Adrian McGregor's activity
In group: Mental health and persistent pain
-
Adrian McGregor posted an update in the group Mental health and persistent pain 5 years, 6 months ago
Like most people who have chronic pain or the more modern term of persistent pain, it’s been a rollercoaster ride of trying to ‘fix’ it or reduce the suffering that goes with it. I have been down so many rabbit holes, looking for help and the magic ‘pill’. There are so many inconsistencies when dealing with chronic pain. Lots of so called experts willing to say their treatment works. There is a lean, particularly by GP’s, towards taking passive action as opposed to being active with your own care – self management. Physiotherapists have a big role to play in better explaining pain and helping people deal with it. If anybody is interested in hearing about my journey; I recently did a podcast. It can be found at the Physio Matters Podcast, Chews Health – number 53 the patient story. Look forward to meeting you all and having my say.
Hi Adrian, welcome to the group, thanks for sharing your experiences so far and linking to your podcast. Look forward to hearing more,
Anindita
Hi Adrian,
I think it is a shame when one professional group lays the blame of passivity at one specific group. In General Practice we use whatever resources we can to support our patients. What is available varies greatly from area to area and patient to patient. The whole system carries responsibility including secondary care, social, mental health, education and the drug industry etc etc we are all here to try to find better ways 🙂
Unfortunately as a patient my experience with my local GP was not helpful in relation to my journey with persistent pain. I remember lots of offers of medications but there was never any psychological help, CBT, pain management course or even a brief understanding of ‘pain’. Even when I got referred to pain clinic I came away with morphine patches after trying pregabelin for sciatica which I do believe is not that successful. After about 2 years the GP just happened to mention psychological support after I asked for it…..then there was the 12 week waiting list. There are 3 GPs at my local Doctor’s and they all seemed very pharmaceuticals biased, happy to offer morphine patches. Luckily I took self efficacy to a new level and found my own way around the chronic pain issue, self experimented with lots of modalities including finding physiotherapist who could ‘explain pain’. My GP used scary language like ‘degenerative changes’ ‘prolapsed discs’ ‘modic changes’ – happy to send me for MRI scans which gave a very scary narrative but really it was just a normal scan for someone my age. As a patient I don’t want to throw anybody under the bus but my personal view is that the way we treat persistent pain, particularly, back pain is not good and does not encourage self efficacy.
lets hope you can educate them 🙂
Hi Adrian, just listened to your podcast, it was very interesting to hear the journey you have been on. Lots of insights in there that I’m sure will be useful throughout the project. Thanks for sharing it.
Thanks, appreciate the feedback🤝