Coping With Pain During Covid19 Lockdown Day 72
As I write this, lockdown restrictions are beginning to ease, and once again things are changing around us! There is more traffic on our roads again, more people in the supermarkets and more people have returned to work. Some services are becoming available again although not as we knew them. I expect like me some of you are very concerned about the lifting of restrictions and how it will affect us. Karen & I are continuing to walk locally and wear our masks whenever we have to shop, avoiding anywhere that people may gather.
I know that Pain Services are working extremely hard to develop as quickly as possible new ways to deliver their services including online via video consultation and telephone calls to patients, they are hoping to be able to offer Pain Management Programmes and Getting Started with Exercise groups too and although this may not be the way we would all prefer to access these extremely important services, I believe it’s the safest way for the foreseeable future and in fact, may be preferable to many of us! The joy of not having to attend an appointment at a hospital that we have had to travel to get to, some of us on public transport! I remember the stress of planning a trip out for an appointment, “will I get there on time” “will I be able to park” “how long will I be waiting” these and other concerns all add to our stress which in turn ramps up our pain!!
I think we must remember that we are ALL having to find new ways of doing things, we need to work with our clinicians to make it work! That will involve speaking up when we think something isn’t right for us! Do not be afraid to speak up because the clinicians are working in a completely new way and need all the feedback, they can get on what is and is not working!
My pain has been so much better since I last wrote. Something that has made a huge difference to me is my self-belief that my knee will recover, and that there is NO damage!
My physio was able to review my X-ray and was able to tell me it was fine and not “bone on bone” like I had been previously told!
My knee has since improved even more which emphasises to me the importance of language used by clinicians when explaining our results! Our brains are immensely powerful and if we hear ‘bone on bone’ we can very soon begin to picture that and then feel it!!
I’ve been doing some strengthening exercises and my pain is diminishing day by day!
I am a firm believer that we can very easily talk/think ourselves into increased pain and debilitation, and no I am NOT saying it is all in our heads, it’s definitely NOT!! In the same way, we can encourage ourselves into decreased pain! We have to work at it though! And we need to keep moving because “Motion Is Lotion’
Take care of yourselves
