Tina McIntosh had been living with chronic pain for years when she decided to take matters into her own hands. The result was Brain Changer, the ACT winner of our Innov8rs competition.

Brain Changer is a 12-week recovery program that uses neuroscience to put pain management back in the hands of sufferers. When McIntosh developed the program, she explains she was almost at the end of her tether. Chronic hand and arm pain was a daily occurrence and nothing seemed to alleviate it.

“I got by for ten years, managing as best I could with medication, exercise programs, injections, massage, and meditation but nothing had a lasting effect – everything I did with my arms and hands was red-hot agony,” she says.

It was around this time McIntosh stumbled upon a book that was to change her life. Explain Pain by Professor Lorimer Moseley and Dr David Butler. The book helped McIntosh understand her brain’s relationship to pain.

According to Mosley and Butler, when we feel pain it is almost like an alarm system -a response to stimulus within the body which open nerves and send signals back to the brain.

These experts suggest that when pain persists, the danger alarm system has become highly sensitive.

The messenger neurones that deliver the signal have become more excitable and manufacture more sensors for excitable chemicals. Sensors in the danger messenger neuron are activated by these chemicals and when the excitement reaches a critical level, a danger message is sent to the brain. The message is processed throughout the brain and if your brain decides that you are in real peril and you need to act, it will produce pain.

The Brain Changer app is helping chronic pain sufferers rewire their brain.

Moisley and Butler theorised by visualising part of the body and then changing the vision to reflect physical changes you could change your perceptions including the perception or non-perception of pain.

“The science made complete sense to me – I’d instinctively felt that my nervous system was wound up tight. Understanding how I’d ended up in chronic pain was the first step – the next was working out what to do about it,” says McIntosh.

The founder pondered her problem and realised behavioural therapy might hold some answers.

“What I was specifically interested in was exposure therapy, safety signalling and danger identification.”

McIntosh put her theories to the test and used herself as a case study.

“It took about a year of experimenting to put together the first version of Brain Changer, and when I shared it with my health care team (a GP, physiotherapist and a pain psychologist) they told me it was brilliant and that I could help a lot of people.

“My goal when I started was to fix myself – if I could help some others along the way then that was a bonus,” she says.

McIntosh explains it took a year of Brain Changer work to rewire her nervous system. In 2016 she was able to work her first 8 hour day at the computer without pain – a solid victory.

“My tool wasn’t the sole reason for my recovery – I also took medication, exercised and meditated most days and checked in with my health care team regularly. I’d tried these strategies over the many years I’d lived with chronic pain and it wasn’t until I added in a daily program of exposure, safety signaling and danger identification that I started to improve.”

McIntosh says she still uses her Brain Changer techniques every day- it helps her focus her energy and keep the pain at bay.

“My Brain Changer work has also given me skills for life. I’m thrilled when I hear from Brain Changers who say it’s changed their lives. And I’m pleased that something truly innovative has come from my many years of chronic pain and research.”

Find out more about Brain Changer