Coping With Pain During Covid19<\/strong><\/p>\n

Lockdown Day 13 – update from Louise Trewern\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

My exercise of choice is walking and since coming off high dose opioids 3 years ago I have gradually increased the distance I am able to walk and the type of terrain has become more challenging, with my favourite being the coast path! Covid19 has put a stop to all that for the time being and like everyone else I am limited to doing a short daily walk around my neighbourhood.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been finding this difficult because I use my walking as therapy and pain relief and my usual walks last anything up to 5 or 6 hours, \u00a0with my wife and I taking our lunch, flask of coffee and afternoon snacks with us. I haven\u2019t been getting the same amount of relief from my short local walk although I\u2019m lucky we have hills around us which gives me a bit of a workout. I\u2019m hoping the hills will mean I won\u2019t lose the fitness level I have achieved in the last 3 years. I mentioned last week how important it is to get that daily walk so I won\u2019t repeat myself.<\/p>\n

This week I noticed increased pain in my knee which I previously saw a Physiotherapist about and she gave me a sheet of exercises to do which I stopped as my knee improved\u2026..big mistake! I have started to do them again and hey presto the knee pain is diminishing, if you have a sheet from a previous Physiotherapy visit now would be a good time to get them out! I have found it extremely empowering to take control of my pain!<\/p>\n

The lockdown has enabled me to rediscover my love of gardening!<\/p>\n

It started last week as something else to do at home and today I realised that I actually love it and always have, I learned that it\u2019s ok to stop walking occasionally and do something else instead, like gardening! I think I spent so much time at home during the latter years of being on opioids that once I started to get active and go out walking everyday I was afraid to stop! Maybe I was afraid that if I stopped I would slide back down the spiral of pain into medication oblivion again and I was NOT<\/strong> prepared to let that happen so I kept walking!<\/p>\n

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Lockdown has shown me that it\u2019s OK to do something else and be active in a different way, and that has been a pleasant lesson to learn!<\/p>\n

and<\/p>\n

When I had finished gardening today and sat and surveyed my efforts. It suddenly dawned on me that I hadn\u2019t been aware of my pain the whole time I was busy! That is another great reason to garden if you can!<\/p>\n

Bonfire night is fun too….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Coping With Pain During Covid19 Lockdown Day 13 – update from Louise Trewern\u00a0 My exercise of choice is walking and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-521","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n