Chronic pain can make it easy to feel overwhelmed, reduce our activity levels, and become isolated. Goals help restore a sense of order, build self-efficacy and sense of control, improve mood, and provide direction by helping with planning daily activities.
One of the tools we learned at the Mayo Clinic Pain Rehabilitation Center was goal setting to help us plan our days and keep us on track. We set goals each day. They didn't have to be massive, but they had to be SMART - specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound.
Some SMART goal examples:
Did you notice none of the goal examples included pain reduction? Our focus should be on reducing stress, improving our quality of life and increasing functional ability and activity, not pain reduction. Focusing on pain reduction is an easy trap to fall into - leading to frustration and depression. Just as the headline of my website says - we can live well, despite the pain. Pain is not just in your back, your knee, or in any body part.
Pain is comprised of biological, psychological and social factors. It is biopyschosocial. And it involves the brain 100% of the time. The biopsychosocial model of pain stresses a holistic look at the experience of chronic pain. It not only looks at the biological factors (injury, tissue damage, etc.) but also how our emotional well-being and our social situation influence how we’re affected by chronic pain. Learn more
Find more articles and videos in the Education and Resources sections of this website. While back pain is a common medical complaint, there often is no specific cause for the pain in up to 85% of cases with poor correlation between the presence of imaging abnormalities and pain (Sanzarello, Ilaria et al, 2016). In fact, abnormalities seen in imaging tests are often part of the normal aging process.
Check out this great video presentation by Dr. Peter O’Sullivan to learn more. I read the other day on social media a suggestion for patients when selecting a healthcare provider to ask them their definition of pain to see if it is similar to the definition provided by the International Association of the Study of Pain (IASP).
Interesting idea. The key for me is if they understand pain is biopsychosocial (BPS) in nature and treat it that way. I may have to ask this going forward. What do you think? Related information
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Editor’s note: This article was written based on my experience and what I have researched about the topic. Everyone is different. The decision to use supplements should be a decision between doctor and patient.
As part of the week-long Mayo Clinic fibromyalgia program I attended in 2016, I met with a pharmacist to review the long list of prescription medicines, over-the-counter medicines, and supplements I was taking at the time. My medicine cabinet looked like a GNC store. I was instructed to bring the actual bottles with me to the appointment, so I packed the bottles into a gym bag (yes, I was taking a lot of medicines and supplements) and went to see her. I was surprised as she read each bottle, making comments and recommendations about each pill – including product quality, labeling issues, ingredient safety, and dosing. When the appointment ended, my medicine and supplement list was much shorter with her recommending stopping most of the supplements and my gym bag much lighter – throwing away the pills was going to stop taking. Limited oversight Unlike prescription or over-the-counter drugs, which must be approved by the Federal Drug Agency (FDA) before they can be marketed, the FDA doesn’t review supplements for safety and effectiveness before they are sold. We don’t know where the products are made, how they are made, what is in them, and if the dosage is appropriate. Safety is left up to the manufacturers and distributors of the supplements. Bottom line You assume all risk when using supplements. While some may be valuable, many aren’t. Learn more
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WelcomeChronic Pain Champions is an information resource/blog/support group to help people living with nonmalignant pain, their families and friends, as well as healthcare professionals. Learn more about this site and the author. Archives
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