Chronic Pain conditions including- Fibromyalgia, Regional Pain Issues, Chronic Back Pain, Branches of Chronic Arthritis:

As with chronic fatigue issues, treatment for chronic pain issues is very person centred and is very carefully tailored to a person’s specific presenting issues and the severity of a person’s disability.

Treatment is also tailored around a person’s specific life goals and values which might for example reflect either physical improvement and reconditioning and/or goals around their mental well-being. Goals might also sit around ability to work or study whilst managing their pain condition.

If rehabilitation is sought, this is focused primarily on stripping back any impacts of secondary deconditioning resulting from moving around less and having reduced functioning, with strengthening targeted alongside to build up pain free movement.  Rehabilitation goals are set based on a person’s particular disability, pain, and fatigue level but is pursued with caution in order to not trigger any primary pain response, post exertional malaise, or to cause any setbacks in the condition. Rehabilitation is only suitable for chronic and ongoing pain issues.

Much emotional pain can develop alongside physical pain conditions as the condition can greatly restrict a person’s quality of life and prevent a person from engaging with their hopes and aspirations.  As such coping with chronic pain conditions becomes a trauma trigger within itself, and thus can be very healthy to work through during therapy as it can prevent this resultant emotional trauma becoming an amplifier to the primary pain issues.

Chronic pain conditions can also impact a person’s interpersonal relationships through loss of function and make personal interactions more challenging due to the limitations caused by pain and other sensitivities.  Where desired by an individual a family session can sometimes prove helpful to promote harmonious family therapeutic management of a person’s pain condition.

If anxiety or depression has become a secondary issue due to the limitations and distress caused by the pain condition, this will be treated to avoid it becoming a significant amplifier to the primary condition.

Sometimes people can find it very helpful to put the puzzle together as to what might have pre-disposed them to becoming a sufferer of a chronic pain condition.  By solving this puzzle it may help turn the tide if there are still any maintaining issues such as stress or difficult life pressures.

CBT can be particularly helpful from a behavioural aspect of chronic pain management.  This is because it can be very natural for protective human behaviours to have developed to help us avoid pain and these protective behaviours might end up instigating more harm through the secondary impacts they cause.  It is therefore very useful to take any unhelpful protective or avoidant behaviours out of the picture in pain management.

Pam can also look at other areas should a person feel it relevant, or helpful to do so, surrounding their sleep quality, quantity, and their diet.