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painsci.bsky.social
PainScience.com (Paul Ingraham)
@painsci.bsky.social
1.3K followers 180 following 1K posts
Highlights and skeptical snark about the science of chronic pain and injury rehab, from PainScience.com publisher Paul Ingraham. + Digressions into astronomy, Roman history, palaeontology, more. Everything is too interesting to focus!
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painsci.bsky.social
Ozempic works for arthritis. And probably other pain.

Am I dreaming? Too good to be true? Nope. This is the real deal, actual good news we can have some confidence in.

Free summary, lots of nerdy details for members only:

www.painscience.com/blog/ozempic...
The image shows the wordmark “Ozempic” in its familiar red-to-orange gradient logo at the top, a large blue “VS” in the center, and a comic-book style explosion graphic at the bottom containing the word “ARTHRITIS” in bold yellow letters with a black outline against a red halftone background.
November 25, 2025 at 7:12 PM
painsci.bsky.social
Just updated my list. Did a little homework, learned that public libraries are mostly not great for this … but university libraries are quite good, though you do have to be able to actually get to one.
November 16, 2025 at 9:10 PM
painsci.bsky.social
This screenshot went wild on social media a while back. That is some *chef's kiss* irony! Nature took down the paywall on this (ancient) article—no doubt because of the flood of traffic!

Just a bit more about this, and tips on how to get full text papers:
www.painscience.com/blog/inacces...
Screenshot of ironically expensive paywall for a scientific article titled “The growing inaccessibility of science.”
November 13, 2025 at 11:39 PM
painsci.bsky.social
Today’s moon! Still closer than usual for another month. A recent Astro Photo of the Day shows how much bigger it seems—even halved! This is why I’ve been taking lots of moon photos.

And the new camera, of course: Lumix FZ80D, ISO 80, 2400mm, ƒ5.9, 1/250s. Tripod…but it freakishly doesn’t need it.
A close-up daytime photograph of the half moon against a bright blue sky, showing sharp detail in the lunar surface including craters and the rugged terminator line separating light and shadow. Two full Moons are shown. They are different sizes because the Micro Moon image on the left was captured when the Moon was near its furthest from the Earth, while the Super Moon on the right was captured when the Moon was near its closest to the Earth. Please see the APOD explanation for more detailed information.
November 11, 2025 at 6:38 PM
painsci.bsky.social
Pain and suffering: are they different things? Is treating one as good as treating the other? I took a ride on this short train of thought recently. In this new post, I take that train to several more stops, addressing key points raised by commenters:

www.painscience.com/blog/pain-an...
A Venn diagram showing two overlapping circles labeled “pain” on the left and “suffering” on the right, with the overlapping area labeled “pain-related suffering.” The caption reads “Pain & Suffering: Related but Distinct,” illustrating that pain and suffering often overlap but can also occur independently.
November 8, 2025 at 7:33 PM
painsci.bsky.social
Another useless and impractical 😜 but fascinating basic pain science study…

Peripheral nerve injury affects the immune cells of the brain, with activity moving around as the pain goes chronic.

www.jpain.org/article/S152...
Screenshot of scientific paper abstract.
November 4, 2025 at 9:09 PM
painsci.bsky.social
My best moon shot yet! 😄 🌓 This learning curve is nuts. My new camera can get close to this quality handheld & full auto, which is amazing, but falls short of what I really want. So this is on a tripod + full manual, my first time controlling all the exposure variables! A thrill to see this result.
A sharply detailed close-up photograph of the first quarter Moon, showing its sunlit right half against a completely black sky. Numerous craters and mountain ridges are visible along the terminator, especially near the lunar north and south poles, with subtle shading revealing surface texture and depth.
October 30, 2025 at 8:07 PM
painsci.bsky.social
Despite my lifelong love of astronomy, I’ve never really been much of a MOON guy. But with my new hand-telescope? An excellent “bridge” camera that prioritizes zoom, and which can do THIS? Without a tripod?!

paulingraham.com/super-zoom-f...
Photo of the perfectly full moon, notably not blown-out, plenty of detail even in the bright areas.
October 22, 2025 at 12:16 AM
painsci.bsky.social
See short new blog post for some more detail and links:

www.painscience.com/blog/two-foo...
Screenshot of a scientific paper abstract
October 21, 2025 at 11:12 PM
painsci.bsky.social
What’s with the salamander? The regenerative superpower of salamanders is an inspiring and profound example of what is possible in biology and healing … and so the salamander has been a logo and a mascot for PainScience.com for about 20 years now.
Photo of a blue ceramic figurine in the shape of a salamander, decorated with light blue patterns, which include lines and dots that accentuate its body and limbs. The salamander’s open mouth adds character, making it appear as if it’s mid-motion. The glossy, translucent surface suggests it’s crafted from a smooth, polished material. The salamander is placed on an aluminum platform, the stand of an Apple Studio Display on a dark wood desk, contrasting its vibrant blue against a neutral background.
October 18, 2025 at 11:50 PM
painsci.bsky.social
Read all the reasons it’s hard to find good help for #chronicpain in a NEW POST, the 3rd and final post in my members-only series on this topic. Go here to unlock the series:

