We all experience pain at some time.
Everyday pain e.g. headaches, pain after exercise, minor injury pain, usually passes quickly and doesn’t need treatment. It is normal for tiredness, anxiety and low mood to make all type of pain feel more intense.
- Acute pain is short term pain usually relating to some sort of injury including operation, fracture or infection.
- Chronic pain (persistent pain) is longer lasting, usually more than three months. Sometimes chronic pain can develop from an acute pain that persists.
- Chronic pain can be secondary to an underlying disease process eg osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, endometriosis. Neuropathic pain can occur when there is underlying nerve damage eg diabetes or shingles. Chronic primary pain is not associated with an underlying observable disease but it hursts just as much as pain where there is an obvious cause. Chronic primary pain can be very distressing and disabling.
Pain is always influenced critically by social factors (including deprivation, isolation, lack of access to services) emotional factors (anxiety, distress, previous trauma, expectations and beliefs), mental health problems (depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, addiction) and biological factors such as injury or inflammation.
What Causes Chronic Pain?
There may be a clear trigger, like illness, injury, or surgery. There may be a known condition, like nerve damage or arthritis. But for many, there is no obvious cause despite extensive investigation. Chronic pain is complicated and is influenced by a range of factors, including:
- physical health
- mental health
- lifestyle
- social circumstances
- your environment
Ways to Manage Chronic Pain
We now know that many medical treatments traditionally used for chronic pain (including medicines) are unhelpful and often harmful. Empathic, validating and collaborative relationships between healthcare professionals and people living with pain are the cornerstone of good pain management.
Assessment of pain needs to be broad ranging and person-centred including exploration of social and emotional influences on the pain experience. With the exception of exercise, most treatments aren’t able to reduce pain intensity but the more we know about how pain affects individuals’ lives the more we will be able to offer support for the many challenges of living with pain, including poor sleep, reduced mobility, access to employment, and the impact on emotional and physical wellbeing. Social prescribing link workers in GP practices are ideally placed to help people with pain find services that allow them to lead happy and healthy lives.
NHS Gloucestershire works with various providers to offer a wide range of services for you to access via a referral from your GP, social prescriber, pharmacist or other healthcare professional.
Physical Activity: The Gold Standard
Evidence suggests that whilst medical treatments can sometimes help with chronic pain, they are often disappointing with few people to whom there offered deriving symptom relief or improved quality of life. Evidence does suggest however that physical activity is the gold standard and outcomes include;
- Reduced pain
- Improved daily function.
- Improved mental health, wellbeing and confidence
Gloucestershire has an exciting offer available to help you increase your physical activity at a pace that suits you. Its Your Move is a free online exercise course which is ran by professional instructors over 5 weeks and has been a great success so far, participant feedback has included;
“My joints aernt creaking so I can move better”
“I havnt had to use my inhaler latley and I have more energy”
“I was going up and down the stairs sideways but now am able to step up”
“my husband says im more mobile”
To learn more or be referred into the programme speak to your GP or social perscriber.