More than pain – endometriosis and it’s impact on daily life   March 18th, 2025
Endometriosis is a painful gynaecological condition where tissue similar to the lining of the uterus, grows outside the uterus (mainly on pelvic organs). The exact prevalence of endometriosis is unknown. This is partly due to the delays in diagnosis, which take an average of seven years. However, its global prevalence is estimated to affect 10% of women [1-3]. In other words, there are 190 million women worldwide who have to manage symptoms such as chronic and cyclic pain, risk of infertility and other comorbidities such as migraines, fibromyalgia and rheumatoid arthritis [2,3].
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Exploring the benefits of deep breathing for cancer patients   March 18th, 2025
Cancer is a leading cause of death worldwide, with millions of new cases diagnosed each year. Patients with cancer often experience a range of acute and chronic symptoms, including pain, anxiety, depression, fatigue, insomnia, and cognitive dysfunction. These symptoms, collectively known as the symptom cluster, significantly impact the quality of life (QoL) of cancer patients. Recent research has explored various non-invasive methods to alleviate these symptoms, with deep breathing exercises emerging as a promising intervention.
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The Power of Phenotyping in Breast Cancer Care: Enhancing Pain Management Strategies   December 23rd, 2024
Breast cancer treatment is a challenging journey, often accompanied by a range of side effects, including persistent pain that can affect up to 40% of survivors. This ongoing discomfort significantly diminishes quality of life, making effective pain management a critical component of post-treatment care. A recent study of De Groote et al. (2024) has opened new avenues in understanding how phenotyping breast cancer patients during the perioperative stage can lead to improved pain management strategies and inform outcomes related to persistent pain one year after surgery.
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Words Matter: The Role of Language in Patient Care   November 6th, 2024
Words have an incredible power to influence our thoughts, emotions, and actions. Whether in healthcare, personal interactions, or professional settings, the language we use can significantly impact outcomes. This blog post explores the profound effects of words. Research has shown that the way information is framed can influence behaviour, change perceptions, and even alter physical sensations like pain.
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The role of oxytocin in chronic pain   November 5th, 2024
Chronic musculoskeletal pain remains a challenging condition to manage, not only because of its physical impact but also due to the significant role psychosocial factors, like stress, play in exacerbating the condition (Kang et al., 2023). Recent research has begun to highlight the potential of oxytocin, a hormone traditionally associated with childbirth and social bonding, in modulating both pain and stress, potentially offering new avenues for chronic pain management (Mekhael et al., 2023).
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An anti-inflammatory lifestyle to alleviate chronic pain   November 4th, 2024
Inflammation is a vital part of the body’s defence mechanism, but its role extends far beyond fighting off infections. It can be linked to a wide range of conditions such as pain, fatigue, cancer, and diabetes. But how does this process contribute to such diverse symptoms?
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The Role of Perceived Injustice in Chronic Pain: What We Know and Why It Matters   November 1st, 2024
When people think about chronic pain, it is often focused on physical symptoms. However, there is a great shift towards a biopsychosocial (compromising biological, psychological and social factors) thinking of pain1 to understand the complete context.
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CONTRADICTORY MESSAGES ABOUT PAIN: WHAT ABOUT PAIN EDUCATION IN CURRENT CURRICULA?   August 30th, 2024
Finding the cause of a patient’s pain complaint can be a real struggle for both the patient and the healthcare provider, especially when the pain is chronic (i.e., lasts longer than three months (1)) and widespread. This struggle often leads to frustration in many patients, as the messages they receive about the cause and treatment of their pain are often contradictory, depending on their healthcare providers (2). Unfortunately, this problem is very common in daily clinical practice.
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Pijn: een expeditie naar interdisciplinair gebied   August 29th, 2024
Nieuw zijn in de wereld van pijnonderzoek, maar zeker wel vol zitten met interesse en motivatie, moedigde mij aan om in de literatuur te duiken rond het onderwerp. Niet enkel in professionele en academische context, maar ook daarbuiten in het dagelijkse leven kreeg mijn leeslijst langzaamaan een andere inhoud. In deze tekst vertel ik de lezer graag meer over mijn meest recente literair avontuur: Pijn: een expeditie naar onbestemd gebied, door Sanne Bloeminck.
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Shifting the Focus: How the European Pain Federation’s Latest Position Paper on Physical Activity for chronic pain and the PECAN Study can Transform Chronic Pain Management After Breast Cancer   August 28th, 2024
Chronic pain is a significant issue that affects millions of people, including those who have survived breast cancer. Traditional treatments often focus on medications, but recently published insights from the European Pain Federation (EFIC) are shifting the spotlight toward physical activity as a primary intervention for chronic pain.
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THE INFLUENCE OF CHRONIC STRESS ON CORTISOL LEVELS AND ITS ASSOCIATION WITH CHRONIC PAIN   August 27th, 2024
An introduction to the stress response systems In modern society, we have to deal with daily stressful events challenging our own body and its capabilities1. Think about posting something on Instagram and waiting for that first like, managing a heavy workload with strict deadlines, or worrying about the things you will have to do tomorrow.
