What To Do When The Pain Comes Back

I wanted to talk to you today about what do you do when the pain comes back?

Now I’m asking about this because I’ve had a lot of pain in the last two weeks. And some of you know me, and you know I’ve been a physical therapist for 25 years, but I also was somebody who suffered with chronic pain for seven years from a severe car accident.

I had multiple injuries, severe injuries and, and multiple surgeries. And, as a result I had chronic pain for about seven years.

But the strategies I developed for my mindset, helped me conquer that pain and get rid of my chronic pain. Now it doesn’t mean that I don’t get pain anymore. What it does mean is that if I get pain, it’s usually acute in nature and it goes away.

The problem is, is with the mindset that you have when your pain returns.

What happened with me was, this week and last week, I’ve had a lot of pain, and I wanted to bring this message out because,  every time that I do have pain that returns to me, it makes me think about how challenging it can be when you’re in that chronic pain mindset…

…And you’re stuck in my, I call the negative mindset pain loop.

And what happened with me in the past was that every time pain would come back, i would think, “oh no, here it comes again.”  I’m in this pain cycle and I’ll have chronic pain again, and I’m never gonna be able to get rid of it.

And very often what happens is, you can  lose sight of  the light at the end of the tunnel. You think there’s never gonna be a time that you’re not gonna have pain.

And what happens is you focus on the traumatic event that happened to you. 

• It might have been a car accident.
• It might have been another physical traumatic event.
• It might have been a surgery.
• It might have been a diagnosis of some  syndrome or illness that you have. 

It can be a lot of different things.  But the challenge is that you get caught in that negative loop where you just don’t know what you’re going to do and it’s hard to see a time when you won’t have pain.

And when you do have a reduction in symptoms or you do get to the point where you can eliminate that pain, there’s a tendency for you to think,  “OK,…BUT I’m a person that has chronic pain, or the doctor told me I have a bad back, or I have fibromyalgia, or I am a fibromyalgia patient.”

And what happens is this diagnosis can become part of our identity. I’ve had patients that come to me and  I’m working with them and they had been pain free for about six months. And then they have a flare up of their symptoms and they came into me distraught and they don’t know what to do and said;  “The pain’s back!  it’s never going to go away. I knew this was going to happen.  I have fibromyalgia”

And Then I say;  “okay, let’s look at the pain. Let’s identify where it’s coming from and let’s treat it from there.”

But the tendency is,  when you have a chronic problem, we have a tendency to perseverate on the pain and we have a tendency to hold onto that past traumatic incident or diagnosis. And we worry about the future and about the pain we may have in the future and worrying about something that hasn’t happened in the future yet.

And we forget to live in the moment and figure out how to focus on our solutions at this point in time.

So I tell people: “let’s try this, And this works for me every time it happens. Anytime you get pain, look to the last 24 to 48 hours and look at the possibilities of the things that you were doing and why there may be a reason that you would have the increased pain.

And what happens is your mind needs to understand the pain but with chronic pain your mind focuses on just the idea of pain and that you have pain.

And if all you can focus on is pain;  if you go to bed thinking about pain and wake up, thinking about pain, then all you can focus on and all you can think about is pain.

But if you figure out what your pain may have come from, either mechanically or some other reason, then the mind can understand the reason for the pain; understand the problem, and then work the challenge out and understand how to get past it.

So, for me, I shattered my hip in two places, shattered my lower leg in six places. I have two long rods, six screws, four cables in a plate. I fractured my back. And so you can understand that I would have some orthopedic limitations.

And so when I get some increase in pain and just like everybody else, it can be a challenge for me because when I get pain, I know what I went through. I know the chronic pain that I had for seven years. I know what the dysfunctions in my leg,can do to me. But if I understand why the pain is there and what may have caused it, then my mind can go to work on solving the challenge and getting past.

Now, for me, I looked to the last 24, the 48 hours, sometimes it’s a week.

And in this instance, I thought to myself; why am I having hip pain? Why am I having back pain? Why am I having the pain as radiating down my right leg?

Well, for me, what had happened is we had gone on the ski trip and I had skied for two days.  And then, as you know, I’m an orthopedic physical therapist. So I happen to have two or three, 12 to 13 hour days where I was treating patients all day. And then I proceeded to do some, do it yourself, construction around my own house and some landscaping. And then the next day, I also helped a family member with some construction on their house.  I was bending and squatting and kneeling and twisting.

And so, all of a sudden I said, aha. So my last two weeks had been extremely active and there’s a reason for my pain to be there. And along with all that activity, I also had not been consistent with my stretching and my normal exercise routine.

So right there, there was a reason for all my pain and therefore I can go to work on what’s the solution.

And I would do whatever I would tell my patients. So I went back into the mode of being a patient, being a therapist and talking to me as a patient.  I went back to my stretching exercises, my range of motion exercises.  I got treated by another therapist and then guess what?… my pain started to resolve.

But it’s very easy to get caught in that trap of the chronic pain mindset, where you get stuck in that loop, where all your mind does is focus on the pain and why is it there?

And there’s a tendency to get stuck in that “Woe Is Me” syndrome. And with that, there’s a tendency to fall right back into that negative mindset pain loop.

Now you may also be saying, “But Mark, I have rheumatoid arthritis or I have fibromyalgia, or I have chronic fatigue syndrome.”  Well, that may be true too and if you have a flare up of that, then it may be something else that may be flaring up your pain.

It could a be diet, it could be medication. It could be a number of different things. It could be the activity level that you’ve had over the past week. But if you look to the last 24, 48, possibly 72 hours, then you may very well find something like, abnormal meals or abnormal nutrition over that last week.

You may have found that you did a long drive, like a 10 hour drive and didn’t think anything of it, but that’s why your body flared up. So there’s a number of different reasons why that can be. But if we start to become aware and recognize the possibilities of the things that could have caused our increase in pain, or could be causing our cycle of pain that we’re having at this time, and then your mind can start to go to work on the challenge.

How do I solve this problem?

How do I get over this pain exacerbation?

And that my friends is half the battle.

So what I want you to do is, the next time you have a flare up in your pain. I want you to think about your mindset. I want you to think about being aware of what could have caused the increase in pain. 

Look to the last 24, 48, 72 hours even a week, and look at all the different things that could be a possibility of why you’re having a flare up. And I want you again, to think about your mindset, think about what a difference it can be when you focus on the right things.

If you focus on pain, you get more pain.

If you focus on your health and wellness goals, your brain will start to go to work on how do  reach your goals.

And when you realize that and you become aware in your mind that you can take the steps that it takes to get past your chronic pain,

Well, I hope this information helped you out.

Be Positive, Be Motivated, Be Focused and Be Well,

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