Pain Management Programmes & the Health Unlocked Forum

Scotland’s Pain Management Programmes (PMPs) and what support is available after graduating.

This edition of Airing Pain has been funded by a grant from the Health and Social Care Alliance Scotland Self Management Fund  administered on behalf of the Scottish Government.

What do you know about Pain Management Programmes (PMPs)? Do you know how they function? About the positive outcomes they have? Do you know if there are any PMPs near you?

In this episode of Airing Pain we learn about PMPs and the communities and support networks that are being formed as a result.

In collaboration with Health Unlocked and Alliance Health and Social Care Scotland, Pain Concern have created a small number of online forums designed for people who have graduated a PMP to stay connected and continue to support one another once the programme has ended. These forums are open only to PMP graduates. Not only can graduates communicate with one another on our Health Unlocked forums, they can also communicate with the healthcare professionals who delivered their PMP.

For Pain Concern this is a preliminary experiment to determine whether forums like these are beneficial, and if we should create more!

Paul Evans speaks to Health Unlocked moderator and PMP graduate Louise Cromie about all things Pain Management Programmes, how support networks can be pivotal in someone’s pain journey and, of course, about our Health Unlocked forums.

Issues covered in this programme include: pain management programmes, self-management, supporting one another in pain, pain community, pain education, the spoon theory, managing pain in a crisis, fatigue, burnout

Time Stamps:

00:21 – Louise Cromie & Paul Evans discuss the origins of the Health Unlocked forums.
01:13 – Louise Cromie shares her own journey with chronic pain.
03:37 – When doctors tell you ‘there’s nothing we can do’ & the vital role specialist pain teams can play.
06:05 – Being believed & having your pain experience validated.
08:36 – A biopsychosocial approach to pain & how to break the cycle of doing too much on good days, then paying for it after.
11:02 – How to manage your pain in unforeseen circumstances.
12:44 – How do Pain Management Programmes (PMPs) help people in pain.
14:53 – The mask we wear when we’re in pain & learning how to lower it.
20:43 – Helping those around you learn about pain & how to be supportive.
22:50 – How to continue coping once a Pain Management Programme ends.
25:14 – How did Pain Concern get involved in supporting PMP graduates?
27:08 – Louise Cromie on becoming a Health Unlocked forum moderator.

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