The Best Tips For Fighting Chronic Pain

Chronic pain!

Chances are if you’re watching this video, you’re either experiencing chronic pain right now, you’ve had it in the past,…

…or you have a friend or a loved one that’s experiencing chronic pain or has also possibly had it in the past.

Now, some would say that pain to a certain extent, is actually good.  That our body has a language. And if we understand our body language pain can actually help us treat what’s going on.

Now, if you’re experiencing chronic pain right now, pain that lasts more than three to six months, or your back or neck has gone out for the 10th time in the last five years and your life revolves around pain, then you would probably not say the pain is good.

Most likely you’d say that …

…Pain Sucks!

Now, I understand this because for a while, my life revolved around chronic pain.

Many of you know me as the “Mindset Guy”, but some of you also know that I’ve been a physical therapist for the past 26 years.

Today I want to talk to you about some great tips for fighting chronic pain or what to do when the pain returns.

You see, I wasn’t kidding when I said my life revolved around pain. And it’s not just because I’m a physical therapist and I treat patients with pain all the time.

It’s because about 26 years ago when I first became a physical therapist, I was involved in a life-threatening car accident, and I, it resulted in chronic pain that I had for seven years.

I shattered my right leg in eight places. I fractured my back. I had emergency surgery after they helicoptered me to a local trauma hospital.

I had two long rods, four cables, six crews and a plate put into my right leg. I didn’t walk for six months. I was out of work for a year.

And this resulted in seven years of chronic pain.

Now many of you know that if you’ve had chronic pain and you go to the doctor;  the doctor throws your x-ray up on the on the wall and says, “wow, we did a great job.”

And, and that’s not to say anything against the doctors because they DID do a great job with me. My fractures were healed.

But what do you do when you still have chronic pain or if you have chronic pain from some other syndrome that you have going on?

The doctor at that point usually refers you to pain management where they can give you injections or different varying forms of medication and then you have to deal with it from then on and “manage” your pain.

So I’m going to use a quote from one of my favorite movies, the Princess Bride. Now I could use the quote,

“My name is an Inigo Montoyo. You killed my father, prepare to die.”😂

But that would have nothing to do with this blog right now.

So I will use the quote from Prince Wesley where he says, …

“Life is pain Highness.  Anybody who says differently is selling something.”

Now to a certain extent, that’s true. And the reason I say that is because we all have pain sometimes in our lives. You’ll never go through life not having any pain at all.

Whether it’s physical or emotional trauma, we have pain in our lives and there’s going to be pain in our lives. There’s been pain in the past, and most likely there will be pain in the future.

Again, whether it’s emotional or physical pain or trauma, the question is, 

How do we respond to this trauma?

How do we respond to this pain?

Now, being the “Mindset Guy”, I’m going to talk about some things that you can do to reframe your thought patterns and reframe your mindset so that you can move forward despite your chronic pain and fight against the chronic pain or what to do when the pain returns.

Now, one of my patients and I were having a discussion about this the other day, and we had talked about the chronic pain that she had had in the past and that I had had in the past and also a, a recent flare up that we had both had.

I had talked to her about the flare up of my back or my back “went out” about three months ago and why that happened.

And we talked about how when I first had chronic pain and I had that pain for seven years after my accident.

That I had lost sight of the possibility of feeling better. My mind was focused on and was trapped back at the trauma of what I went through with my car accident.  And I was also worried about a future of always having chronic pain and always having problems with the different orthopedic issues that I had had in my right leg and my low back.

And was I always going to have pain?   And why did this happen to me and what I went through with my accident.

And we had talked about how I had gone to the next level as far as reframing my mindset and  how it made a huge difference for me and allowed me to move forward once I let the trauma of my car accident go.

I didn’t forget about it.  It happened.  But, I accepted the fact that it had happened to me and it allowed me to move on.

And we talked about how, when I was able to do that, it allowed me to set new goals and to concentrate on the solutions of getting better and becoming well rather than focusing on the pain and the problems that I were going through.

So you’ve heard me say this before, that when you focus on pain and problems, what do you get more of?  You get more pain and problems.

