LIVING LIFE IN CHRONIC PAIN – The latest news on health, lifestyle, wellbeing, treatments, reviews and tips on chronic pain
As well as moving into the new Grand Hall at Olympia, for the first time, The Allergy and Free From Show 2014 is also co-locating with the Back Pain Show. This means that there will be even more for people to experience across the weekend.
One of their sponsors ‘A Way With Pain’ is a charity run organisation which provides support and information for sufferers of chronic pain.
As it has potential for reducing healthcare costs, by reducing pain, some NHS trusts now offer Alexander technique lessons as part of their outpatient pain clinics. Your GP will be able to tell you whether it’s available through the NHS in your local area.
According to the NHS, the main principles of the Alexander technique are:
“how you move, sit and stand affects how well you function”
“the relationship of the head, neck and spine is fundamental to your ability to function optimally”
“becoming more mindful of the way you go about your daily activities is necessary to make changes and gain benefit”
“the mind and body work together intimately as one, each constantly influencing the other”
Learning and applying the Alexander technique is also thought to help improve balance, co-ordination and breathing.
The Alexander technique is taught by a qualified teacher.Lessons take place in a studio or clinic and usually last 30-60 minutes. Youll be asked to wear loose-fitting, comfortable clothing so that youre able to move easily.
The teacher will observe your movements and show you how to move, sit and stand with better balance and less strain. Theyll use their hands to gently guide you in your movements, with your head leading and your spine following.
During the lessons youll be helped to explore the way you go about everyday activities. You’ll practise applying the Alexander technique while standing, sitting, walking and lying down, maintaining a better relationship between your head, neck, spine and back.
You’ll need to attend a number of lessons to learn the basic concepts of the Alexander technique. Proponents say that once you’ve gained an understanding of the main principles, you’ll be able to apply them to everyday life. For example, they say that after developing better balance and co-ordination, you will be able to sit and stand using less muscular effort than you did previously.
It’s obviously not suitable for everyone and people with a specific spinal injury or severe pain from a herniated (ruptured) disc, severe spinal stenosis (narrowing of the spine), or a fracture of the vertebrae (the bones in the spine).
Fibro Fog as they call it, is also know as Fibromyalgia fog which effects your memory and can cause word mix-ups and difficulty with concentration.
When I first started to experience it I thought it was due to a particular drug that I was taking for my pain and Fibromyalgia, so I cut down to the lowest dose but that made no difference whatsoever.
Some studies say that it is caused by sleep deprivation which is very common in Fibromyalgia, but others found that poor sleep was not the case.
Additional research though not on Fibromyalgia specifically shows that chronic pain itself may affect the brain. A technology called functional MRI found that in people with chronic pain, a front region of the brain mostly associated with emotion is constantly active. The affected areas fail to shut off when they should, wearing out neurons and disturbing the balance of the brain as a whole.
They suggest a number of cognitive treatments to try to help with this but I find the best is to just ‘pick your best time of day’ to get your jobs done. You soon know when your at your best which for me is either first thing or immediately after my afternoon rest. If I miss my afternoon rest then I know I may as well not bother trying to do anything that uses my brain much, like writing interesting blog posts :))
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