This Doctor Says Pain is all in Your Head

Hinzugefügt: 2026-05-04

[00:00:00]Okay, well, I think now's a great time to talk about a tale of two nails.

[00:00:03]>> Oh, ho, ho. Sometimes things are so interesting that I'm reading about that they make it to my dinner table. So, last night, this is I had to tell my daughters about this. The tale of two nails.

[00:00:13]>> Yeah. So, let's talk about our first construction worker. So, I was reading these great papers. There was this one from I believe it was like 1995 in the British Medical Journal, and they wrote about this construction worker who had been on a job site, and he jumped off a plank straight onto a 7-in nail. So, he was in terrible pain. They rushed him to the emergency room. They gave him really good drugs. He was He was in terrible pain. They gave him a bunch of opioids and fentanyl was one of them. He got all the good stuff.

[00:00:41]And when the good doctors removed his boot, they discovered that a miracle had occurred.

[00:00:45]The nail had passed between the space between his toes.

[00:00:49]>> No. There was no puncture There was no tissue damage. Everything's groovy.

[00:00:54]>> No blood. But, his pain was real. How is that possible?

[00:01:01]>> [sighs and gasps] >> His brain, aka his danger detector, used all available information to decide whether or not to make pain and how much. Pain is your body's danger alarm.

[00:01:12]It exists save your life. So, it used knowledge of his dangerous work environment, >> Yeah. memories of past pain experiences and injuries on the job site. It used the horror of the construction workers' faces, his friends around him, the visual data of this crazy nail, and his brain perceived potential danger, and it made pain to protect him. Tale of nails number two.

[00:01:36]Yeah. Second construction worker, most dangerous job apparently ever, on a job site using a nail gun. Nail gun misfires. He sees a nail shoot across the room burying the wall across from him. Nail gun ricochets backwards, clocks him in the jaw. Yeah, hit him He hits himself in the chin with the the nail gun.

[00:01:54]>> sees a nail shoot across the room, and he has mild jaw pain, mild toothache, mild headache, continues on with work and life for 6 days.

[00:02:04]At the end of 6 days, he says to his wife, "You know, maybe I'll check out this tooth." Yeah, I can still feel this tooth a little bit.

[00:02:11]>> Goes to the dentist. Scans his patient's jaw. And Rob, please put up the X-ray of him.

[00:02:18]Okay, so listeners, >> Much to both men's surprise, they discover a 4-in nail embedded in his face. I spoke with Dr. Seth Renier on the phone. That's how big of a nerd I am. I was tracking down this photo. I wanted it so bad for the book. He said, "This is the luckiest guy ever."

[00:02:35]>> And for the listeners, so the nail has entered the top of his jaw, and it has passed all the way through his uh zygomatic, everything, all the way up into the frontal lobe. The brain is spanning from his upper jaw into his brain.

[00:02:48]>> Yes, and the whole story and the picture is also in the book for people who can't see it.

[00:02:52]>> This guy has an >> [laughter] >> enormous chunk of metal in his face. And I want to say clearly, very real damage, very little pain. Now, if pain were a reflection of how much damage we have to our body, gentleman number two with the giant nail in his face should be in crippling, excruciating pain. Gentleman number one who has a nail in his boot, but not his foot, should actually be fine. And like we have all had experiences like this.

[00:03:23]This is a stark example, but like if you've ever gotten into the shower and you have black and blue marks on your body, you're like, "How did those get there?" That's evidence of damage to your body without the pain. Like we know that pain and damage are not the same thing, but we continue to get sold that lie. Okay, so now, and this is the area that I'm constantly saying on here out loud cuz I heard it from Lane Norton, but I'm relieved to hear >> Lane Norton is a buddy of mine.

[00:03:50]>> Oh, is he? He's the greatest. I talk about this one often, but there's you have two examples of it, but now I have the the precise numbers, which I'm grateful for, which is there's been two incredibly compelling studies because back pain's among the most common pains people >> 85% of people develop chronic back pain at some point.

[00:04:09]>> Chronic back pain, yeah. So, um they scanned 3,000 healthy individuals, meaning people who have zero back pain, no reported back pain.

[00:04:19]>> You got it. And nearly all of the individuals scanned, 90% of subjects ages 60 to 69 and 80% of subjects aged 50 to 59, had bulging discs, disc degeneration, and other anatomical abnormalities with no accompanying pain.

[00:04:38]I want to reiterate that.

