Tips for people with long-term chronic pain issues

• Remember pain does not equal harm and can be caused by lots of reasons.  Look back on the cycle of contributing factors to your pain that was outlined during your treatment on the diagram. If/when you experience pain, check if any of these factors are relevant at that time. For example, is the pain linked to an increase in stress levels, reduced sleep, changes in mood, doing an unaccustomed physical activity, new life events etc.
• Remember you can control your pain!  This may be done in many different ways.  Doing some exercises that you found helpful in the past may be a good idea to help your body relax and reduce stiffness.  Try to stay relatively active and relaxed.  Sometimes some gentle heat, or pain medications, can help you get over a short-term “speed bump” of pain.
• While a flare-up in pain after treatment is finished can appear to be a disappointing set-back at the time, many patients actually benefit from learning to manage it on their own, and realising how much more control they have over their pain.

Further information

Visit Pain-Ed.com for more information.