PAIN HEROES

Pain is a normal human experience that everyone experiences at some point in their life. For some, pain can stick around longer, sorta like a house guest who’s overstayed their welcome. This unrelenting persistence can quite be challenging, testing your mental and physical resilience. Although living with pain is hard, there’s hope. In today’s episode, Alison Sim, author of Pain Heroes: Stories of Hope and Recovery, and I have a candid conversation about pain from both the patient and clinician perspective. 

• “Pain science is not a thing” -  it’s an understanding that treating someone in pain is more complex than just tissue-based pathology 
  

• Listening is probably the most  important treatment that practitioners can provide
  

• Lots of ingrained and outdated beliefs around the pain that just keep people stuck in the same cycle, sometimes even stealing their self-efficacy 
  

• Pain is not a “find it and fix it” situation
  

• Healthcare practitioner burnout is real and not good for the provider or the patient

  • Alison and I share our personal experiences with burnout (we think about you guys in our sleep ❤️)

  • Treating the person in pain takes a village and having a support network is important for both clinician and patient 

  • Pelvic pain has another layer of complexity because it’s your private parts and often an area of our body that isn’t normalized and talked about

  • Education is liberating and knowing how your body works and normalizing issues around our private bits might help prevent a lot of the “persisting” in pelvic pain

  • Complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS)

    • What’s it all about and how it relates to pelvic issues

    • Are symptoms of hard-flaccid more CRPS-like?

    •  A case study about pelvic pain, incontinence, and CRPS
      

Alison Sim qualified as an osteopath in 2001. She has a Masters of Pain Management from Sydney University Medical School and Royal North Shore Pain Management Research Institute. She has lectured at Australian Catholic University, Victoria University, RMIT and George Fox University in a variety of science and clinical subjects. She has also worked as part of the teaching team at Deakin University Medical School and is currently based in Melbourne, Australia. She works in a pain clinic.  Alison is also the author of Pain Heroes: Stories of Hope and Recovery.

❤️ Be sure to check out Alison’s website and follow Alison on Twitter @beyondmpain and Facebook @beyondmechanicalpain 

Check out her book Pain Heroes 👇

This information is not intended to substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of a healthcare professional with any questions you may have regarding treatment, medications/supplements, or any medical diagnoses. This information is intended for educational purposes only and is in no way to substitute the advice of a licensed healthcare professional.