You see, when we have chronic pain or we have a flare up of pain, whatever it may be from, there’s a tendency when we’ve been in this situation before, to catastrophize. 

To say, “oh no, here we go again. I’ve been down this road. I already know that I’m going to be in pain for the next three months or six months or two years. Why did this happen to me? Am I gonna always have pain in the future?”

Rather than to reframe your thoughts and to say, “okay, this happened to me because of this, this, and this.  How do I get past this challenge?”

So when I had a flare up three months ago and my back went out, and this is also after having chronic pain for seven to 10 years and getting past that,… when I had this flare up and my back went out, it was a number of things that I had done over a month that kept putting layers and layers of more tightness and restrictions and reasons for me to be set up for something that happened.

So then when I bent over to pick something up, boom, my back went out.

Now there’s a tendency to catastrophize right in that moment.  Now, it’s okay to get upset. Your back has just “gone out”, or your neck has “gone out.” Or, you had a trauma to your system, whether it’s emotional or physical, it’s okay to recognize the problem. It’s okay to be upset for a day or a week.

When this just recently happened to me, I had trouble walking for about three to five days. I started getting tingling and radiating pain down my leg. For some of you, you know that that could be a herniated disc. But, being in the PT field, it also helped me to quantify my issue and what was going on.

This is why you need to reframe your thoughts and change your thought patterns.  From, “oh my goodness, this happened to me. What am I gonna do? I’m gonna be in pain all this time. What about my job? What about my future?”

Reframe your thoughts to recognize the problem that is at hand and to say, “I’m going to focus on the solution. I’m gonna put all my power, all my concentration to getting well to research, how to get well, what doctors do I see now?”

I’m not negating any conventional therapies. I’m NOT saying, if you just reframe your thoughts and everything will be fine.

It’s focusing on reframing your thoughts so you can figure out the solution. Whether that means taking a certain medication for a prescribed  amount of time,  or an anti-inflammatory or pain medicine or a muscle relaxer, if it’s appropriate.

It means getting appropriate treatment, whether it’s from a physical therapist, a massage therapist, an acupuncturist. It’s getting the right diagnostic test to see what’s going on.  So you can objectively analyze what’s happening in your body.

But after you recognize the problem and figure out what it is, then it’s to focus all your concentration on the solution.

If you focus on solutions, then your mind will start to go to work on what do you have to do to progress forward.

Now, if you have a diagnosis of a condition that’s chronic in nature and progressive or degenerative in nature, it’s recognizing it, but then figuring out how do I move forward.

How do I progress forward despite what’s going on with me so that I don’t give up.  So that I do everything in my power to move forward and progress in relationship to the goals that I have set for myself.

And that’s another thing because once you recognize the problem and you decide and make the choice that you’re going to focus on the solution and not the pain or the problem, that you then get clarity about what you want.

Because once you get clarity about what you want and what your goals are, then your mind and your body can move forward to progressing towards those goals.

So if you are having a tough time right now.  If you’re going experiencing chronic pain right now, or you’re going through a flare up of a condition that you’ve had, and this is the the fifth flare up in the last two years, I want you to try something different. I want you to focus on reframing your thoughts and reframing your mindset.

Again, recognize the problem. Be aware of it.  Remember, it’s okay if you get angry, upset or mad about a certain diagnosis or a condition that you had or something that’s happened in your life, whether it’s an emotional or physical trauma.

• Recognize that problem, …but then focus on the solutions.
• Focus on moving forward.
• Focus on whatever it is that you need to do to move forward towards the goals that you have set for yourself.

And if you haven’t set goals for yourself, this is the time to do it.

I promise. Once you start reframing your mindset and reframing your thoughts to focus on the solutions to your challenges and what you want, you will start to see a difference.

You’ll start to see positive change.

For me and for many people I’ve worked with. Once you reframe your thoughts, once you enhance or improve your mindset, you’ll start to see a tremendous difference in your life. 

Well, I hope this information Helped you out.

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I want you to have a great day and remember as always…

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

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