Whether it’s back pain, knee and/or hip pain, migraines, sciatica, or shoulder struggles, pain is what often brings patients to my Osteopathy clinic in North London.
It’s not surprising really, given that The British Pain Society estimates* that almost 10 million Britons suffer pain almost daily, resulting in a major impact on their quality of life and more days off work.
While the number of people suffering from chronic pain — a widely used term given to pain in your body that has lasted more than 12 weeks — is set to saw from 5.3 million in 2019 to 7.2 million by 2040, according to projections by The Health Foundation**.
But that’s why, as an Osteopath who is committed to helping my patients achieve physical and emotional wellbeing, I am always keeping up to date with the latest research into pain management and staying informed about new and approved approaches to pain recovery.
Getting to the bottom of chronic pain
Just this month I attended the online conference, Chronic Conditions: Beyond the Pain, which was organised by the Stress Illness Recovery Practitioners Association (SIRPA™).
Founded by Georgie Oldfield, who is a Physiotherapist and Member of the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy, SIRPA aims to help people who suffer from persistent pain and for whom conventional medicine has failed to find an answer.
The world-renowned association has a mission to engage health professionals and train them in chronic pain recovery to help shift their patients from living with pain to living without it.
SIRPA’s treatment approach focuses on four main areas including: Education, Emotions, Behaviour and Lifestyle. All of these play a significant role in enabling individuals to become more stress resilient, emotionally aware and able to live a healthier, active life moving forwards.
Chronic conditions, beyond pain
In times gone by, SIRPA’s conferences have focused solely on chronic pain. But due to the numerous other neuroplastic symptoms and conditions seen by practitioners, SIRPA decided to broaden the scope of the presentation to other other chronic conditions, beyond pain.
For example, there was a presentation about the latest neuroscience with Dr. Howard Schubiner, Dr. Sarah Hadfield and Penny George, who is the founder and co-director of Living Proof, talked about their ‘discoveries’ of the mind-body medicine approach and how this has transformed both their lives, and Dr. David Clarke explained how stress can cause pain in the gastrointestinal tract that can be approached like pain anywhere else.
Long Covid was another topic of discussion after Dr. Paul Garner revealed how mainstream psychophysiologic knowledge and practice into primary care can help those suffering with persistent somatic symptoms.
Dealing with chronic pain
As reiterated by the conference. Chronic pain can manifest in various forms and guises. And it can last for months and, in some cases, years.
It can often start after suffering from an initial injury such as back spasm or ankle sprain and then continue from there. However a lot of the time the pain can be unexplained.
Of course, there are many ways to deal with pain and more often than not, when we seek help from a health care professional about chronic pain, we expect a quick fix like in the form of a painkiller, like an ibuprofen or paracetamol.
Help at hand
But as an Osteopath and Naturopath, in my clinic I believe in treating the person as a whole and not just the symptom they present with. This ‘body-mind detective’ role, which involves systematically locating and treating the root cause of often very complex problems, has helped me aid patients who have been suffering with chronic pain over long periods of time.
Whether this is through the use of Osteopathy, which involves the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of a variety of muscle, joint and skeletal conditions, Western Acupuncture, which is a practice which sees fine needles target trigger points associated with certain ailments to help with pain relief or Low Level Laser Therapy, which is a ‘cold’ laser light therapy which can be used on problem areas to speed up the body’s natural healing process.
Of course there are chronic illnesses where medication is both appropriate and important. But according to the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), this shouldn’t always be the case.
If you are suffering from pain or discomfort and you would like further information on how I may help, please feel free to send me a message or call me on 020 8815 0979. To book a treatment, click here.