Chronic Pain Getting You Down? It's Time To "Tame The Beast" Part 2
- Suzanne
- Jan 29
- 5 min read
Updated: Jun 10
If pain is having a significant impact on your life, attending a pain clinic and establishing a pain management plan can be a life-changing experience.
What is The Tame The Beast Pain Theory and how can it help?
In Part One we looked at:
The Tame The Beast pain theory
How to know if my pain system is being protective:
How to re-train my pain system to be less protective and how to know if I’m safe to move?
Pain Management Is A Science
The Tame The Beast method of pain management looks at how pain scientists now view pain and use a variety of measures to treat it successfully.
It highlights what protective and overprotective pain are and, critically notes the fact that if your body produces pain that is a good thing! Sound odd?
It means that when you overdo something or something that triggers your pain, like an injury or illness your body will have you know straight away.
Building your pain management plan
A pain management plan exists for healthcare professionals who support people in managing Chronic Pain. Using a multidisciplinary concept - drawing on each person's knowledge, and utilising various treatment methods.
This may include medication, injections, infusions, complementary therapies, specialised interventions and strategies to provide a unique targeted approach.
For this to occur we need to visit the final three stages of the Tame The Beast pain theory.
How do I know if my health professional understands modern pain science?
Ask them these questions (they should say yes to each one):
Do you understand and believe in the bio-psychosocial model of pain?
Have you ever heard of explaining pain?
Can you help me understand my pain system?
Can you teach me how to manage my recovery?
Can you give me the skills to master my situation?
(Tame The Beast - Understanding)
What questions can I ask myself?
Will I re-injure myself?
Will I get better?
Can I speed up my recovery?
Is learning all those new skills helpful?
How do I help others? (Tame the Beast - Understanding)
Tame The Beast Website:
‘Rest and avoiding activity and movement tend to make an overprotective pain system even more protective. The chance of ongoing pain is higher if you stop moving, your system adapts to being stationary. Exercise and movement are the best ways to reduce your pain. As you load your tissues you will become stronger, and your stronger body will be more resilient to injury. Exercise and movement turn down your protection setting’.
From this, they have discovered that there are two key reasons why people don’t get better;
Avoidance Pathway - simply not doing anything because of the pain
Boom-Bust Cycle - doing everything regardless of pain levels and giving up because the pain becomes unbearable.
It takes a lot of courage, persistence, guidance and patience to get better or improve pain levels.
Generally, advice is to aim for being focused, setting goals, and trying to be optimistic about the future wherever possible. Having a clinical pain team and access to their pain management programmes and networks will also be of great advantage.
The longer your pain has existed will also make it more complex
Sadly there are no quick fixes. The pain system needs to be reset, this could take years.
Simple things like eating plenty of fruit and vegetables, getting enough rest, learning new things and continuing to understand your pain are all anti-inflammatory.
If sleep is a problem then a separate Sleep Management Plan may be needed as an early intervention. Reducing stressful situations and managing anxiety can also help. Surprisingly though many medications can slow down our recovery.
How Movement Can Help
As we have touched on in both the ‘moving more question’ and ‘Journey to Recovery’ movement is one key factor.
NHS England advocates these gentle Sitting Exercises as a simple way to start to move. All done as the title suggests by sitting down and are good starting from ‘nothing level’. The aim is to complete these twice a week, gradually increasing the number of repetitions.
There are also three other exercise activities for Flexibility, Strength and Balance. As a group, these are all-around programmes to help prevent falls and improve mobility.
Pilates improving chronic pain
Pilates For Chronic Back Pain is a 30-minute class that focuses on improving the strength and flexibility of muscles that support the back. Completed regularly, Pilates is known to help with posture, balance, joint mobility and relieving stress.
Always speak to a medical professional before trying these classes.
Chair-based Pilates offers an alternative for those who prefer to or find it easier to start by sitting rather than lying on the floor.
Mobilates is the perfect fit for this with experienced instructors all with lived experience who can adapt every move to suit you and your body and how it feels on any given day. With a full range of classes available. If you are a member check out the video library or consider trying a different class. You can also book a 1-1 if you feel you need some specialised help.
An Alternative Approach
If Tame The Beast isn’t for you, then you could try The Pain Toolkit, highly recognised by the NHS.
Pete Moore himself has persistent pain, asthma, and osteoarthritis, and has put these tools together with the help of friends, family and health care professionals. Moore gives acknowledgement to the Bradford Pain Rehabilitation Programme team and NHS Kirklees. (Pain Toolkit)
Next Steps To Manage Pain
Whilst we may need to tackle many parts and components here, this is a long-term programme for most people with chronic pain, due to the complexity and prevalence of multiple medical conditions, healthcare professionals and treatment options available.
There may be several things to try however, slow and steady wins the race. It’s important at all stages to allow the body to adapt to a change before assessing its effect, significance, impact or lack of impact before moving on to the next step.
Helpful Links
Mobilates CIC provides online and in-person inclusive exercises classes for people in the UK. Classes centre around supporting people with mobility issues, chronic pain, disabilities and long-term health conditions.
Comments