[00:04:39]>> Yeah. Like almost all of us with no back pain are wandering around with slipped and bulging discs, and we don't know it. You want to know why we don't know it? We don't have pain, so we've never gotten our back scanned. However, if you have chronic back pain and you go to get your back scanned, and they find a bulging disc, guess what you will be told is causing your pain. They think they have a smoking gun, but you can't have a smoking gun if 90% of us have the same smoking gun.

[00:05:06]But, then that's why when they do those full body scans, like the what what's it called? Pre >> Prenuvo's the brand of one I got. That's tricky to do because it will tell you, "Oh, you have a bulging disc here." And then you might be like, "Oh, fuck." And then your brain will create Have you done that? Please don't do that. Don't ever do that.

[00:05:22]>> did No, I they You'll be my third argument [laughter] I have in in in about this. I want to hit the second one, though.

[00:05:28]>> Yeah, yeah. So, there was another study, too. 1,200 healthy subjects who had no pain. Nearly 90% of them had bulging discs. So, less than 5% This is enormous. Less than 5% of back pain is from structural issues.

[00:05:43]>> Right. And that is not unique to back pain. Those are similar results when you study the hip, the pelvis, the jaw, the uterus, the wrist, the knee, and neck pain. I went so far down that rabbit hole. Like there are study after study after study showing that pain and damage, like the things we find on scans, are that's what we're blaming pain on, but there seems to be very little relationship between the abnormalities found on scans and chronic pain.

[00:06:13]>> It's the ultimate correlation, not causation.

[00:06:16]>> Yes.

[00:06:17]>> Yeah. But, but are people going to like are people listening going to be like, "Oh, okay. Well, when I have chronic back pain, I'm not going to go get it" Like that's the thing because we because of this thing we're sold, which is that pain and damage are the same, it's a really, really hard relationship to break. So, I'll I'm going to tell you a quick story.

[00:06:36]So, 30 years ago, there was a little kid growing up in Jamaica, and he loved to run. He was really fast. And as he grew, something strange was happening to his spine. It started twisting into an S shape.

[00:06:50]And he was diagnosed with scoliosis, but it didn't stop him. He didn't get surgery. He wasn't in terrible pain. He kept running.

[00:06:57]He was faster and faster and faster until he was fast enough to qualify for the Olympics.

[00:07:03]And by the time he qualified for the Olympics, his body was so twisted, his spine was so abnormal, and [clears throat] his body was so asymmetrical that his right leg was I believe half an inch shorter than his left. And his left leg could only put down 14% as much power as the right leg. He won not one Olympic gold medal, but eight of them. Do you want to guess the name of this gentleman who has extremely severe scoliosis, but has never been treated for it and has very little pain? Usain Bolt. And still holds the world record in the 100, the 200, and the 4 by 1. Usain Bolt is the fastest man alive. You should see this man's spine. It is absolutely gnarly.

[00:07:48]It's gnarly. And And so, if the lie was true that damage and pain are the same, that gentleman should be relegated to a hospital bed. He should not be the fastest man alive. And in fact, we are often told that asymmetry is the cause of our pain.

[00:08:06]>> Yeah, yeah. Chiropractic >> again, he's so asymmetrical that his right leg is half an inch shorter than his left.

[00:08:14]And he has yet to have surgery.

[00:08:15]>> You would think that would affect a run.

[00:08:17]Well, check this out. He's running like lightning.

[00:08:21]>> The scientists who study his biomechanics have discovered or believe that it is his very asymmetry that helps him go faster. So, guys, listeners, do not chop off some of your leg just to be faster.

[00:08:35]>> Yeah, it's not going to make you Usain Bolt. Now, here's where we get to my own personal story, which is I did the Prenuvo scan.

[00:08:40]>> Yeah.

[00:08:41]And I'm going through the different categories. They do heart, they do lungs, all this stuff. And I get to uh skeletal system, and I have abnormalities. I'm like, "Oh, what's this?" And yeah, I have significant scoliosis.

[00:08:58]>> At the top of my back, my spine curves to the right pretty dramatically.

[00:09:03]And I went, "Oh my god, all the times my mom was yelling at me like, 'Bring your left shoulder You You always drop your left shoulder in photos.'" And we had no explanation other than it was my laziness, I guess. And come to find out, "Oh yeah, I've had scoliosis significantly. It's visible in photographs now that I have seen the the the X-ray." Um but yeah, I have zero issues up there. I've had lower back pain, but nothing where the scoliosis is at all. No issues.

[00:09:30]And And same thing, I'm like, "Oh yeah, if I were in pain, >> Yeah. and I went and got the X-ray, it would be definitive."

[00:09:36]>> Yeah.