{"id":1433,"date":"2026-09-02T13:09:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-02T20:09:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/health\/?p=1433"},"modified":"2026-09-02T13:09:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-02T20:09:13","slug":"from-patient-to-researcher-cynthia-thomson-is-changing-how-chronic-pain-is-treated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/health\/from-patient-to-researcher-cynthia-thomson-is-changing-how-chronic-pain-is-treated\/","title":{"rendered":"From patient to researcher: Cynthia Thomson is changing how chronic pain is treated"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post was originally published here.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

After living with chronic pain for more than a decade, University of the Fraser Valley (UFV) researcher Dr. Cynthia Thomson is helping reshape how clinicians across Canada understand and treat it.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Supported by\u00a0Fraser Health<\/span>,<\/span>\u00a0Cynthia, an associate professor of kinesiology at UFV<\/a>,\u00a0is leading a national advisory panel planning project to develop a guide, supportive\u00a0tools,\u00a0and training for clinicians.\u00a0It\u2019s\u00a0work\u00a0that\u00a0she hopes will help modernize the treatment of chronic pain.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOne in five Canadians experience persistent pain,\u201d\u00a0Cynthia says.\u00a0\u201cUnfortunately, many\u00a0are recommended\u00a0sub-optimal\u00a0treatments.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In\u00a0an article recently published in the\u00a0<\/a><\/span>Canadian Journal of Pain<\/span><\/i>,\u00a0which she produced in collaboration with a team of health-care professionals and patient\u00a0partners, Cynthia\u00a0advocates replacing the traditional biomedical model of pain diagnosis and treatment with the biopsychosocial (BPS) model.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Put simply, the biomedical model focuses primarily on physical causes and treatments, while the biopsychosocial model recognizes that biological,\u00a0psychological,\u00a0and social factors all influence how pain is experienced. Cynthia has published two recent papers on the subject, including one that was recognized as\u00a0paper of the\u00a0year by the Canadian Pain Society.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Cynthia\u2019s work is grounded in lived experience.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cFor more than 10 years, I lived with chronic pain that affected every aspect of my daily life,\u201d\u00a0she says.\u00a0\u201cAnd the idea in my head was always that it was nerve stuff, something being pinched, something that was wrong structurally or out of alignment.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBut during the pandemic, I lost access to so-called physical treatments, and that\u2019s when I turned to\u00a0the literature\u00a0and discovered the neuroscience of pain.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Cynthia learned that pain is profoundly influenced by thoughts,\u00a0emotions,\u00a0and learned\u00a0experiences \u2014 concepts that, she says, had never been discussed by any of her clinicians.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAs a researcher, I dove into it full on, and just learning about the science of pain improved and, although it took some time, eventually\u00a0eliminated\u00a0my own pain,\u201d\u00a0she recalls.\u00a0\u201cIf everything is perceived in the brain, why should pain be\u00a0any different? Once I recognized that, I was able to recognize the activities and thought patterns that triggered this vicious cycle and start<\/span>ed<\/span>\u00a0training my brain.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Cynthia was floored by her\u00a0relatively quick\u00a0recovery. Everything she had ever been told\u00a0suggested\u00a0chronic pain was something to be managed, not cured.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI know not every story is like mine, but many members of my research team have had similar experiences,\u201d\u00a0she says.\u00a0\u201cThey got through their pain by learning about pain science and retraining their brain, and now we all have this mission to share knowledge that is strongly supported in the scientific literature but isn\u2019t translating into clinical practice.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In her most recent study, participants had lived with chronic pain for an average of 14 years, and discussions with clinicians rarely addressed the neurological aspects of pain.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThey were always prescribed medication, physical therapy or surgery, and they were surprised they hadn\u2019t heard anything about the mental aspects of pain from their health-care professional, especially because it would have given them something they could do to help themselves,\u201d\u00a0Cynthia says.\u00a0\u201cIt made me realize that what\u2019s happening in practice is very much not aligned with the current state of evidence.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Cynthia is quick to say that this\u00a0isn\u2019t\u00a0out of apathy or stubbornness. Clinicians have traditionally been trained using the biomedical approach, and only recently has the biopsychosocial model gained traction in medical school curricula, despite being accepted practice for decades.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIf you think about Indigenous ways of knowing, the medicine wheel views health as having mental and spiritual components in addition to physical,\u201d she notes. \u201cBut our colonial ways\u00a0became\u00a0so focused on medicine, and it\u2019s only in the last few years that it\u2019s starting to change.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a feeling among some clinicians that they\u2019re not equipped or comfortable educating patients about the biopsychosocial model, or they simply don\u2019t know enough about it,\u201d\u00a0she says.\u00a0\u201cGetting health-care professionals to change their\u00a0behaviour\u00a0is hard, and you have to think of every way to help them adopt it as easily as possible.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Between Pain Canada, Pain BC, and Ontario-based Power Over Pain Portal, Cynthia says there are strong partners ready to house the resources her team is creating. The next big step will be implementation \u2014 getting the information into the hands of the clinicians who can use it.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Ultimately, she\u00a0believes her team\u2019s work will positively\u00a0impact\u00a0many people who have lost hope.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Cynthia recalls one woman from a study who\u00a0wasn\u2019t\u00a0able to cut vegetables because of chronic pain. After seeking out the resources, she attended a\u00a0<\/span>garden<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>harvest with friends and realized she had been chopping peppers for two hours.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cShe started to cry because she realized she wasn\u2019t in pain,\u201d Cynthia says. \u201cI put my heart and soul into my work, and those stories make it worth it. They keep me going. I\u2019m motivated to do more and make sure more people know about this.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Story by Eric Welsh \u2013\u00a0eric.welsh@ufv.ca<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post was originally published here. After living with chronic pain for more than a decade, University of the Fraser Valley (UFV) researcher Dr. Cynthia Thomson is helping reshape how clinicians across Canada understand and treat it.\u00a0 Supported by\u00a0Fraser Health,\u00a0Cynthia, an associate professor of kinesiology at UFV,\u00a0is leading a national advisory panel planning project to … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":280,"featured_media":1434,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[77,6,98,10,72],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health","category-kinesiology","category-medicine","category-news","category-research"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/280"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1433"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1433\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1436,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1433\/revisions\/1436"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}