Chronic Pain
What Are Chronic Pain Issues?
A simple way of understanding chronic pain issues is that it is pain that persists for a few months or more. It can be pain that doesn’t go away after an injury has healed, or from conditions, like arthritis or fibromyalgia, that bring constant discomfort. This pain can make it challenging to participate in daily activities and enjoy life.
Because of that, chronic pain not only affects your physical health but also your mental health, making it hard to maintain a positive outlook. In addition, sometimes psychological factors can exacerbate or even be the cause of the pain.
Dealing with chronic pain is something I have a lot of experience with (I spent two years working in a public health chronic pain team), so if you are suffering, don’t hesitate to book an appointment to speak to me. If you do want to speak to me about chronic pain I strongly encourage you to read the rest of this page before booking in.
persistent pain that doesn’t go away after an injury has healed, or suffer from conditions like arthritis or fibromyalgia that bring constant discomfort. This pain can make it challenging to engage in daily activities and enjoy life. Often, chronic pain not only affects your physical health but also your mental well-being, making it hard to maintain a positive outlook.
Chronic Pain Symptoms
Living with chronic pain means more than just dealing with the physical discomfort. The emotional toll it takes can be just as significant, impacting your mood, sleep, and overall quality of life.
- Persistent physical pain that is either sharp or dull
- Inflammation or stiffness in the affected areas
- Reduced mobility or flexibility
- Sleep disturbances or fatigue due to pain
- Mood swings or increased irritability
- Anxiety or depression linked to ongoing discomfort
Managing Chronic Pain
Getting effective help with chronic pain issues can be difficult for a few reasons.
- A lot of people do not know that while pain is 100% real, it is created in your brain. This is similar to sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch, which are all sensory experiences created in your brain based on a variety of inputs. The creation of the experience of pain is similar. For example, back pain can be the result of tight muscles in the back plus muscle tension due to chronic anxiety.
- Chronic pain is usually the result of multiple factors. There might be an ongoing disease, unhelpful behaviours, stress/anxiety and many other factors contributing to your overall pain experience.
- Sometimes, chronic pain can’t be resolved until all factors are addressed. This can cost a great deal of your time and money and can be a stressful experience, overall.
- There are a lot of health professionals who say they help with chronic pain but don’t actually know a lot about it.
If you want to effectively address the pain you often need to address multiple physical and psychological inputs, which can involve a number of health professionals, and the health professionals need to be familiar with chronic pain.
Given these difficulties, it’s difficult to know where to start. Luckily, there are quite a few chronic pain experts in Melbourne. It’s vital to know that improvement is absolutely possible, and many people do get significant reductions in pain or even complete resolution after putting in the work.
However, this can be a long process and you’ll need to take control of it. You may need to see different health professionals, spend quite a bit of time educating yourself about chronic pain, and put time and effort into changing your lifestyle, habits and mindset.
Treatment Options For Chronic Pain Issues
Seeing Your GP
Start with seeing your GP to get help determining what might be the main contributors to your pain and to get referrals to other professionals for further assessment and treatment.
Seeing A Physiotherapist
See a physiotherapist who specialises in chronic pain. The NOI Group directory lists people trained in chronic pain and there are some excellent physios listed here.
Seeing A Pain Specialist
A pain specialist (that is, a medical doctor specialising in treating chronic pain) can help you with medications, surgeries and other medical procedures/interventions for chronic pain.
Seeing a Psychologist
If you think that there are any psychological factors contributing to or directly causing your chronic pain then seeing a psychologist like me is a good idea..
Community Health Services
Some community health services, like the Merri Health Program, offer chronic pain support and services, so it can be helpful to check out your local council’s website and see what they offer.
- Chronic Pain Australia runs in-person support groups in Melbourne focusing on education and peer support.
Public Health Programs
Get a referral from your GP or Pain Specialist to a public health pain program. There are a number of Pain Clinics run by public hospitals in Melbourne. Unfortunately, waitlists can be long (that is, one to two years), the clinics can be limited in what they offer, and the quality varies. On the other hand it is free so it doesn’t hurt to get that referral in.
Self-Help For Managing Chronic Pain
- Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) is one of the most researched interventions for chronic pain and involves practising mindfulness for your painful sensations. If you can pay attention to bodily sensations with a neutral or positive attitude, the ‘pain’ aspect of the sensations can diminish over time.
- The Curable App is a fairly eclectic mix of evidence-based techniques to help with chronic pain (although the evidence for techniques varies a lot), they also have interviews with people who have recovered from chronic pain and with experts.
Self-Help For Managing Chronic Pain
There are a lot of books out there on Chronic Pain. I suggest you start with the books put out by the NOI Group and branch out from there.
- NOI Group: Explain Pain and Protectometer are the two books to start with and I have linked the discounted bundle.
- The Way Out: This book is about Somatic Tracking, a mindfulness exercise that can be incredibly helpful for chronic pain.
Do you need help managing chronic pain and its effect on your mental health? Let’s talk!
Fax:
(03) 7020 2738
Locations and Hours:
R2R Health In Moonee Ponds:
Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday & Friday: 9 AM to 6:20 PM
