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As we said in the last blog a positive attitude and self-management skills can make it much easier to live with chronic pain. And as we said in the last blog, beliefs, circumstances, your mood, and the attention paid to the pain symptoms will determine in good part how difficult it is to manage.
Here is the situation people often face when dealing with chronic pain. The pain causes you to stay home alone, a lot. Your friends say, "Get out. Do something. Stop thinking about your pain all of the time." They just don't get it. If you hear it just one more time the outcome won't be pretty. It's easier to stay away from people than to risk arguing with them about the way you’re managing the pain or not managing it.
If you are in this situation what would you do? What skills and attitudes of resilience would you utilize? First of all we would encourage you to talk with others about the situation. People often avoid talking about it because they're afraid they will upset her more the other person. Communication is important. And you need to communicate and be with other people. Not isolate. Isolation usually only produces depression and unhappiness.
As I said in the previous post, we need to manage the feelings that are there. And they are strong and intense. Maybe you are depressed. Talking about your feelings will help in finding ways to vent and discharge the feelings. Don't be so afraid of upsetting other people or boring them. The friends will tell you if they're bored or upset. At least they should.
Take care of yourself as we said before. Use the breathing exercises. Distracting yourself is a good strategy. Sitting at home and focusing on your pain is not going to make it any better in fact it will usually make it worse.
Problem solve. Be flexible. Try to do some new things. Pace yourself. Don't overdo it. But in general it's a good idea to do something .
A part of the problem solving may be talking with a counselor or therapist about all the feelings that you have and better ways of managing them. There are strategies you can learn -- from dealing with depressed feelings to working through anxiety. You can read about these things online or talk with someone who can act as a coach to help you deal with your pain. This may be one of the best things you can do.
There are no easy answers and solutions to dealing with pain. Medications may help. There are many other nonpharmaceutical interventions that you can learn about and use to help you take charge and manage the pain you're experiencing. Don't be afraid to learn them and try them out. You may want to join a support group and learn from others how their managing their pain.
We will continue to talk about chronic pain and its management in the next few blog posts. As we said in the last post, you can learn to live well with chronic pain. But it is a learning and adapting process.
