treat these patients in a rather crude fashion at this point in time. ”

Dr. Krane describes the treatment protocol for CRPS patients at his center:

  • symptom modifying drugs (painkillers) “which are frankly, not very effective for this type of pain”
  • “We take nerves that are noisy and active that should be quiet, and we put them to sleep with local anesthetics.”
  • “Most importantly… we use a rigorous and often uncomfortable process of physical therapy and occupational therapy to retrain the nervous system to respond normally to the activities and sensory experiences that are part of everyday life.

The future is actually even brighter:

“…the future holds the promise that new drugs will be developed that are not symptom-modifying drugs that simply mask the problem, as we have now, but that will be disease-modifying drugs, that will actually go right to the root of the problem and attack those glial cells….that spill over and cause this central nervous system wind-up…”


It’s really interesting for me to look back on this talk, now, and see how my perspective has changed since I first watched it in 2011.  Back then, the point about glial cells largely went over my head (probably because I wasn’t invested at all in knowing what they were).

Now that I’ve taken anatomy & physiology as well as an undergraduate neuroscience course, I can actually see how groundbreaking this really is, to identify glial cells as a potential source of the problem.

It’s as though you’re looking at a telephone pole, and you realize that the wooden pole itself was sending signals, instead of just being there to hold up the electrical wires.  (If that metaphor makes sense).

Anyway, I really hope Dr. Krane is right, that we can begin to develop drugs that will target this mechanism for chronic pain.

Hope you enjoyed this talk!

Central Sensitization, Interesting Articles

Can music block pain signals? Music-induced analgesia


I, personally, have known for a long time that music could help reduce my pain levels.  It’s just something that I always knew intuitively. Listen to music (good music, of course) –> feel better.

That’s why I was so intrigued when I found the following post from my friend Jo Malby on some of the science behind how music can lessen our experience of pain.  (I’m sharing it here with her permission, of course!).

Jo writes:

“The joy we derive from listening to music we love, much like anything that brings us joy, is always beneficial in helping us cope with chronic illness and pain. According to ongoing studies, researchers have found that there are many reasons for pain patients to listen to music they love.

Outside of the times when pain is too fierce or your body too sensitized and flared-up for sound or vibration, music can be a useful coping tool, though not only for the joy and escape music brings you.

With real physiological changes in the brain, listening to your favourite music can have a significant, positive impact on perception of chronic pain, as well as the pain itself, with some studies even finding music resulted in less intense pain levels.

Music also reduces anxiety and depression, both often natural consequences of unpredictable debilitating chronic illness and pain, and both difficult to manage and treat. Though it’s often under used as an natural anti-depressant.

Research has drawn its theories on how nerve impulses in the central nervous system are affected by music. Anything that distracts us from pain may reduce the extent to which we focus on it; music helps us shift our attention from the pain but it’s also emotionally engaging, especially if the piece has memories or associations.

With even the rarest of tunes now online — from YouTube to Spotify to Soundcloud to more exclusive sites — search for some of your favourite sounds or create playlists with songs that specifically help you through particularly difficult times or when pain is especially severe, and you need to calm it and your state of mind.

Personally, nothing gives my mood a lift like a little Billy Holiday, Dusty Springfield or Aretha; if feeling frustrated, Chavela Vegas (anger’s better in Spanish). More recently, Mozart’s been on repeat. I love music. (Almost) every genre. Find what you love. Play it. See if it helps you cope, lifts your mood, or offers a momentary sonic escape from the complexities that come with pain and chronic illness.

Scientists now know that listening to music involves a huge portion of the brain — auditory areas, of course, but also motor (movement) areas, the limbic system (involved in emotions), and areas of the brain believed to be responsible for increased creative thought.

Anything that lights up areas in the brain other than pain may also be helpful to reduce that pain.  ((Sidenote from Christy: this reminds me of some of the really cool resources I’ve linked to from Neil Pearson!)).

These effects may not be powerful enough in isolation but added to your pain management toolkit, using music when you are feeling frustrated or sad, depressed or angry, lost or alone, all can help you cope, feel better emotionally, and even lessen a tiny bit of pain.

A study conducted by Peter Vuust, of the Center for Functionally Integrative Neuroscience (CFIN) at Aarhus University, Denmark, found that fibromyalgia patients experienced less chronic pain after listening to their favourite music.

Additionally, recent studies on music therapy and chronic pain conditions found that music reduces anxiety, depression and pain— just from listening to music.

