Pain self management: First choice or last resort?

As regular readers will realise, I love self-management and it's really helped me live well with my conditions. Along the way I've met many others on a similar journey, and one of those is Pete Moore of the 'pain toolkit'. I'd highly recommend popping across to see his toolkit resources. Here's a few comments from Pete about his experience and the work he does.

  

Who is Pete Moore?

You can read all about me and what I do here (hyperlink https://www.paintoolkit.org/pete)

The Pain Toolkit

I started to develop the Pain Toolkit (hyperlink www.paintoolkit.org) in 2002 and over the years it’s become a go-to website for information about pain management. Please come and visit and say hello. On the site there is lots of up-to-date news, as well as pain self-management information for healthcare professionals and people with pain.

Is pain self-management your first choice, or last resort?

With the ever-increasing problem of persistent pain in here in the UK and around the world, educational pain self-management has to be the first choice for both people with pain and also healthcare professional.

According to the Chronic Pain Policy Coalition ( http://www.policyconnect.org.uk/cppc/about-chronic-pain) there are now 28 million people here in the UK living with persistent pain. This figure seems to keep doubling every four years.

What is the answer to solve this problem?

It’s quite simple really. Educational pain self-management needs to be taught to all healthcare professionals while they are in their medical schools when in training and not learnt on-the-job as it is now.
Chronic Pain Policy Coalition

One other problem for healthcare professionals is lack of time to promote educational pain self-management within a timed based appointment. I have addressed this and why I now provide 1/2day Pain Toolkit workshops ( https://www.paintoolkit.org/workshops) for healthcare professionals to give them some extra skills to promote educational pain self-management within timed based appointments.

The Pain Toolkit

I started to develop the Pain Toolkit (www.paintoolkit.org) in 2002 and over the years it’s become a go-to website for information about pain management. Please come and visit and say hello. On the site there is lots of up-to-date news, as well as pain self-management information for healthcare professionals and people with pain.