Controlling Your Pain Baseline

What if your biggest breakthrough in recovery isn’t eliminating pain, but learning how to keep it from getting worse?

In this episode of The Talking Rehab Podcast, Dr. Fred Bagares reframes one of the most overlooked wins in rehabilitation: baseline control. He shares why stability is not settling, but actually the foundation for lowering pain later—and how patients who master it often achieve better long-term outcomes than those chasing quick fixes.

Through Maria’s story—a nurse whose daily pain spikes used to derail her life—you’ll see how controlling the climb from a 4 to a 9 was the first step to regaining her evenings, her energy, and her freedom.

You’ll also hear why the “scoreboard mindset” of obsessing over pain numbers can sabotage progress, and how neuroscience, psychology, and everyday analogies—from marathon training to money management—support a different way forward.

🕰 Timestamps & Key Themes:
[00:00] The counterintuitive breakthrough: controlling vs. eliminating pain
[02:00] Why pain numbers (like the scoreboard) don’t measure real progress
[03:00] Maria’s story: from daily crashes to evening stability
[05:00] Two wins of recovery: baseline control and baseline reduction
[07:00] Neuroscience & psychology: why consistency calms the system
[08:00] Real-life markers of success beyond the pain scale
[09:00] The cultural blind spot: why stability feels “boring” but changes everything
[10:00] A new definition of healing: adding predictability, trust, and freedom

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