The effect is often referred to as ‘music-induced analgesia‘, and though that analgesia may be more subtle than profound, anything that helps you must be embraced.”

Some additional links:

Science Nordic: Music can relieve chronic pain

The Conversation: How music can relieve chronic pain

BBC News: How music can reduce chronic pain

Prevention.com: More music, less pain?

Study: Emotional valence contributes to music-induced analgesia

Body in Mind: Music modulation of pain perception

And for more from Jo:

Jo Malby is an amazing writer living with and sharing her experience of complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) on her site The Princess in the Tower.

She also runs the site Inspire Portal, where she shares resources to provide creative inspiration to writers (and other artists!).

Definitely check out more of what she has to say!

Central Sensitization, Chronic Pain, Favorites, Pain Science

What is central sensitization?

Central sensitization: the back story to just about every story I tell on this blog. I’ve written the phrase a million times, but always in passing, always with a link to an article somewhere else. I think it’s high time the topic gets its own post.

Practice Makes Perfect

We’ve all heard the phrase “practice makes perfect,” right? When you want to get better at something, you practice. Want to learn how to play the piano? Practice. Want to learn how to ride a bike? Practice.

Photo: t.spang

Our nervous systems are always changing and growing, in response to the things we do. Our brains form new connections all the time.

This is how we learn how to control our fingers, and move them more quickly and in more complicated patterns, when we practice the piano. It’s how we learn to balance when riding a bike. It becomes second nature.

Photo: Alan Levine

Unfortunately, the same thing can happen when you give your nervous system enough changes to “practice” sending pain signals.

It sounds crazy, but basically, our nervous systems get better at sending these signals. It doesn’t happen automatically– you won’t develop central sensitization if you stub your toe, or get stung by a bee.

But it can happen if the pain goes on for long enough. For example, central sensitization can happen to someone who’s hurt their back, and has been in pain for a few months. The nervous system has been sending these pain signals over and over again, and now– just as if the person had been practicing the piano for a few months– the task has gotten easier.

Central sensitization can also occur in someone who has suffered a larger degree of trauma in a shorter time period. For example, it can happen to someone who’s had surgery– even if he or she was under anesthesia at the time.

This is because central sensitization involves nerves, your spinal cord, and the parts of your brain that process pain without conscious thought. They are still learning how to process all those pain signals, even if you are under anesthesia. (Of course, I’m not saying this will happen to everyone who has surgery. It is, however, a possibility).

In a nutshell, central sensitization means the central nervous system becomes more sensitive.

Photo: Maryl Gonzalez

There are many different ways in which central sensitization can manifest itself– the symptoms are not always the same from person to person.

The differences have to do with the person’s individual genetic makeup, what the original illness or injury was, and other health issues the person may have. (And yes– the person’s beliefs and perspective on pain can have an impact on how they respond to central sensitization, but they do not cause it. More on this later– I have very strong feelings on the subject!).

Invisible Illness

Scientific research has shown that central sensitization tends to be present in patients suffering from many of the conditions people generally refer to when they talk about “invisible illness.” These conditions include fibromyalgia, chronic regional pain syndrome, migraine, temporal-mandibular joint disorder, chronic pelvic pain, and irritable bowel syndrome.

Sometimes central sensitization is the root of the problem: for example, researchers now generally believe it to be the cause of fibromyalgia (please, please don’t believe the other things you read!).

In other cases, central sensitization is one of several contributing factors (still playing an important role, however). This is more likely to be the case in conditions such as irritable bowel syndrome, which can also be influenced by food intolerances/imbalances in gut bacteria, and temporal-mandibular joint disorder, which involves the physical pathology of the joint. In these cases, central sensitization perpetuates the problem and causes additional pain and discomfort, but is not necessarily the primary cause.

The Common Link

Because central sensitization is the common cause, it makes sense that so many patients with fibromyalgia also suffer from other “invisible illnesses.” For example, studies have shown that significant numbers of fibromyalgia sufferers also have irritable bowel syndrome.

I have so much more to say on this topic– more research to tell you about, the history of how it was discovered, as well as my own personal stories.

But…. as I have to keep reminding myself, I’m writing a blog, not a textbook… so all of that will have to come in future posts!


I think it’s important to always post links to scientifically-valid articles when I talk about scientific/medical concepts.

Here is a great plain-English overview on central sensitization, written by Christina Lasich, M.D., for HealthCentral.net.

Next, an incredible overview of the science on central sensitization from Paul Ingraham of PainScience.com, which is an amazing website.

