It's Not in Your Head
Welcome to It's Not in Your Head Podcast, with Dan and Juz. Dr. Dan is a Sports Physician and Justine a Pain Coach and patient. We have come together to find ways to manage complex pain better for both patients and providers. New episodes will come out bi-weekly on all major platforms.
It's Not in Your Head
16 Pain Body Diagrams Explained: How to Map & Communicate Pain More Effectively
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Pain diagrams are a widely underused clinical tool — not because they don't work, but because they're often done incorrectly. This episode explains how structured pain body diagrams, drawn with a clear and consistent key, can make invisible symptoms visible and help clinicians identify nociceptive, neuropathic, and nociplastic components at a glance. The hosts walk through examples covering back, leg, and neck pain, demonstrating how this simple tool can improve diagnosis, goal setting, and progress tracking for both patients and providers.
Resources:
Timestamps:
00:00 Official Intro
00:17 Intro to How to Draw Pain Diagrams
03:03 Where is it? What does it feel like? What's made it worse?
04:26 Turn the Invisible, Visible
06:11 Useless Pain Drawings
07:17 Pain Key
08:51 Plain Neuropathy
09:32 Patient that's Sensitized
12:36 Five Major Causes of Lower Back Pain
17:11 Overlap - Medical Blocks & Other pain
20:15 How do we draw backs?
20:26 Facet joint pain
21:40 SI Joint Inflammatory
23:10 SIJ Osteoarthritis
24:05 SI Joint Dysfunction
27:48 S1 Nerve Compression
28:09 L5 Nerve Root
28:49 L4 Nerve Root
29:04 L3 Nerve Root
32:04 C4 Nerve Root
32:26 C5 Nerve Root
32:45 C6 Nerve Root
33:14 C7 Nerve Root
33:46 C8 Nerve Root
34:57 C1 - 2 Facet
35:13 C2 - 3 Facet
35:49 C3 - 4 Facet
36:02 C4 - 5 Facet
36:12 C5 -6 Facet
36:44 C6 - 7 Facet
37:17 C2 - 3 & C5 - 6 Whiplash
37:38 Pathologies of Neuropathic Pain
37:59 Focal Nerve Entrapment
38:28 Peripheral Nerve - Superficial Peroneal
39:22 Diabetic Peripheral Neuropathy
40:28 Myofascial Triggers
41:57 Multiple Diagnoses
44:39 Multiple Sites
46:24 When Patients come back with Pain
48:24 Cervical Instability
49:42 Recap
53:55 Disclaimer