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Chronic Pain is defined by the NHS as persistent pain that lasts for more than 12 weeks despite the intervention of medication or treatment.
Roughly 43% of adults in the UK live with some degree of chronic pain, yet many people don’t have a proper understanding of the condition.
Staff from the chronic pain self-management team at St George’s Hospital in Tooting launched the UK’s first Chronic Pain Awareness Day on May 1.
The self-management team at St George’s takes a different approach to the traditional method of treating pain.
Made up of clinical psychologists, physiotherapists and a clinical nurse specialist, they focus more on helping patients to cope better with the challenges they face living with chronic pain - aiming to help people improve physical functioning, improve their quality of life and reduce emotional stress.
The team runs a three week, group based, pain management programme with different educational sessions from understanding chronic pain to cognitive behavioural therapy, mindfulness and relaxation skills.
Because of the pandemic, the awareness event was unable to go ahead in 2020, but the campaign returned this year with continued success.
Much like the event in 2019, this year’s awareness day saw a group of staff and patients take part in a walk, this year from Earlsfield station to St George’s to tie in with National Walking Month.
Dr Anna Mathieson, clinical psychologist said: “We wanted to tie in with National Walking Month to demonstrate that people with pain can do a walk.
“It sounds simple but I think there are quite a lot of assumptions that it would not be something that someone with long-term pain could do.”
After the walk, the group were welcomed by a tea and cake reception, before some patients shared their experience of living with chronic pain.
Una, one of the speakers at the event, said that the most important thing the team had taught her was to not be afraid of the pain, because if you're not afraid, you can live with it and you can manage it.
She said: “It’s a mental battle as well as a physical battle sometimes and you can’t let your pain overwhelm you, you have to control it as much as you can.”
Una suffers from a condition called costochondritis, which is inflammation of the cartilage that joins your ribs to your breastbone.
She conveyed that the programme gave her the language, and the confidence, to explain her condition to healthcare professionals, strangers, her work and enabled her to ask for what she needed in her working environment.
Una noted: “Sometimes I might meet someone and actually all I need to say is that I have chronic pain, I can’t do that, or for my chronic pain I might need this.
“Rather than going into a long winded explanation and giving information that they don’t need.”
Zil-lah, the other patient speaker, developed permanent chronic pain in her right leg after a surgery on her spine.
She stated that prior to coming to the programme she had become very introverted.
She noted: “I used to be very sociable, I was always the person that was there for everybody at the drop of a hat.
“Prior to my surgery I had just travelled around the world, and after I was living in my mother in law’s house, feeling like I was never going to be accepted in society ever again.”
Zil-lah said that the most helpful thing that she realised was that chronic pain wasn’t a part of her personality.
She noted: “The biggest thing for me was learning that I don’t suffer from chronic pain, I’ve managed it, and just changing that word from suffer to manage completely changed everything.”
And managing their pain is something both Una and Zil-ah have been incredibly successful at in the four years since they completed the programme.
Una said: “I have not seen a consultant in the four years since I finished the programme.
“Before all I wanted was to be sent from one specialist to another, but now I see that it was actually a waste of time.”
Zil-ah noted: “I look back at the amount of medication I used to be on and can’t imagine ever being on that level.
“I’ve been completely medication free for four years, and now when I have a flare up of pain I don’t even need to take paracetamol.”
Both women concluded that the 3 weeks spent at the programme saved their lives.
For more information on the Chronic Pain Self Management Team at St George’s, please visit https://www.stgeorges.nhs.uk/service/neuro/chronic-pain/
For more information on living with Chronic Pain, please visit https://www.britishpainsociety.org/
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