Managing pain

Sudden or urgent pain, sometimes called ‘acute’ pain, is usually due to an obvious injury, such as a tooth infection or a fractured bone, or after an operation. The pain can be difficult to cope with, but usually gets better quite quickly, in just a few days or weeks.

Sometimes pain starts because of an injury, but then does not get better as you would expect. Sometimes it is not clear how or why the pain has started. Pain can come from the muscles, ligaments or joints (tissue pain) or from the nerves. It can also be a combination of the two, which can be hard to manage. For example, you could have lower back pain and pain caused by health problems like arthritis.

Chronic pain is usually not a sign of ongoing injury or damage, but more likely a problem in how your body senses pain. Your nerves can sometimes send signals as if there is an instant threat of injury or damage when there isn’t really anything wrong.

Neuropathic pain is a type of chronic pain that comes after an injury to your nerves or nervous system. Examples include:

• Pain after an infection such as shingles
• Pain to do with diabetes
• Pain to do with a stroke

Neuropathic pain is usually very unpleasant.

Cancer pain can relate to the cancer itself or the cancer treatment. Patients with cancer may also have pain that is not linked to their cancer.

It’s often quite easy to treat acute pain with medicines and other treatments. Treatments are usually only needed for a short time while the injury starts to heal.

Living with chronic pain affects people in different ways. It can be stressful, and make you feel anxious or worried about what may be causing the pain, especially if there is no obvious cause. The pain might also make you feel tense, which in turn may affect your pain and how you can move around. You may feel angry with people who do not understand your pain, or anger towards the pain itself. You may find it hard to sleep due to the pain, or from worrying about the pain.

Most treatments aim to help you manage your pain yourself and make it easier for you do the things that you like to do. Helping you understand long-term pain is important, and the aim is to support you to live as well as possible.

Supporting you to live with pain often also includes helping you to understand your emotional response to pain, supporting you to build new coping skills and return to activities that you enjoy. This may include things like walking, gardening, swimming or meeting up with friends and family.

Medicines, and opioids in particular, usually are not very useful for long-term pain. Some people find that pain relief medicine can reduce their pain, but it will not stop the pain completely and it only works for about one in three people. Most people will get used to pain medication if they use it for a long time, which means that the medicine might stop working.

Medication can also cause side-effects, other long-term harms and can be addictive.

Visit Understanding Pain: Brainman stops his opioids – YouTube for more information.

Medicines may be used to treat this type of pain but are not usually very useful and only work for a few people. The first medicine you try might not work, so you might need to try more than one type of medicine to try and make your pain better. You can also try the self-management techniques mentioned further down this page.

Cancer pain usually comes from an obvious source of damage to your body and may be sudden or long-lasting. Neuropathic pain happens because of having cancer and the treatments you are given, such as radiotherapy. Cancer pain treatment, particularly at the end of life, is often for a short duration. As a result, it is usually more successful than long-term pain treatment. Patients who get better from cancer or who survive a long time with cancer may have pain that is more difficult to treat.

Created by Peter Moore, a patient who has lived with pain.

The pain toolkit has lots of useful resources and information to help with the self-management of persistent or long-term pain.

A charity for people living with back pain. They provide information and education to stop unnecessary back pain from occurring, as well as emotional and practical to support to people living with back pain. Visit back care.org.

This gives support to people with arthritis across the United Kingdom (UK). The website, has information about arthritis, how to manage symptoms and information about exercises and treatments. They also have free online gentle movement videos including Tai Chi and stretches.

This is a charity that directs you to information and tools for people who are affected by fibromyalgia. Visit the website to find out more.

This is a charity that gives advice, support and information to people with a curve in their spine (scoliosis) and their families. Information can be found on the website.

Action for Happiness brings people together and gives useful resources to help you learn skills for happier living. Visit www.actionforhappiness.org for more information.

Visit the Communities Together website at www.communities-together.co.uk

Visit the VAST website at www.sottogether.vast.org.uk

Visit www.staffordshireconnects.info/

This service has a website with lots of information around how to manage your pain, including sleep, relaxation and social wellbeing. Visit https://www.mpft.nhs.uk/services/chronic-pain-management-service for all of this information.

The team has also created an information sheet with links that you may find useful. Visit: https://view.officeapps.live.com/op/view.aspx?src=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mpft.nhs.uk%2Fapplication%2Ffiles%2F4717%2F1387%2F7482%2FQR_code_links.docx&wdOrigin=BROWSELINK

The page provide supported self-management advice, information and guide. Visit:

https://www.mpft.nhs.uk/services/msk for more information about self-management and the service.

You can refer yourself to this free and private service for talking therapy. This if for people who are struggling with depression, stress, anxiety, low mood, worry, phobias and other mental and emotional issues and to those getting used to living with a long-term health condition. Visit www.staffsandstoketalkingtherapies.nhs.uk

A wide variety of health information based on current research from Keele University is on the university website: www.keele.health. This includes videos, leaflets and videos to help with back pain, osteoarthritis, pain and recovery and mental health.

Visit https://www.keele.health/osteoarthritis-resources/?_gl=1*110hqay*_ga*MTY0Mjc3MzczMy4xNzE3NDg5NjA5*_ga_P1P2C4XLMK*MTcxODIwMjc0Ni40LjAuMTcxODIwMjc0Ni4wLjAuMA..#osteoanimations for information specifically for osteoarthritis.

A support website for people with pain and mental health issues. The website, https://beefree.org.uk/ is full of information that has been put together by patients like you, working with experts at Keele University, Mind and the NHS.

The Haywood Foundation is based in Staffordshire and aims to improve the wellbeing of local people with arthritis and related conditions. Visit: https://haywoodfoundation.org/.