Digging Deeper

It seems like the most logical thing in the world to try to do. Indeed, most pain services in the NHS and beyond are often very focused on getting control over pain, and use a huge range of different methods to do so. You may have experienced many of these. Control measures might include the medications that you have had and the different ways you’ve been asked to take them. Then there’s acupuncture, TENS, and the various types of injections and operations that are offered to many. All in the service of trying to bring pain levels down, or get rid of pain, or indeed to get it to a level that it can be managed.

And why not? It seems that if only the doctors can intervene then things will be ok, be better than they are at the moment. And it seems to make logical sense, that if the pain can be controlled, then you can get back to all the things you’ve not been able to do since the pain got worse. We read lots every week in the news about the marvels of medicine and how it can help cure people of things or at least get them back to a healthier life. So why should pain be any different? After all, this is a physical condition and that’s what doctors are there for, right? Pain interventions = Pain Control = Relief = Better Life. Right?

You also see a certain message all the time on TV and the radio. Phrases like “Battling to overcome”, “fighting the disease” “not giving in to it” and “getting control over it” are used to describe our relationship to illness, as if we have to “win the fight” in order for things to be better.

So far, so logical.