Whether you have throbbing pains, sharp pains, burning pains, or indeed any other description of pain, it’s frustrating because your chronic pain keeps you awake and its exhausting. I find that many of my patients avoid going to bed or leave it later and later to go to bed because they think that they won’t…
There have been two very important developments in pain management in the past few years. One has been our growing understanding of how our minds play a crucial role in our perception of our own pain. The other is the new technology which has mushroomed everywhere. There are now websites and phone apps which can…
Pack up your pain and prepare to party! This month I am going to offer some no-nonsense, easy-to-follow advice. This is because Christmas is coming! I hope you are looking forward to it, but you might also be worrying a bit. There is nothing worse than feeling you are spoiling everything because you are in…
Part 3: Life after cancer This is in the final blog in the short series on coping the psychological aspects of cancer. If you missed the previous two, you can find them here: www.apaininthemind.co.uk/the-psychological-impact-of-cancer-and-some-tips-how-to-manage-it-part-1/ www.apaininthemind.co.uk/the-psychological-impact-of-cancer-and-some-tips-to-manage-it-part-2/ Hearing the words “you have finishing treatment” or “come back for a follow up in x months” are a cause…
As regular readers of this column will know I am firmly convinced that our minds have a big role to play in helping us control pain. I was therefore delighted to see the BBC has, along with Oxford University, carried out a very important study to test how placebos work. This has screened on TV…
Part 2: Going through treatment Moving on, into the unknown world of medical treatment ….depression and cancer are linked. Feelings of sadness and despair are not uncommon, wherever in the cancer journey you are. If depression interferes with your daily life and has lasted for two successive weeks, talk to your GP. Clinical depression…
Back in May 2018, I had the pleasure of presenting a talk within a workshop about hypnosis and pain management at The British Pain Society ASM. As some of you know I have a keen interest in the history of medicine, so was delighted to talk about the history of hypnosis in pain management….
As a consultant psychologist in chronic pain management, I spend a lot of my time exploring and refining my ideas about what pain is. The reason I do this is because what we think pain is, has important consequences for how we all view pain and how as a society we treat it. Over the…
Living with chronic /persistent pain can be difficult as often it requires us to change. There is an expression used to describe the reality of living with chronic / persistent pain, it is the ‘new normal’. Life may change, it may be more limited in many ways, but it is still life and a…
Endometriosis: so common, so painful and so ignored. As it is International Women’s Day I thought I would focus on a medical condition which is often ignored or at least not taken seriously enough. This is endometriosis. It’s astounding we do not hear more about it when as many as one in 10 women in…