www.painscience.com/blog/why-is-...
Screenshot of all text, mostly 15 bullet points, reading as follow: Why is it so hard to get good help for pain? Here’s TEN reasons I’ve already covered: 👉🏻 Pain is a very hard problem (baked deep into biology) 👉🏻 There’s not enough good science about pain 👉🏻 Pain is too easy to ignore and trivialize 👉🏻 Lack of medical leadership 👉🏻 Specialists aren’t very special 👉🏻 The opioid war is catastrophic 👉🏻 Professional pride, tribalism, corruption 👉🏻 Academic and intellectual weakness 👉🏻 Rank quackery, icky snake oil & flaky bullshit 👉🏻 Tech as ESPECIALLY sneaky quackery And I’ve added FIVE more to that master list of bad news: 👉🏻 Insurance-based medicine 👉🏻 Wellness, bio-hacking & supplements 👉🏻 The shabby OLD paradigm of “structuralism” 👉🏻 A shiny NEW generation of mind-blamers 😱 👉🏻 Pain is a job for a kind of healthcare that barely exists I will follow all that doom and gloom with a note of optimism. 😜
October 15, 2025 at 6:00 PM
painsci.bsky.social
Lately the moon has been … what’s the word? 🤔 “SUPER.”

Took this with a new camera! A relatively humble bit of gear, but specialized for zoom, and it is indeed quite special at large focal lengths: a Panasonic Lumix FZ80D. More moon shots coming soon.
Really great high-magnification photo of a 40% gibbous moon against a blue sky. Lots of crater and mountain detail along the terminator.
October 15, 2025 at 2:50 AM
painsci.bsky.social
Imagine having baaad knees…

But then recovering enough to climb THIS mountain. And not JUST this mountain, but also the 7 Summits—the tallest mountain on each continent! 🤯

Amazing knee pain recovery story:
www.painscience.com/blog/is-ther...

Photo by Samdesherpa, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
The morning view of Manaslu, 8th highest peak in the world, from Samagaon village.
October 3, 2025 at 8:25 PM
painsci.bsky.social
Did a late summer trip, 1st stay at Yellow Point Lodge, a fascinating, famous camp/resort on Vancouver Island. Slogan: “Eat. Read. Sleep.” (But we did the eat, read, EXEECISE version: hiking, kayaking, swimming, tennis!

Full review and 20 pics…

paulingraham.com/yellow-point...
Sunset over water, rowboard in the foreground, forest on the far side of the water. Sandstone carved into smooth "waves." View from our room
September 22, 2025 at 8:03 PM
painsci.bsky.social
Pet theories about compensatory injury really do get QUITE silly. 🙄

Compensatory injuries exist, but mostly just the boringly obvious ones.

I’ve banged out a “new” article about implausibly COMPLEX compensatory injuries, which has been in the pipeline for ages:

www.painscience.com/blog/new-pai...
A vintage pop-art style cartoon of a distressed woman clutching her chest, with a red burst symbol showing pain. She wears a teal sweater, polka-dot blouse, and turquoise earrings. A thought bubble reads, “If only I hadn’t stubbed that toe ten years ago!” — satirizing the idea of distant minor injuries being blamed for chronic pain.
September 22, 2025 at 6:45 PM
painsci.bsky.social
“Whoever is spared personal pain must feel himself called to help in diminishing the pain of others. We must all carry our share of the misery which lies upon the world.” ~ Albert Schweitzer
Screenshot of post from Bev Schechtman @ibdgirl76: "PSA of the Day:🚫 Patients: Refusing to take opioids after major surgery or trauma, doesn't make you a hero. 🚫 Providers: Denying opioids to a patient begging for relief doesn't make you a hero 🚫 Providers: And if you make fun of pain patients on social media as a healthcare professional? You’re not funny. You’re exposing the cruelty and bias that are killing people.Pain relief isn’t a moral test. It’s basic, humane care."
September 15, 2025 at 11:13 PM
painsci.bsky.social
A “new” knee ligament: the anterolateral ligament.

Who knew? Hardly anyone! This obscure knee ligament probably shouldn’t be so obscure. But it’s entirely missing from my library of anatomy texts.

