Chronic Pain
You don’t have to suffer in silence
The NHS’s official definition of “chronic pain” is any condition that persists for three months or more despite ongoing medication or treatments. But to the millions of UK adults estimated to be currently living with chronic pain, three months of persistent and debilitating pain can feel like an eternity.
Often called an “invisible condition”, chronic pain can affect any part of the body and anyone of any age, including children. It can have a severely detrimental effect on our overall health and wellbeing. It can impact how we function, our work, our sleep, our hobbies, contribute to anxiety and depression, and have a negative effect those around us.
I believe that any amount of pain endured for any length of time needs to be addressed. Medications, whether prescribed by a health professional or bought over the counter, are not a long-term solution. There’s little evidence that they make a significant difference to people’s quality of life, and commonly used drugs such as paracetamol, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, benzodiazepines, and opioids can actually be harmful and result in addiction.
Movement matters
Physical therapy and exercise programmes – as recommended by NICE - can often get to the root cause of the pain, are less invasive than medicines, and are all about retraining your mind and body to help you cope with your pain. The right exercise programme can restore movement and make you stronger as well as build up your physical and mental resilience: your belief in yourself and your ability to recover and live a normal life again.
How I can help
I take a totally holistic approach and usually start with a Full Body Assessment to identify where the issues are and what may be causing them. Referred pain (where your nerve signals are misinterpreted by the brain to be coming from a different place) is quite common, so I don’t just focus on or around the area of your pain but try to trace it back to its source.
Then, depending on your goals, I will recommend one or more of a range of treatments such as the Pain-Free Movement Programme, the BioMechanics Method Corrective Exercise Programme, or AquaStretch assisted stretching.
If you’d like more details about how I can help you live the life you want and not a life in pain, then please get in touch. In the meantime why not take a look at some of my blogs? where I share my expertise on pain management? Or visit my Resources page and my range of free downloads with some useful simple movement exercises you can do at home.