Take control

Pain doesn’t have to determine your life.

I love this metaphor I first heard when I attended the Mayo Clinic Pain Rehabilitation Center:  Imagine being in a car with chronic pain. Where is the pain?  Who’s in control? Is pain behind the steering wheel - determining where you go and what you do in life? Or are you driving? Put pain in the back seat, or even better yet, the trunk.

Things you can control - Focus on these

• Understanding how pain works
• Changing how you think and feel about pain, and how you respond to it
• Accepting the pain
• Not being afraid of the pain
• Being aware of what you listen to, read, and watch to avoid negativity and drama
• Being kind to yourself and others
• Taking active responsibility for your care
• Not verbally expressing or complaining about the pain
• Not wallowing in the pain
• Not placing blame for the pain
• Staying away from people who only want to complain about pain
• Not sharing your pain with others
• Reducing stress
• Eating right
• Moving more and increasing your activity level
• Moderating what you do
• Modifying what you do
• Being grateful – focus on what you have, not what you’ve lost
• Developing better sleep habits
• Preparing for a flare in advance so it doesn’t overwhelm you

 
Things you can’t control - Don’t focus on these

• Pain
• Imaging test results
• Past medical interventions
• Past painful experiences
• What other people say or do
• Weather
• Cultural and family norms
• Socio-economic background
• Demographics (sex, age, ethnicity, etc.)
• Genetic make-up