How can you understand pain?

Welcome to What's Up Docs?, the podcast where doctors and identical twins Chris and Xand van Tulleken explore the ideas shaping our health and wellbeing.

In this episode, they turn their attention to pain - one of the most familiar, yet least understood, experiences of being human.

Joined by Dr Cathy Stannard, clinical lead of the pain transformation programme at NHS Gloucestershire Integrated Care Board and the clinical lead for the NICE guideline on chronic pain, they explore what happens in the body when we feel pain and why two people with seemingly identical injuries can experience very different levels of pain.

They also explore the difference between acute and chronic pain, and what happens when pain persists beyond the original injury. Along the way, they discuss how doctors measure something so subjective, and why some pain treatments work better than others.

If you want to get in touch, you can email us at whatsupdocs@bbc.co.uk.

Presenters: Drs Chris and Xand van Tulleken

Guest: Dr Cathy Stannard

Producer: Maia Miller-Lewis

Researcher: Grace Revill

Executive Producer: Rami Tzabar

Editor: Jo Rowntree

Visual Producer: Leon Gower

Technical Lead: Reuben Huxtable

Digital Lead: Richard Berry

Composer: Phoebe McFarlane

Sound Design: Melvin Rickarby

At the BBC:

Assistant Commissioner: Greg Smith

Commissioning Editor: Rhian Roberts

A Loftus Media production for BBC Radio 4