I find myself deeply contemplative about the last week of information I was fortunate enough to be exposed to by attending the San Diego Pain Summit. It’s taken a bit to decide how to boil down what I am taking away beyond a deep sense of belonging and hope for all those experiencing pain.
For the last week I have been surrounded by compassionate, intelligent, and curious clinicians and members of the healthcare profession everything from physical therapists, massage therapists, physician assistants, anesthesiologists, psychologists, and lived experiencers of pain like me. It’s a bit of a Disney World for those willing to see people experiencing pain as people and not lumps of tissue. We are a curious bunch. Open. We like reading and discussing research and theory and possibility. Most importantly, we want better for people burdened by pain. We want to be able to step in and partner with those suffering.
I want you, the person in pain to know, researchers, clinicians, psychologists pain doctors, and everyone in between is really working very hard to find answers and be less wrong and find better ways to help you improve your life.
Over and over and over again we looked at guidelines and studies and information that has been out in the world for a long long time, yet it hasn’t reached the public. As someone who experienced decades of pain, it frustrates the hell out of me when studies that were done and released during my pain years are referenced. I want to scream – WHY DIDN’T YOU KNOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
If you’ve been in pain long, I am sure you have already come to the conclusion that there is no 1 solution. You would be right. You’ve seen massage help some and hurt others, you’ve seen chiropractic care be a miracle for one and put another on a walker. You’ve seen PT be THE thing to help, and a place where people got worse. We talked about all that. We looked at so much of it. Your observations are right, nothing seems to work better than anything else.
So what do you do then?
Completely reasonable question. I heard 3 main things this week, and I will admit upfront they fit my bias of things I already believed were important.
- People experiencing pain need to be allowed to share their experiences and simply be validated and supported.
It wasn’t until our stories,as patients, were believed that we were able to start moving forward. Keith Meldrum who has guest blogged for me and Joletta Belton who blogs at My Cuppa Jo shared their experiences beautifully this week at SanDiego Pain Summit 2020
I know it was true for me as well. I had more hope when I was heard. I felt more like a team when I was heard. In response to that, I have started a trial group coaching class to see if bringing people together can help decrease our suffering from pain and increase our ability to live in a way that gives us meaning and purpose.
If you need a group that wants to support and understand, join us here in our Facebook support group.
2. Our thought matter
I took Dr. Beth Darnell’s class Empowered Relief, and I am now an instructor. It was an eye-opening class. I find these summits and classes so interesting because they really do validate my pain experience and this class did that in spades.
We looked at the relationship between stress and pain and how to change pain by using breathing – if you have opted into my simple solutions guide you’ll see that is exactly what I talk about.
I’m excited to have research from Stanfordford that backs up what I’ve read and experienced in giving more ways to help. She spoke at length about fight or flight and the chemicals involved and how that sensitizes our systems and can increase our pain experience – which is often driven by our thoughts.
So learning to reframe our thoughts really can help our pain experiences, which is what a good portion of my coaching focuses on. I already assume you have amazing people helping you move and modify life, but I want to share the things I had to discover on my own. I want to make it easier for you to learn how to help yourself.
Our thoughts have chemical consequences that affect our pain. And no – thinking positive is NOT a cure-all for pain, if it was, I wouldn’t have suffered for so long!!!
Reframing is part of CBT ( cognitive behavior therapy) and it is helpful for anxiety, depression, and pain – I am sure it’s great for other things too, but it is a way of approaching thoughts to improve our experience of pain. I know it sounds silly, but it really does help people in pain live better.
3. We, as patients, need to recognize our pain is multifactorial. It’s layered and it needs to be approached as such.
There were endless talks on the complexity of pain and the way clinicians view it. The bottom line was 80-90% of low back pain ( which includes SI Joint pain) does not have a specific structure that needs ‘fixing”.
That pain is simply not covered in medical school unless you’re a vet.
As people in pain, we go to providers often expecting an answer and a fix for the problem that is our pain. Just like providers we, as patients, need to understand pain is more than a problem to be fixed. Pain isn’t tissue damage, or arthritis, or hyper-mobility, or posture, or alignment. Chronic pain is better understood as a response to danger, threat, chemical influence, or hypersensitivity to input that “shouldn’t” cause pain.
There are many theories explaining how layered our experience of pain is, and it would help us to understand chronic pain is far far far more than tissue. Injections, medications, mobilizations, braces, tape, etc all have their place and can absolutely help us get to better places and live more, but until we understand stress and thought and lifestyle ALSO influences pain, we are bound to stay stuck in our pain cycles.
My Promise to You.
I promise to continue to bring you facts and information and stories that will help you I know everyone would like a clear answer to ” how I got better” and what I did “exactly”. Those are not answers I can provide. They are not clear-cut like you would like them to be.
I will continue to create classes and teach more and more to provide you with the building blocks you need to help yourself, and when you are in need of a coach reach out to me and let’s take you to the next step together.
I will be making more classes, and adding to Managing Flares, found here, Coming soon will be dealing with Thought Ruts, Learning to move again when you still hurt, and a primer on the science of Chronic Pain.
I am rolling out an online group coaching class next week and if that goes well, I will offer it again!
* Edited 12/20/ 22 to say the Group Coaching Program has been an amazing tool for many, click here to get on the waitlist for when the doors will open again!
I am here to help you. I am here to cheer you on. You can move beyond your pain and into a more meaningful life. Let’s get started!
I would love to hear what kind of classes YOU would like from me.
Providers I haven’t forgotten you either.
I’ve been invited to speak and teach a workshop at San Diego Pain Summit 2021 and it will be called Changing the Narrative around Pain – it will bring together the science of pain and the lived experience of those we desire to help. Email me to bring my to a city near you! Restoringvenus@gmail.com
