The root cause of pain is …

I often see this phrase in marketing efforts and posts online. And I am always intrigued. It is really catchy. It is appealing. But in my opinion it is extremely misleading.

For the simple reason being that there often is no way to know what the “root” cause of pain is. Unfortunately, healthcare professionals are always guessing to a degree.

Pain can not be objectively tested - it is a subjective experience, unique to the individual and influenced by numerous factors.

Our clinical tests are often very inaccurate in being able to identify the exact structure involved in producing pain.

Medical tests often don’t fare much better. Imaging is often poorly correlated with pain experiences.

Another argument I sometimes hear is that they knew the root cause because their treatments were effective in improving their pain. However, we know that lots of our treatments work through non-specific contextual factors.

Unfortunately, pain is grey and very far from black and white. At this moment in time March 2026, in many common musculoskeletal pain presentations, it is often not possible for healthcare professionals to confidently identify a single ‘root cause’ for pain.

I would be cautious about overly simplistic claims of a single ‘root cause’, as they may not fully reflect the complexity of how pain works.

Written by

Samuel Bulten

Exercise Physiologist | Masters in Medicine (Pain Management)

Director, Adapt Movement

Disclaimer

This blog post contains general educational information only and isn’t individual medical advice.