You can live a better, happier life despite your pain.
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The pain may be holding you back, stopping you from doing what you love.
It can feel isolating.
You feel like nobody truly understands what you’re experiencing.
You’re not alone though.
According to Pain Australia one in five Australians is currently experiencing chronic pain.
Excitingly, chronic pain is a rapidly-growing medical field and research is constantly improving the way health practitioners can assist you in managing your pain.
So where to begin?
Knowledge is power. Understand the what, how and why of your pain. The more you learn the easier it will be to manage your pain and get more from life. Only you can take control.
Everybody experiences pain at some stage in their life.
It may seem frivolous - the time you bumped your shoulder while you were daydreaming up tonight’s meal.
Other times it may last considerably longer.
A broken ankle thanks to the stylish pair of high heels you used to own?
That will take at least six weeks to mend, with the pain diminishing gradually throughout your recovery.
Some pain is short-term and disappears almost immediately.
Other pain takes longer to settle as the tissues must heal and take time to go through their healthy, reparative processes.
There is a third type of pain: the pain that doesn’t seem to want to go away even after the tissues in the body have healed.
Knowledge is power. Understand the what, how and why of your pain. The more you learn the easier it will be to manage your pain and get more from life. Only you can take control.
It’s when you hurt your back lifting the last box of the day onto the truck at work 20 years ago.
It’s the neck pain that began that frosty July morning in 2002 and hasn’t left you since.
This pain has never properly moved out of home and doesn’t feel like it’s ready to any time soon.
Generally, tissues heal within their expected timeframe and the pain disappears within three to six months.
This is acute pain.
This type of pain, although sometimes inconvenient and not very nice, is functional and serves a purpose.
It notifies us that there is an issue with our body and it must be addressed (eg a trip to the hospital, band aid or a gentle rub on the knee).
Chronic pain is pain which lasts more than six months.
Sometimes the tissue doesn’t heal adequately and so the pain remains.
In other circumstances the wiring in our body has been altered.
We have experienced the pain for long enough that complicated changes have occurred in our nervous system.
The pain switch has been left on and nobody has gotten around to switching it off.
These changes cause us to experience pain with less stimulation.
Sunburn is a common analogy for this: sunburned skin can be painful in a hot shower.
It may be the same temperature shower you had the morning before you forgot to slip, slop and slap but it will now hurt.
The skin has become sensitised.
Our bodies also become sensitised when we experience chronic pain.
Your nervous system tells you that you cannot bend this way or twist that way like you used to.
The lesser stimulus now evokes a pain response.
It is important to know that the pain is not “imaginary” or “all in your head”.
Even if the damage doesn’t show up on a scan, how you feel is valid and these are the reasons why the pain has remained.
Now you have a better understanding of how pain works, let’s talk about what you can do to take control.
- Visit your GP and ask if you meet the criteria for a Chronic Disease Management Plan. This enables you to see a team of allied health professionals for five sessions through Medicare.
- Stay active - the stronger your muscles are and the more your joints move the more your body will thank you. Start small and build. Keep your fluids up and manage your pain afterwards with heat (heat pack, hot water bottle, bath).
- Manage your aches and pains with manual therapy (osteopathy, physiotherapy, chiropractic, massage etc.). Get your body functioning optimally to help manage pain.
- Utilise your support system. Speak to friends and family about goals, little wins and even frustrations you may have. This will help with stress levels, keep you optimistic and enthused.
- Visit a counsellor/therapist. Your GP can also help you access this help through a Mental Health Treatment Plan.
- Work on your diet, choose fresh over processed. See a nutritionist or dietician.