These are frank and sometimes raw discussions with regular people just like you - sharing genuine experiences with aches and pains. Each episode is a uniquely crafted tapestry of pain, life and learning. Let these conversations about everyday pain shed light on your own situation. Let them entertain you and inspire you to see something lighthearted or poignant in the face of pain. Notice the thread of human connection and see that you are far from alone. Relief and resolution often starts with…
Subscribe:.rss.atom.json.md.m3u.pls
Live Last read · last published · next check
Saves to your Listen queue, to pick up on another day or another device.
Episode summary Pain science often describes pain as a smoke detector that's become oversensitive. Dr. Ya-Ling explains where that idea is genuinely useful, why it doesn't apply to most of the pain she sees, and how applying it too early may help create the very chronic pain it was meant to address. Along the way, the real explanation for morning back stiffness. In this episode • Why low back…
Episode summary Dr. Ya-Ling explains the self-interested reason she keeps asking people to speak up about small things — and why the dramatic relief that looks so impressive in a treatment room is almost never the outcome she's after. This episode is about the difference between rescue and lasting change, and about the two reasons people wait. In this episode • Why arriving in crisis produces the…
Episode summary One of the fittest patients on Dr. Ya-Ling's schedule came in to talk about a little stiffness in her back in the mornings — a complaint most people would never have mentioned. This episode is about why she did, and about the quiet cultural rule that says a symptom has to be big enough before it's allowed to count. In this episode • The 71-year-old patient who trains several times…
Episode summary: Dr. Ya-Ling shares more of the patient-experience from this week's Substack—a woman who recognized herself as an Achiever, then a Protector, then a Critic at different stages of her life, and then caught herself judging herself for being a Critic. A warm, funny look at what happens when self-awareness turns into another round of self-judgment, and what to ask instead. In this…
Episode summary: Dr. Ya-Ling responds to a mind-body pain conversation making the rounds this week, arguing that naming your emotions and understanding what your body is doing in space are two different, equally necessary layers of pain coping. She also marks the book birthday of Fix the Fire Damage , now an award-winning title, and shares more on Pain-Proof Your Home™. In this episode: - A…
Episode summary: Dr. Ya-Ling closes out her three-part series on pain personalities with the Protector — not a timid pattern, but a genuine attempt to do things right and protect long-term well-being, with a surprise cost: movement and activity are often what quietly gets sacrificed to worry. She also reveals the offer she teased last week: Pain-Proof Your Home™, now open for founding…
Episode summary: Dr. Ya-Ling introduces the Achiever—one of three pain personalities she sees most often in practice—the pattern of overriding pain signals rather than ignoring them. Plus: news on the newly-live audiobook and its new foreword, and a first tease of what's coming next. In this episode: The difference between overriding a pain signal and truly ignoring one Why the Achiever pattern is…
Episode summary: Every pain personality carries an unspoken pattern into the clinical encounter — one that shapes how pain gets interpreted and whether anything in treatment actually leads to relief. In this episode, Dr. Ya-Ling focuses on the Critic: the self-punishing narrative that operates underneath the description, why it disrupts the Five S's of Better Pain Coping™ at the very first step,…
Episode summary: Researchers call summer the "skill-installation window" — and Dr. Ya-Ling makes the case for what's worth installing in it. In this episode, she introduces the Five S's of Better Pain Coping™ as emotional intelligence for your body, walks through See It (the foundational first S) for kids and adults alike, and explains why each pain personality type — Achiever, Protector, and…
EPISODE SUMMARY Sometimes the most important clinical decision isn't what treatment to try next — it's recognizing when the current approach has reached its limit. In this episode, Dr. Ya-Ling shares the story of a 70-year-old patient whose shoulder pain wasn't feeling or moving as expected, and what happened when she brought in a different perspective. The lesson extends well beyond the clinic:…