[Image from Claes et al. Journal of Anatomy. 2013. DOI: 10.1111/joa.12087.]
A cadaveric dissection of the lateral aspect of the human knee showing labeled structures. The patella is at the upper left, with the iliotibial band (ITB) reflected at the upper right. The anterolateral ligament (ALL) is boxed and indicated with arrows, lying between the lateral femoral epicondyle (LFE) and fibular head (FH). Other labeled structures include the joint capsule (JC), lateral collateral ligament (LCL), biceps femoris tendon (BFT), and surrounding connective tissue.
September 15, 2025 at 7:22 PM
painsci.bsky.social
I’ve lost 5kg in the last three months, and I am feeling blown away by how much easier it feels to run. 🤯 I knew it would feel easier, of course, but I underestimated it.

Next time, I’m going to put on my 5 kilo weight vest to remind myself of what it felt like to run back in May. 😜
A close-up selfie of a man outdoors on a paved path, wearing a grey ventilated face mask with two filter valves, a light blue cap, and a sleeveless white shirt with visible sweat. The background shows a long straight trail lined with grass, trees, and power poles, with another person walking in the distance under hazy skies.
September 5, 2025 at 7:46 PM
painsci.bsky.social
This is me playing ultimate about 20 years ago — coordinating a lot of fast, powerful muscle contractions, mostly without injury. But not always! I think I probably had about a half dozen mild to moderate muscle strains in my 25-year ulti career.

I recently updated my book about muscle strains…
A man wearing a sleeveless athletic shirt, shorts, gloves, sunglasses, and a cap is lunging forward on an artificial turf field while extending his right arm to catch or throw a white flying disc.
September 4, 2025 at 6:02 PM
painsci.bsky.social
This post is for my free newsletter, Project Try Everything, where I report on my long-term efforts to “try everything” to wriggle free of #chronicpain.

No luck so far!
August 28, 2025 at 5:28 PM
painsci.bsky.social
One likely cause of frozen shoulder is…infection. 🦠

It’s a good example of an unexpected—and maybe underestimated—pathological mechanism for a common painful problem: a slow-burn infection of a joint with Propionibacterium acnes.

How does it get in there?
Microscopic view of P. acnes bacterium.
July 28, 2025 at 4:48 PM
painsci.bsky.social
HOW can medical help for such a SIMPLE problem be SO amateurish? WHAT IS WRONG?! 😱

A reader was outraged by a string of examples of egregiously incompetent care she’d gotten for a stubborn injury. All routine nonsense from my perspective—I hear daily stories like this—but she was stunned.
Image from Shutterstock. It’s not a classical statue of a “facepalm,” but it certainly looks that way. It’s actually a depiction of “Cain After Killing His Brother Abel,” by Henri Vidal, found in the Tuileries Garden in Paris.
July 22, 2025 at 7:12 PM
painsci.bsky.social
Caught this neat cloud shadow near sunset yesterday, and just barely: although the shadow lasted for a few minutes, it was only highly distinct and photogenic for about a minute.
July 14, 2025 at 11:48 PM
painsci.bsky.social
Fibromyalgia does NOT affect mainly women. 🤯 And it’s the most glaring example the medical myth of feminine fragility. Read more (1m read): www.painscience.com/blog/fibromy...
A pair of pie charts compares a myth versus the truth about the gender ratio in fibromyalgia. The left chart, labeled “MYTH,” claims that fibromyalgia is 90% female and shows a small blue wedge (male) and a large red portion (female). The right chart, labeled “TRUTH,” states that fibromyalgia is actually only 60% female.
July 11, 2025 at 8:10 PM
painsci.bsky.social
“Changes in lifting technique may relate to clinical improvements in people with lifting-related chronic low back pain”…but NOT by lifting “safer,” not by avoiding stooping.

New study: “Is Lifting Technique Related to Pain and Functional Limitation?”

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
Screenshot of a paragraph under the heading "Clinical Implications", reading as follows: Our study found heterogeneous presentations of lifting techniques in people with lifting-related CLBP, highlighting the need for individualised assessment and intervention strategies. Contrary to common lifting advice and belief, our findings suggest that clinical improvements (lower levels of pain and functional limitation) were usually associated with a transition along a continuum from squat-like towards semi-squat-like and stoop-like lifting techniques, which were characterised by greater trunk ROM and velocity, lower knee ROM and velocity, and faster lifting movement. This challenges the current recommendations to adopt ‘squat-like’ lifting techniques in people with lifting-related CLBP. This supports the underlying premise of interventions such as CFT that guide people with CLBP to be less ‘protective’ during graded exposure to painful, feared and avoided tasks (in this case lifting) (Kent et al. 2023; O'Sullivan et al. 2018). The baseline findings also suggest that for some people, repeated exposure to threatening tasks alone in itself may be therapeutic.
July 5, 2025 at 6:18 PM