A new way to think about pain | Lauren Cannell | TEDxHobart

[Music] thank you I'm not here today because I stand out or because I'm unique in fact for several years I was just one of the millions of Australians that experience persistent pain also known as chronic pain which is commonly defined as pain that lasts for longer than three months or past normal healing time I'm here because I became curious about my pain and that took me on a journey that changed my understanding and experience of pain and it also changed my life I'm here in the hope that you too will become curious about pain now

aside from this lived experience I'm a wife and a mother and a police officer and a runner I wasn't naturally gifted at running and I only took it up in my 30s but I became what some people call irritatingly passionate about running and I went on to run marathons Ultra marathons and then Ironman events there's a quote that says running a marathon is a journey of a thousand kilometers the race is just the last 42. and I think that's accurate because all the hard work happens in the training that's where you build your mind and

body strength I had three key elements to my approach to endurance events education planning and training with the education I learned about technique and my body's needs and capabilities for the planning I often use the expertise of a coach an expert who could understand me and work with me to devise a training plan to achieve my goal and then the training was all down to me because the coach can give you all the advice they like but they don't do the running for you and I loved every minute of it but like most Runners I

got some injuries along the way most of you here at some time would have had an injury whether running related or not that saw you go to the doctor to get some advice on management so just imagine you follow that advice but your discomfort grows and you start experiencing pain that doesn't feel normal so you go back to the doctor get a scan done the results are a bit inconclusive so you start reaching out to some other healthcare providers and yes it's always worth trying massage and acupuncture and oils and all sorts of stimulants but

nothing helps so you move on to cortisone injections opioid medications even nerve blocks before you know it you're seeing a surgeon and you're having surgery done and your pain doesn't go away and now you're really scared because the pain is moving and it's growing and it's now in both sides of your body and it hurts to sit and it hurts to stand and sometimes it burns and it stabs and it radiates you stop going to work and social events and your world becomes smaller and scarier you start having panic attacks and you become obsessed with

your pain you're constantly Googling your symptoms thinking this has to be something terrible and you turn to your doctor desperately asking them to find what's wrong and make it stop and they can't and you have no answers and no relief that was my reality just a few years ago from the development of a minor running injury I went from running marathons to feeling unable to walk to my front gate without being in significant pain and that's spiraled into two years of medications medical procedures and depression the rest of my life at that point was looking

pretty grim that's when I became curious about pain and I read and I watched and I listened to every reliable source that I could find notably those I found through the pain Revolution and pain Australia until I discovered what was wrong which was nothing well nothing in the sense but I no longer had physical injuries my body had healed my pain was very real but it didn't relate to damage in my body now there are some great TED talks from Pain experts that explain how persistent pain Works in a clinical sense but from my perspective

my brain had developed an opinion that I was in danger and it was sending me warning messages in the form of pain normally those messages are a good thing it's an evolutionary protection system which is designed to Keep Us Alive but in some cases the brain gets over protective and it can keep sending these messages even when we don't need them anymore typically we think of pain as a symptom of an injury or illness but it's not always the case psychological and social factors can play a part in the development and intensity of pain meaning

that the amount of pain we feel may depend on the context in which we experience it and it may also depend on our own personal beliefs about pain our brains store information about everything that we see hear and do and it uses that information to form opinions about many things like our favorite color or what type of music we like and also about whether we're in danger if your brain forms an officially it's best guess that you're in danger it might send a warning to the body and that might be the hair standing up on

your arms or breaking out in a sweat before you come on this stage or it could be pain fear stress anxiety depression can feed and amplify those pain messages and this was the first breakthrough moments in my recovery where I understood that the pain I was feeling which was very real was no longer related to damage in my body but why had my brain formed this opinion in the five years leading up to this time I had experienced two painful traumatic and life-threatening incidents I had a brain hemorrhage and almost two years later I was

hit by a vehicle while I was cycling resulting in some serious injuries I'd been a police officer for more than 20 years which comes with its own accumulation of trauma and if you haven't already guessed I am a type A personality a perfectionist with fairly High self-expectations so add to that the anxiety I felt because I couldn't run and the fear that I had about the pain it's little wonder that my brain was on high alert and sensing danger everywhere but once I understood that I needed to learn how to fix it and just because

