Understanding Chronic Pain

Understanding chronic pain can be challenging - and when you don't understand what's happening in your body, it can be difficult to fix. Similarly, if your car broke down and you did not understand how cars worked, it's unlikely that you would be able to fix your car - but if you understood how cars worked and how to address mechanical problems, you might have a shot at fixing it.

The following resources provide general information about chronic pain. Their purpose is to help people better understand some of the changes that can happen in the body when people have chronic pain, setting the stage for more informed discussions with healthcare providers. If you have chronic pain, it's important that you talk to your healthcare team about the factors contributing to your pain and your overall health, so you can create a treatment plan that meets your specific needs.

Understanding Pain In Less than 5 Minutes (Brainman):

Why Things Hurt (Lorimer Moseley, TED Talks):

What Is Pain, And What Is Happening When We Feel It? (The Conversation): https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-pain-and-what-is-happening-when-we-feel-it-49040

Live Plan Be: a website providing lots of information on chronic pain and the pros and cons of different treatment options - including both traditional and alternative strategies.  https://www.liveplanbe.ca/

PainHEALTH: a website designed to help people understand musculoskeletal pain: http://painhealth.csse.uwa.edu.au/index.html

PainBytes: a website designed to educate people about the many ways in which chronic pain can impact everyday life, and about strategies that can help reduce its impact http://www.aci.health.nsw.gov.au/chronic-pain/painbytes

Retrain Pain: a free online course designed to teach people about chronic pain and how to reduce symptoms: http://www.retrainpain.org

Pain BC: suggests a wide variety online and offline resources that may be of interest to people with chronic pain: https://www.painbc.ca/chronic-pain

• Pain BC also provides an excellent pain management toolkit: https://www.painbc.ca/sites/default/files/PainBC-PainToolbox-2016-Digital.pdf

On PainScience.com, Paul Ingraham explains how chronic pain works and why it is so challenging to treat, and offers hope/insights to people striving for recovery: https://www.painscience.com/articles/pain-is-weird.php