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Everything Matters
in treating chronic and persistent pain
What is chronic or persistent pain?
Chronic or persistent pain is pain that you've had on all or most days for longer than 3 months. It can be related to a condition such as arthritis, it might be an injury that you feel just won't heal, or it might have come on for seemingly no reason at all.
It's frustrating, debilitating, life changing, and you probably feel like you've tried everything. But there might be something new....
A new model & approach
Traditionally, it has been thought that if a person is experiencing pain, then there must be something wrong with the body, that there must be some damage. If we find that damage, then we can fix it and the pain will go away.
But we know now that there is far more to pain than what is going on in the tissues of your body. And that is a good thing!
Factors other than tissue health affect pain!
If pain was only affected by what was happening in the tissues it might make sense that our pain should be consistent across the day.
But our pain changes across the day doesn't it? So logically, that tells us that there must be other things affecting pain levels. And that is now known to be true.
It turns out that pain is an incredibly complex experience that is influenced by many things, in fact, it's influenced by almost everything. The new, and gold standard approach to treating chronic and persistent pain is what is called a biopsychosocial approach. That means, that as well as looking at what is going on in the tissues (the bio- part) we also need to look at the psychological and social aspects.
The psychological part might include things like how you feel about your pain, your mood, how you talk to yourself about your pain, your emotional responses, anxiety and depression.
The social part of the biopsychosocial approach to treating chronic and persistent pain might involve looking at things such as your enviroment, leisure activities and the things you do (or don't do) because of your pain, relationships with family, friends, work colleagues and their attitudes to your pain, even access to pain care and medical professionals.
All of these components intertwine to create the protective output of pain. And that is a good thing, we need pain to help us stay alive. But in chronic pain, that protection system is too sensitive, it's overprotective and does not seem to be helpful at all!
Learning about, and understanding how to turn down your overprotective pain system has been shown to be the most clinically effective way to reduce chronic pain and perhaps more importantly, give people a sense of 'having their life back'.
This is a whole person approach to treating you, not just your pain. You are more than your pain, your treatment should reflect that.
Knowledge is Power!
If you want to:
- Do more - Hurt less - Think more clearly - Sleep better - Laugh more - Feel stronger and fitter - Take fewer medications - Not have to think about how to get through your day - Enjoy life more
And you're ready to:
- Work collaboratively with a Pain Coach
- Be open minded- Begin a new journey- Be ok with doing homework- Work hard to apply new and challenging concepts- Set some lofty goals
Then:
Let's get started!
Contact your local Pain Coach.