Ever feel like a hamster stuck in a wheel of pain? Lord knows I have. Questioning if I would ever get my life back. Stuck in a wheel of Boom and bust. Good days and bad days, unpredictability, lost in brain fog and medication haze. Stuck in cycles of pushing hard and then being stuck in bed. Never sure why or where the pain came from and the pain destroys the ability to have motivation, be creative, or be inspired to do in this life.
Real life can be challenging at the best of times, let alone when suffering from severe chronic pain that affects every waking moment. Then, when you try to get to sleep, it so often affects that part of your life too.
Boom and Bust: What is it
The Boom Bust Cycle, I’m sure you are familiar with it. I know I am.
BOOM: I don’t feel too bad. I’m going to do the laundry, get some chores done, go shopping, run a marathon and solve world hunger.
BUST: That was too much and now I feel like death. I will have to now recover for three weeks.
BOOM: Those three weeks of recovery did me good. I feel pretty good today. I’m going to do a lot of other random things I feel like I need to catch up on all at once and see what happens.
BUST: I did not expect this pain to happen again. *curses the sky and lays back down as thinking hurts much less moving*.
I’m going to guess you recognize this hellish little circle. It is experienced by many people with chronic pain. Many find difficulty balancing activity and rest. Some people with chronic pain rest almost all the time. Whether this started this when your pain was in the early stages thinking that rest would help or it came later when the pain was so bad everything hurt to do – it all results in not moving very much. However, with all the lack of movement, we have become so deconditioned everything is more challenging.
Stamina has changed and it’s difficult to keep at a task for even short periods of time. This is most likely due to nervous system sensitivity and deconditioning that increase the experience of pain. If this sounds familiar, do not lose hope. You can regain mobility and stamina but it is vital to begin and continue very slowly and gently. The concept we need to learn is called pacing and I will cover it in my next blog post.
The flip side of those who rest too much are those who force themselves to keep going until they get all their work done. They push on despite their pain at whatever cost and then they collapse in terrible pain at the end of the day. To get through the day, they may have taken extra pain medication, may have been irritable, and not very pleasant to be around. They may accomplish their goal but it’s at great expense, sometimes even taking days or weeks to recover. Raise your hand if you know what I mean. I confess this was me more often than not.
So you felt good and pushed or you pushed because you had to or felt like you had to (BOOM) and then wham, increase in pain, and you’re knocked down again (BUST). So now what?
Boom and Bust: How to stop the cycle
Good News, there is a way to stop this cycle. We can’t always change pain, but we can learn things to make life more livable and full of the things we want and reduce flares. Those flares often come with the Boom-Bust cycle.
The ‘not so good news’ is that it will take commitment and hard work on your part, but as they say, with the right mindset and team around you, anything is possible.
Pacing is the key to stopping this cycle. The idea of planning your activities and planning a rest break before your pain forces you to stop is a key technique of pacing – this is in contrast to working to tolerance. When you work to tolerance, you push yourself to your limit.
It will take time and patience. Lots of patience. You will have to adjust and readjust and that’s ok. It’s like a dance with two steps forward and one step back. Acceptance and mindset will become important to you as your work to learn a pace that is right for you.
Over time you will find your good days becoming a thing of the past as the ‘boom-bust cycle’ repeats itself. This can be remedied by taking things very slowly and systematically planning activity and rest; by planning and sticking to it, you are in more control of your pain.
Remember you aren’t alone.
I’ve made more resources for you! This online self-paced class, Managing Pain Flares will help you learn to tame the Boom-Bust cycle and manage your flares like a Boss
