Pain Problem Management: My Golden Ticket?

Living with long term chronic pain is heavy going. The pain is invisible, activity is limited and staying positive can be very difficult as it is not always an area that is received well, particularly among certain employers and services. One in five people live with it yet it is barely on the radar. Talking about it is a sure fire way to lose even the most dedicated friend’s concentration and having to attend appointments with medical professionals on a regular basis can become very gruelling, even when the doctors are perfectly perfect in every way. It just gets a bit too much sometimes! 

So when my consultant insisted I attend a ten week Pain Management programme to help me I was not best pleased. I’d endured one ten years before and had come away more depressed than when I’d started as the group was full of people much worse than me and were merely, in my eyes, the ghosts of things to come. But this was my only option available to me as all operations, meds and alternatives were exhausted at this point. I begrudgingly agreed and my place on the course was booked.

This was not going to go well. That I decided before I even walked through the door.
However, it had been ten years since my last course and ten years is a long time. A lot has happened for me and for the medical profession since then and maybe pain management would be a different ball game these days. The course would be to help me build up my activity levels, work on my pacing and develop pain management techniques for the long term.My consultant sent me on my way reminding me I was one of life’s optimists and should give it a go. That was me told. Northern General Hospital has served me very well over the years so it was only fair I went in with an open mind.

All a person needs is a referral from their consultant, requested by the patient or suggested by the GP or consultant themselves. I had my golden ticket (let's stick with optimistic me here) and so I was all set. 

I arrived early and sat quaking in my DMs wishing I’d stayed at home. What on Earth I thought was going to occur in there I’ve no idea but my brain fog was at its foggiest and my heart was pounding its own little rock concert in my chest.
A receptionist asked me if I fancied a drink and shook her head as I tried to retrieve my purse. I sipped hot black coffee while people came and went in the physiotherapist's waiting room.
It was only when a familiar female face waved me through white double doors that I realised another half a dozen people had sat down since my arrival for this meeting. Recognising her, one of the physiotherapists from years before, cut through quite a substantial amount of nerves.
We went through and took our seats in a semi circle of chairs and introduced ourselves. We all had different long term pain problems, a range of ages and backgrounds. Some were quieter, some were more vocal, some were deflated and some were furious. We all had pain in common though 
and that seemed to unite us as the course introduction progressed. Birds of a feather indeed.

I wasn't really sure what I had hoped to gain apart from maybe a few exercises and being able to find alternatives to some of the heavy meds I was on. Many people with long term pain problems often find that meds stack up in terms of dose and side-effect tackling drugs as the years go on. I really hoped there would be alternatives on offer here!

Key areas would include more specifically:

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) - a type of talking therapy that combines cognitive therapy (examining the things you think) and behaviour therapy (examining the things you do) and focuses on how thoughts, beliefs and attitudes affect feelings and behaviour and aims to teach coping skills to help deal with problems.

Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) - combines various meditation practices with modified yoga exercises and mind-body education. The idea behind mindfulness is that by being more aware of the present moment, including feelings and thoughts, your body and the world around you, it can positively change the way people feel about life and how they approach challenges.

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) - encourages people to re-evaluate their relationship with their experiences, including learning to develop a greater division between themselves and their thoughts. These changes are used to help people become more psychologically flexible changing the agenda away from controlling negative experiences and instead helps to focus on setting value-based goals.

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As groups go, we seemed to be a friendly bunch and while coffee break was a general sharing of hopefulness and cynicism we all seemed to be a collection of comrades who might just manage to stick it out.

The course would be nine weeks with the above key areas covered each week on the themes of physiology of pain, exercise, mindfulness, and mental health, with a balance of chalk and talk, discussion and movement. Just the thought of a commitment, being expected to get there for an early start each week and concentrate for three hours was task enough! One step at a time, a few of us decided. Let's just try and get here each week. For one new recruit that would be success in itself.

Most importantly, we'd be meeting at a local medical centre attached to a leisure centre (not a draughty old side room like the one we meet in a decade ago!) and we would be able to access a rather nice cafe. That was all the push I needed! The following nine weeks would certainly prove to be transformative in many ways.