Photo: A new weekly pain management class in Flin Flon is helping residents with chronic pain learn practical physical, psychological and social strategies to improve daily life, even if the pain doesn’t fully disappear. Photo courtesy Karolina Grabowska
Winnipeg Sun
Every Friday morning at the Primary Health Care Centre, a small group gathers with something in common: pain that has overstayed its welcome.
The Pain Management Class, running weekly until April 3, offers practical strategies to help people manage chronic pain, defined as pain lasting three months or more.
“Anyone who has chronic pain for three months or more can benefit from lessons in this class,” said Tom Dubreuil, a mental health promotion specialist involved with the program. “This can be anything from fibromyalgia to herniated discs to post-operation or cancer recovery.”
Chronic pain, Dubreuil says, is different from the sharp alarm of acute injury. It lingers. It reshapes routines. It can shrink a person’s world.
The program is built on what’s known as a biopsychosocial model of pain, an approach that recognizes pain is not solely a physical sensation but also influenced by psychological and social factors.
Participants explore three core components.
The first is biological, understanding how chronic pain differs from acute pain and practicing physical strategies aimed at lowering discomfort.
The second is psychological. “Stress, anger and our perception of pain contribute to chronic pain,” Dubreuil said. Cognitive behavioural therapy techniques and stress-reduction strategies are introduced to help calm the body’s stress response.
The third is social. Chronic pain often leads to isolation, he said, and the class offers strategies to increase positive social interaction as a way to help reduce symptoms.
For some, the idea of a pain management class may sound abstract compared to prescriptions or procedures. Dubreuil acknowledges that hesitation.
“Some individuals seek solutions for their chronic pain beyond medications,” he said. “Pain can be as much about the psychological and social factors as the physical injury itself. If people can learn techniques that can reduce their pain even by 10 to 20 per cent, it’s worth exploring the techniques in this class.”
The aim is not to promise a pain-free life, he added, but a fuller one.
“Our goal is to share techniques and strategies that can improve people’s wellness day to day, even if there is pain present,” Dubreuil said. “This class may motivate people to start asking themselves what that could look like and how they could get there.”
The class offers a weekly reminder that pain may be persistent, but so, too, is the possibility of learning to live alongside it with a little less isolation.