Treatment Areas

Understanding pain

You would be hard-pressed to find someone who hasn’t experienced pain. It’s something all of us experience and we generally accept it as a result of an injury and even a helpful reminder of what dangerous things to avoid. Most commonly pain comes and goes, and when it does we breathe a sigh of relief and move on with our mostly pain-free lives…

Chronic pain on the other hand is something entirely different. Chronic pain persists long after conventional wisdom tells us that healing should be complete. We may even have been told by our doctor that the “pain explanation” no longer seems to fit. This can be a frustrating time for many of us who experience persistent pain. Some of us give up trying to manage the pain and resign ourselves to a “pain limited lifestyle”. Some of us feel judged and rejected by health professionals and begin searching for radical and sometimes untested therapies and some of us seem to strike gold and find a GP, Specialist, Physio, Psychologist, OT or another health practitioner who has a holistic approach and see the value of partnering with each other and the patient to solve the mystery of pain. These wise practitioners are paying close to the recent advances in the understanding of pain, how it works and how our bodies produce it. And excitingly they use this knowledge to explain the nature of chronic pain and how to get a handle on it.

Fundamental to the management of pain is truly understanding the system of biological, physiological, neurological, psychological and even immunological mechanisms that influence the experience of pain. Armed with this knowledge we can find a new “pain explanation” that fits the chronic pain experience and helps us manage it.

If you’re looking for some more information about how to manage your chronic pain or help a friend or loved one then a great start is having a look at the following episode of ABC’s Catalyst or contact James on 0438 526 373 or email him at [email protected]

ABC TV – Catalyst investigates recent advances in science and medical engineering that are transforming our understanding of chronic back pain and opening the door to new treatments in the hope of bringing relief to so many people. Check out this episode below:

ABC Catalyst – When Pain Persists (27 minutes duration)