Overcoming Persistent Pain

Tired of waiting for pain to go away.... then read on

Pain happens when the brain decides to protect us from the types of information it receives. It is your nervous system that does this, not the part of the body that hurts.

For reasons we don’t understand in chronic pain the original cause for pain may have stopped, but many other factors are still there. The brain keeps the pain going and struggles to turn down the ‘volume control’ on the pain itself. A bit like a car alarm that goes off all the time, even when no-one is trying to steal the car.

We know that painkillers have a limited effect on chronic pain but there are highly effective self-help methods developed by specialists in pain management. We sometimes think that self care means no care - but this is wrong. Your pain will be greatly reduced,  and the following information will introduce you to methods that have been proven to reduce persistent pain.

3 before GP

We would like you to do the following 3 things:

• We would like you to have a look at the following 5 minute video about persistent pain
• We would like you to look at the Retrain Pain Foundation. This consists of 1 minute lessons to help us understand pain. We recommend you view it slowly, in small sections to review and apply the information
• Finally we would like to fill in an assessment about your pain and drop this back to the surgery so your doctor can see how pain is affecting your life - click here .Your doctor can then review the assessment in a routine appointment ;if you still need to see them after completing these activities.

Please let us know if you cannot download and print out the Health Needs Assessment and we can post one out to you.

Other resources you may find useful

Persistent Pain resources - perhaps look at a few to see what suits you

• Understanding Pain - What to do about it in less than five minutes 
• How to approach persistent pain
• An animated video to understand pain better
• The Pain Toolkit
• My live well with pain
• Pain Concern
• Sheffield Persistent pain
• Persistent pain - what is self-management?
• Versus Arthritis is an excellent resource with lots of information about different painful conditions including recommended exercises

Patients talking about long term conditions

Healthtalk is an excellent resource with patients talking about different long term conditions including and how it affects them. Click here to find out more

Other resources that can help with pain

• Sleepio is a web based sleep orientated CBT course
• CALM is a meditation and sleep teaching app
• The Free Mindfulness Project provides easy and free access to mindfulness exercises
• The BeMindful website provides an online course for £30 however the introduction is free 
• Headspace is an app based meditation course
• Age UK: health and advice about wellbeing and exercise