Ingraham’s article is actually a “jargon-to-English” summary of this important review of the scientific literature on central sensitization written by Clifford Woolf, the researcher who first discovered central sensitization back in 1983.

Finally, check out this equally important article from Muhammad Yunus, who has done vital work exploring the common links between central sensitization and the invisible illnesses (he calls them central sensitivity syndromes in this article).

I realize that the average reader might not be able to understand all of the scientific terms in these articles (I know I struggle), but I want you to know that legitimate and credible information is out there, and this is what it looks like.

A Note to My Readers:

I am always happy to answer any questions that you might have.  I think that all of this information is so important for us to be aware of as chronic pain sufferers!  It can really be life-changing, once you start to truly understand the roots of your condition.

I am always so curious to know what you think! Did you already know that central sensitization is believed to be the cause of fibromyalgia?  Does the common link between fibro and other invisible illnesses make sense to you? Let me know!

Central Sensitization, Creative Writing, My Story, Pain Science

“Why are you writing about overcoming pain, when you’re still in pain?”

A frustrated family member asked me this question once, and it really stuck with me. As much as I believe in my own reasons for writing, it kind of freaked me out. What if other people are wondering the same thing?

How can I have an entire series of posts about how my life was changed by a new approach to chronic pain… and also be writing about how sometimes I’m still in pain?

The answer is that there’s no firm end point, no finish line when it comes to “overcoming” chronic pain. It’s not about finding a way to end the pain once and for all, because that may never happen.

It’s about learning to think fluidly. To accept the fact that the pain might not completely end, but to find ways to work with it, and work with yourself, to get to a place of greater understanding.


Before I discovered pain neurophysiology education, I was a complete mess mentally and physically. I had pain all the time, shifting from one place in my body to another. I could never keep track of it.

I was caught in this cycle for years until I met Tim, a physical therapist who had studied pain neurophysiology education with Neil Pearson.

Tim explained to me that the pain in all of these different parts of my body could have a common cause.

The problem wasn’t in the places where it hurt. It wasn’t in my wrist, my elbows, my legs, or wherever else.

It was in my nervous system—that magical grid than ran behind the scenes, underneath everything, connecting. The underpinning of every single experience I had.  Somewhere along the line, the system had developed a glitch.

I wasn’t crazy, and my body wasn’t breaking down. There was a problem in the way my nervous system processed the information it was receiving.

Pain neurophysiology education doesn’t teach patients to view the nervous system as an enemy to be beaten back into submission. It isn’t about getting angry at the pain, or fighting the pain.

Instead, this approach helps us to remember that the nervous system is there to protect us. The nervous system isn’t trying to get us into trouble, or to make us look crazy to other people. Really, it’s our friend.

It’s just gotten confused about which types of experiences are actually dangerous to us, and now it’s warning us about just about everything, whether it’s really dangerous or not.


In the past, I could never detach. If something hurt, I felt I had to be vigilant, and focus on every aspect of the pain. If I had injured something, I obviously didn’t want to do anything to make it worse.

This wasn’t my fault, and it wasn’t a sign of “anxiety,” as many people so helpfully suggested. I was reacting in the same way anyone does when something hurts significantly.

What made me different from other people was not my response to the fact that something was hurting– it was how often, and how easily, things seemed to hurt.

Now that I know that my nervous system can send me false information at times, I take more of a wait-and-see approach when something starts to hurt.

Even if I can identify a particular movement that caused the pain to start, I don’t necessarily jump to the conclusion that that particular movement is bad for me. Maybe my muscles are just tight. Maybe I didn’t have great posture when I did it, and if I have better posture the next time, it will be fine.

I don’t rush to do the same thing again—I don’t force my body, I don’t purposely test it. I just wait until it seems natural to try it again, and see. Feel it out.


The thing is, I still have a body that went through what it went through. I still starved it, while running 40+ miles a week. I still developed compartment syndrome, and had to have surgery.  I still got really weak, in the years I waited to have the surgery, which has in turn caused other problems.

But I guarantee it would all be a lot worse if I hadn’t discovered PNE.  The symptoms don’t spread through my entire body anymore. I’m not showing up at my doctor’s every other month with a new pain in a new place.

Now, when I have a new pain, it usually fades away.

Does my wrist hurt because that door was too heavy for me—is it possible that I actually sprained it?

Thanks to PNE, I can wait and see.  I know not to assume the pain means I’m injured– but I also don’t push it, either.  Instead, I carry my things in with my other hand, and try to go about my business as usual. Usually, within five minutes,  I’ve forgotten my wrist hurt in the first place.