Unwinding Chronic Pain - a broader view



"We need to engage with this massive problem in a new way, give people the resources to recover and find the best methods to prevent persisting pain"
Professor Lorimer Moseley, University of South Australia

One in five people in Australia live with chronic pain, which can be debilitating and for many disempowering. Of these Pain Australia says
  • Referrals to pain specialists occur in less than 15% of GP consultations where pain is managed, medications are used in close to 70% of GP consultations.
  • One in 100 will receive multidisciplinary care.
Pain Australia also reports that best practice does not support long-term use of medication for chronic pain management. So where does that leave many long-term sufferers? What of those who have already had surgery and/or use medication and continue to experience long-term pain? Or indeed, those like myself, who are told after many months of increasing pain, that there was no longer any tissue damage or evidence of structural problems?

For me Norman Doidge’s 2007 book, The Brain That Changes Itself gave me a key insight, that changed everything. Whilst not providing me with specific answers, I learnt that the brain is ‘plastic’, that it continues into old age to have the capacity to adapt - to re-wire itself. I understood from this that neuroplasticity can work for or against us, increasingly wiring our brain for more or less pain. 

In my case what started as a number of minor injuries, over a period of time grew to be significant ongoing pain, affecting increasing areas of my body. When reading this new piece of information I was excited. I thought if my brain could re-wire so that I experienced increasing levels of pain, then surely it could be re-wired to unwind the pain. So began my journey.

I was not satisfied with “managing pain’, but rather wanted to find a way to recover my wellbeing and once again, enjoy life. The mainstays in my recovery have been a long-term commitment to mindfulness meditation, to ongoing reading and research around the issues of pain and recovery and the use of somatic practices, including the Alexander Technique and Feldenkrais. 

These practices rely on the capacity of the brain to re-wire in response to new learning, activity and mental experience. Individuals learn to understand the impact of their habitual ways of thinking, acting and moving on their wellbeing and function. They learn simple and practical skills which when applied to any activity facilitate a greater sense of ease and wellbeing.

If you or someone you know is currently searching for new ways to understand and change pain patterns, working with Anne will engage your thinking, develop your awareness and support you to find the critical pieces to solve your pain puzzle. 


Anne Carroll with Caren Bayer, Manhattan Centre for Alexander Technique
(Photo courtesy of School for FM Alexander Technique Studies, Melbourne and Caren Bayer)


For more information contact Anne at Mindful Movement Education






1 https://www.painrevolution.org/
2 Pain Australia

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Unwinding Patterns - A Job for Life

Image
Many years ago I worked with a wonderful man who inspired me and many others. At his retirement he said something which at the time puzzled me. He went through his working history and as the story unfolded, he kept saying that each job was “the best job he had ever had”. I kept waiting for him to talk about the job which presented him with problems and disappointment. This never came, for each job he was deeply grateful and found many things to be grateful for. It is only in recent years that I have come to understand how this can be so. It was an alien concept in my experience to that point and for a while to come. It was not that I did not have great experiences and work with lovely people but rather that I had learnt at a young age to focus on the difficulties, the problems, the people who “made life difficult or intimidating”. I have come to see that it is the way that we understand ‘our world’ that creates harmony or disharmony with life around us; that it is our habi
Read more

Seeing with New Eyes

Image
This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all! Even if they are a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture, still, treat each guest honorably. He may be clearing you out for some new delight. The dark thought, the shame, the malice. meet them at the door laughing and invite them in. Be grateful for whatever comes. because each has been sent as a guide from beyond. Jellaludin Rumi, (translation by Coleman Barks) For many years this poem has provided insight and inspiration to me. It reminds me daily of the journey of acceptance. It also points clearly to the unseen potential in our responses which can open the way for sensing or seeing something new and sometimes, unexpected. Some years ago a wise friend opened my eyes to this potential. During a period when I was quietly (and som
Read more

Finding a Way Forward

Image
Recently while sitting outside a cafe, I watched an elderly lady walk to her car. She had a walking stick and when she needed to step down from the kerb, she used one hand to hold tightly to a signpost and the other the stick. Very slowly she negotiated her way from the footpath to the road. A challenging and fraught journey, one which many of us may take for granted.   However, we don’t need to be elderly to hold ourselves tightly. We see it all around us each day. Young and old, walking and moving in ways that do not flow freely, that are constrained and constricted. This may be for many reasons — injury, illness, trauma, pain, fear and loss.   For a number of years when I lived with chronic pain I lived like this. I learnt to distrust my body and myself. I held myself tightly, constantly fearing pain that seemed to grow and move around my body as time went on. I was like a tightly coiled spring unable, for a long time, to trust that it could be possible for things to get better. My
Read more