Goodinge Group PracticeManaging Pain
Versus Arthritis
You don’t need to face arthritis alone. Their advisors aim to bring all of the information and advice about arthritis into one place to provide tailored support for you.
Telephone: tel:0800 5200 520
Website: www.versusarthritis.org
Pain Toolkit Booklet
The Pain Toolkit is for people who live with persistent pain. It has been put together to act as a guide to help those with persistent pain and provides handy tips and skills to support with pain management.
View the booklet: The Pain Toolkit
Living With Chronic Pain
Around 1 in 7 people live with chronic or persistent pain, this is pain persisting for more than 3 months and is often on the basis of conditions such as arthritis and musculoskeletal back pain.
Acute pain in general serves a purpose of protecting your body from further harm, persistent pain however serves little useful purpose and significantly degrades quality of life; it affects mood, sleep, mobility, can contribute to loss of energy, feeling tired and having reduced concentration.
Managing persistent pain can be complicated, your GP can help with medicines and painkillers however these come with their own “baggage”; in particular stronger painkillers such as cocodamol, tramadol and opiate patches themselves can contribute to patients feeling tired, can cause constipation along with dependence. They do have a place in managing pain but are only part of the answer.
There is very little evidence that opiate pain relief improves the quality of life for patients living with persistent non cancer pain, in addition if a patient is taking the equivalent of 120mg morphine per day, there is evidence that life expectancy reduces by around 10 years. If you are taking 8 x 30/500mg co-codamol per day this is equivalent to 24mg morphine.
Pain Toolkit
Pain Toolkit has been developed by a persistent pain sufferer to help people understand their pain and develop strategies to help them live fuller more active lives.
Website: www.paintoolkit.org
Whittington Health: Persistent Pain
This page has many links to useful information on managing persistent pain, lasting more than three months without effective relief from standard medical treatment from our colleagues at the Whittington hospital
Medically Unexplained Symptoms
This information is for anyone with physical symptoms without an obvious physical cause. It also explains what you can do to help yourself and what treatments are available.
Breathing exercises- Diaphragmatic
There are three parts to this series on abdominal breathing, which can support relaxation and pain management.
Youtube video: www.youtube.com/watch
My Live Well With Pain
My Live Well with Pain is completely free to use, and is full of trusted techniques that people with persistent pain have found useful, in helping them to get on with their lives and live well with pain.
Website: my.livewellwithpain.co.uk
Email: info@livewellwithpain.co.uk
Understanding Pain
Understanding Pain in less than 5 minutes is a YouTube video exploring how we sense pain and some pointers to overcoming the disabling effects of persistent pain.
Whittington Health: Musculoskeletal Services
Islington Musculoskeletal Service and website has useful exerises and a self referral form for further advice re chronic pain management.
Escape Pain
Escape Pain is a rehabilitation programme for people with chronic joint pain of the knees and/or hips, that integrates educational self-management and coping strategies with an exercise regimen individualised for each participant. It helps people understand their condition, teaches them simple things they can help themselves with, and takes them through a progressive exercise programme so they learn how to cope with pain better.
Website: www.escape-pain.org