Chronic Pain management

• Bottled up emotions can manifest as very real symptoms

• 80% of people with chronic pain have at least 1 stress induced condition (tension headache, heartburn, irritable bowel)

• Fears, beliefs, expectations and experiences feed into pain… ++pain = learned neural pathways increase sensitivity

• Extent of tissue damage isn’t a predictor of persistent pain – emotions at the time of trauma have an impact on the amount of pain felt

• Education, self-empowerment, expression of feelings, self compassion = key to taking control of persistent pain

• Pen to paper – journalling