171 | Breaking Down the Neuroscience of Pain, Trigger Points and Manual Therapy with Dr. Alex Anderson

Dealing with recurrent, current chronic pain? Is pain all in the mind? Wondering how different techniques are helping your pain? We have Dr. Alex Anderson, Board-Certified Clinical Specialist in Orthopaedic Physical Therapy, on to break down the shifts in pain science and why pain is important.  Using the biopsychosocial model, Dr. Alex addresses pain through a biomedical perspective, and how psychosocial factors can affect pain perception too. Then, she dives into chronic pain and how pain is interpreted in the brain through inputs of threat stimuli. Discussing chronic pain modulation, she dives into the physiology of  Fibromyalgia and how plasticity in the brain makes pain plastic too! Finally, she provides insight into how manual therapy techniques modulate pain, specifically looking at joint mobilizations, trigger points, and dry needling. Let(s dive into the science of pain! Feeling your low back? Grab your Coba Board. Get your glutes activated optimally during deadlifts and squat variations and get a great full-body resistance workout by activating the core activating and firing up the upper body. Load up the body effectively and safely with your very own lightweight and easily storable Coba Board, using code 'OPTIMAL' to get 15% off at checkout (affiliate code). What You Will Learn in this Interview with Dr. Alex Anderson 4:07 - Consent on pain education 6:23 - Shifts in pain science & do we need to get rid of pain? 9:51  - Contributors to pain 12:35 - How the Central Nervous System works 14:46 - Brain & Physiology of Chronic Pain 18:54 - Fibromyalgia 20:21 - Plasticity of pain 23:39 - How do manual therapy techniques and tools help pain? 26:30 - What is manual therapy doing physiologically in the body? 32:18 - What are Joint Mobilizations? 33:47 - Dry Needling 39:27 - How do trigger points form? 43:03 - How does acupuncture differ from dry needling? 45:00 - How Dr. Alex is exploring her pain 49:58 - Learn more with Dr. Alex Items mentioned: Dr. Alex's Website Dr. Alex's Instagram To learn more about Dr. Alex and view full show notes, please visit the full website here: https://www.docjenfit.com/podcast/episode170/ Thank you so much for checking out this episode of The Optimal Body Podcast. If you haven’t done so already, please take a minute to subscribe and leave a quick rating and review of the show! --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tobpodcast/message