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What’s in a name? Discussion about whiplash associated disorders (WAD)   August 27th, 2024
Whiplash associated disorders (WAD) have been a source of discussion for a long time. Controversy exists between the presence of chronic complaints of the cervical spine and a sustained whiplash trauma with questions about the diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis of whiplash injuries (Yadla S et al, 2008).
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“Are you a catastrophizer?” Understanding the patient perspective on pain catastrophizing   August 26th, 2024
The term "catastrophizing" was first introduced in 1962 by A. Ellis to describe a key factor in emotional dysfunction.1 He defined it as “exaggerating adversities into something far worse than they actually are; seeing things at their worst when they are sometimes relatively minor; and greatly exaggerating the frequency and/or danger of something that you dislike”.
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The social prescription: why do we need to pay attention to the social environment and support of our patients?   July 23rd, 2024
The American College of Lifestyle Medicine identifies social connection as one of the essential pillars of therapeutic lifestyle interventions for treating chronic conditions. This pillar, alongside others such as nutrition, physical activity, stress management, restorative sleep, and the avoidance of risky substances like tobacco and alcohol, plays a crucial role in promoting health.
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The Healing Power of Breath: Exploring Deep Breathing Exercises for Pain Management   May 31st, 2024
In the hustle and bustle of modern life, it's easy to overlook the simple yet profound act of breathing. However, for centuries, cultures around the world have recognized the therapeutic benefits of deep breathing exercises. In this blog post, we delve into the realm of breathwork and its remarkable potential in managing pain, offering a holistic approach to well-being that harnesses the power of the breath.
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Chronic pain: The brain didn’t get the message.   May 31st, 2024
Lisa Feldman Barrett, a well-respected neuroscientist, psychologist and known for her groundbreaking research on emotion, the brain, and the mind, shares some sublime insights in her book “How Emotions are Made.
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Phenotyping nociceptive, neuropathic, and nociplastic pain in the past, present and future   May 30th, 2024
​Do you consider all myofascial pain to be nociceptive pain? Do you consider all carpal tunnel syndrome and/or all post-chemotherapy pain pure neuropathic pain? Do you explain pain in the same way to patients with nociceptive, neuropathic, and nociceptive pain?1 If you respond positively to at least one of these questions, we invite you to continue reading. You see, phenotyping persistent pain into predominantly nociceptive, neuropathic or nociplastic pain is not that straightforward and potentially, pain phenotyping has clinical implications.
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A paradigm shift from a tissue- and disease-based approach towards multimodal lifestyle interventions for chronic pain   May 29th, 2024
It’s been two decades since we started studying the role of central nervous and immune systems in patients with chronic pain. Back then, we could not imagine what massive, global impact pain science would have on our profession and healthcare for patients suffering from pain in general.
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Let’s connect:
The importance of person-centered communication in pain management   April 11th, 2024
Pain is a complex and subjective experience that requires a person-centered approach in its management. In the realm of healthcare, person-centered communication is often underestimated in the management of pain. It extends beyond the mere collection of information: it serves as a gateway to understanding and a crucial alliance between the healthcare provider and the patient.
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Does pain intensity still serve as gold standard to measure pain?   April 11th, 2024
The individual feeling of suffering and the personal translation of that experience into a patient’s daily living is the signature of the heterogenous subjectivity of chronic pain. By definition, a painful experience is always a personal interpretation. Yet, despite this knowledge, clinicians, pain physicians and clinical researchers still often use oversimplifications and minimizations of a patient’s health status through unidimensional constructs such as pain intensity.
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Left out in the cold – hallmarks of nociplastic pain yet remaining unclassifiable   April 10th, 2024
Nociplastic pain may not be characterized only by sensory hypersensitivity. What about persistent, widespread pain with numbness and sensory loss or hypo-sensitivity? How do we classify people with no allodynia to light touch, stroking nor hot/cold applied to the skin, no hyperpathia nor temporal summation but with widespread, unpredictable pain, perhaps some weakness, fatigue, sleep dysfunction and/or cognitive difficulties?
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The interplay between breathing and experienced symptoms in cancer patients   April 9th, 2024
Patients with cancer experience acute and chronic symptoms such as pain, fatigue, insomnia, anxiety, depression and cognitive impairment. The co-occurence of these symptoms has been described as the symptom cluster, which is negatively associated with quality of life.
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Unpacking the Impact of Social Support on Physical Activity in Cancer Survivors   February 14th, 2024
One in four cancer survivors will experience persistent pain after ending cancer treatment. In our exploration of chronic pain among cancer survivors, evidence shows time and time again that physical activity plays a vital role in alleviating symptoms and improving quality of life.
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Pain management around the clock: the significance of sleep   February 12th, 2024
Our work and lifestyle choices are contributing to the normalization of poor sleep1,2. This is in contrast with the extensive research linking good quality sleep with positive mood, learning, memory consolidation, and physical recovery. Conversely, poor sleep leads to important consequences for our health1.
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Does my body need protection, right here, right now?   February 10th, 2024
​Before delving into the topic of interest for this post, I would first like you to take a look at the image of the two tables. To most people, this image depicts two tables of which one appears longer and thinner than the other. However, the truth is that the two tables are of the exact same size, both in terms of length and width.
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