Modal Pain Patient Tools
Free, evidence-based self-assessment tools built by Dr. Alex Movshis, MD, to help patients identify the most likely source of their pain before booking a consult. Each tool is educational — not a diagnosis — and is built around the clinical patterns Dr. Movshis uses in office.
-
Pain Self-Assessment
6–10 minutes. Built around: Back and neck pain, Headache (ICHD-3), Joint and shoulder pain, Widespread pain, CRPS, Nerve and post-surgical pain.
For pain anywhere in the body. An emergency check, then a 3D body you can turn to show where it hurts (tap, paint, or trace the path the pain takes), then the history a pain physician takes at a first visit, with questions that branch by area and use the published criteria for that area. Shows the pattern your answers fit, whether the pain looks like it comes from the tissues, a nerve, or a sensitized pain system, and the answers behind each. Runs the logic of the two nerve assessments below when your answers call for it.
Best for: Anyone with pain that has no clear explanation yet, or who wants to arrive at a first visit with the whole history organized for the doctor.
-
Post-Surgical Nerve Pain Self-Assessment
4–6 minutes. Built around: Hernia repair, C-section, Hysterectomy, Mastectomy, Laparoscopic abdominal.
A quick safety check, then eleven questions about your surgery and your pain pattern, including the validated DN4 neuropathic-pain screener. Names the peripheral nerve most likely behind chronic pain after hernia repair, C-section, hysterectomy, mastectomy, or laparoscopic abdominal surgery.
Best for: Patients with chronic pain past the 3-month post-operative window who have been told their workup is "negative."
-
Peripheral Nerve Entrapment Self-Assessment
5 minutes. Built around: Occipital neuralgia, Cluneal entrapment, Meralgia paresthetica, Suprascapular, Wartenberg's, Notalgia paresthetica, Intercostal neuralgia, Deep gluteal.
A quick safety check, then eleven questions about where the pain sits, what it feels like, whether there is weakness, and which spot reproduces it — including the validated DN4 screener and a tender-point self-test. Names the nerve most likely trapped in patients who never had surgery: occipital neuralgia, cluneal entrapment, meralgia paresthetica, suprascapular entrapment, Wartenberg's syndrome, notalgia paresthetica, intercostal neuralgia, and deep gluteal / piriformis syndrome.
Best for: Patients with burning, itching, or shooting pain in a defined patch of skin, no surgical history in that area, and a workup — spine MRI, rotator cuff program, carpal tunnel study, dermatology creams — that came back normal.
-
Chronic Migraine Botox Eligibility Check
2 minutes. Built around: Chronic migraine (ICHD-3), PREEMPT Botox protocol, Oral preventive trials, CGRP preventives, Medication-overuse headache.
A red-flag check, then five questions — headache days a month, migraine days, headache duration, preventive medications tried, and acute medication days — walked against the FDA label for Botox in chronic migraine and the prior-authorization criteria most commercial plans apply. Ends with the right next step: verify insurance and book, document the preventive trials first, or a different preventive or procedure if the pattern is not chronic migraine.
Best for: Patients with headache on most days who have heard of Botox for migraines and want to know, before booking, whether they qualify and what insurance will want to see.