you understand pain doesn't mean that it goes away and there is no magic pill medication might have a place but for the most part it will address symptoms and not cause so how to reassure my brain that I'm safe well as we've already heard today the brain is a really adaptive bit of kit and the more that you practice a new task the better the brain adapts to perfect that skill and I had spent a lot of time practicing pain but just as you can train your brain to wind up the pain without even knowing

that it's happening you can consciously train the brain to wind it back using that process we've heard about today neuroplasticity and luckily for me training something I know a lot about instead of training my body to run a long distance I just needed to train my brain to reduce my pain and this was the second breakthrough moment where I made a conscious and deliberate decision change my approach to pain from passive to active I stopped seeing my body as broken and dysfunctional and I just became grateful for this amazing organ that was trying way too

hard to protect me and it needed some retraining to do that retraining I returned to a process I'd relied on many times before my education planning and training and I had the education part down but I wanted a coach a pain informed expert to help me reduce my pain and this could be a doctor a physio a local pain educator an occupational therapist it might depend who you have access to but they must be well informed about pain for me that person was an exercise physiologist and a pain coat like a run coach they don't

do the work for you you have to be the active participant in your pain recovery and a pain plan like a rum plan is specific to you your life your goals my plan involved what I dubbed the math approach movement acknowledgment self-talk and support movement is medicine and returning to physical activity in a safe and gradual way restores confidence and it reassures the brain that you're safe pacing your return to physical activity allows you to avoid the Boon bus scenarios and it puts implies contingencies if you have a pain flare-up it's also just great for

brain health as our general well-being factors like good sleep and nutrition and social connection acknowledgment means an acceptance that's psychological and social factors can be drivers of your pain and they might need some expert attention in the form of therapies or mindfulness or whatever it is that's relevant to your situation self-talk is critical to reversing those pain messages to the brain for me that meant simple repetitive reminders to myself that I was safe and I would literally say to my brain hey buddy got the pain message I appreciate what you're trying to do but I

don't need you I'm safe and support in the form of family friends and work colleagues who understand your approach to pain and are there to cheer you on is also really helpful now just like training for a marathon training your brain does not happen overnight in my typical style I wanted to recover faster and better than anyone else had ever done and it just didn't happen like that it was more like running mountain ranges you have ups and downs and you have self-doubt and setbacks but you also reach wonderful milestones and moments of Triumph a

month by month my pain lessened and I got a little bit of my life back as my brain adapted and trusted that I was safe and several years have passed now and I am back running marathons I still get pain from time to time that is not associated with injury or illness but I understand why it's happening it's usually when I'm under a lot of stress and I don't fear it and instead of running mountains to wind it back it's often just a bit of a jog around the block it was confronting to think that

the origin of that pain was literally in my head but this wasn't a medical breakthrough the role of the brain in pain has been documented for decades think of things like sympathy labor pain or Phantom limb pain what surprised me was that for the dozens of healthcare practitioners I had seen very few investigated this possibility with me they were treating a body that had healed but not exploring what was happening in my brain and as a missed opportunity when we don't at least consider that possibility and people can spend years of their life in pain

like me because they're not given access to the pain education and empowerment to actively change that experience now as I said at the start I'm not here because my story is unique I'm here because it's not it's estimated that one in five Australians live with persistent pain it is a leading cause of workplace absenteeism of premature retirement of disability and poor Mental Health how many people do you know that have persistent pain that limits what they do back pain knee pain migraines arthritis maybe that's you now I'm curious how many of these people can reduce

or eliminate that pain by having access to pain education and resources There's an opportunity here for people who have acute pain to limit their pain experience or prevent the development of persistent Pain by getting the right information at the right time I'm not here to tell you that this is the answer for everyone who's in pain what I'm saying is if you experience persistent pain then I invite you to become curious about why becoming curious about your pain it could change your life too thank you [Applause]