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introducing the journey out of chronic pain: Arriving

Writer's picture: carmenmakepeacecarmenmakepeace
Healing from chronic pain is a tough, challenging path to undertake, especially when you arrive having had surgery(ies), and having been in pain for a long time.
Sometimes the journey that you've already been on before you arrive at M&M is long

Most people I see have been to many professionals before me, are often at their wits end and wondering if anything will actually help.
Maybe you've already seen so many other professionals in your chronic pain journey

Let’s be honest, the journey we are potentially deciding to embark upon together is extremely challenging and difficult to remain objective over. The stakes are exceptionally high. 


Living with pain can be intolerable, and devastating relationships, holding down a job, hobbies, friendships and almost every aspect of life.
And I know how living with pain can be intolerable and debilitating

I say this because I have and do sometimes still live it. I’ve been in your shoes having asked multiple professionals to help me, having had scans and been in consultants rooms countless times. 


Eventually I reached the alternative therapy space,

I sat there across from someone who does my job,

trying to understand if they could help me,

and trying deeply to know if their promises were real

or

was just another person who claimed to have all the answers. 

Just another person claiming to help. 
I've definitely been in your shoes sitting across from someone wondering whether they can help

When I hear a therapist promise to eliminate pain completely help you become totally pain free, warning bells ring.

There is no absolute certainty in this space, because care is fundamentally individual. 


After everything you've been through, you deserve honesty

That’s not to say I haven’t  helped people become pain free,
I absolutely have and I will always work to the best of my ability to help those that walk through my door. 
I just won’t make that sort of promise.

After everything you’ve been through, you deserve honesty. 


What I can say is this:
What I can say is that almost everyone I see feels a significant reduction in pain during their first treatment

Almost everyone I see, has a reduction in pain without pharmaceuticals during their first session., but I will never promise an absolute outcome, because the process itself is nuanced, individual, and most of all I might be only a part of your journey, where other therapists are needed to take on the baton further into talking therapies, psychotherapy, and other worthy domains. 


So having sat in your shoes I have put together an indication of what can be included in the journey.
These are in my opinion the key ingredients on the path to recovering: listening to you, musculoskeletal cause, understanding pain science, receiving that first embodied treatment, empowering you at home with the tools to help you, ongoing treatment to keep moving forwards, embodiment practices, other integrated therapies, becoming resilient

These ingredients are the ones I have found from experience working together cohesively. 

I offer this roadmap/recipe as an attempt to ground the work I do to help individuals feel empowered in their own care and to see how the work in the treatment room links into the whole process and what to practice at home with time, energy and compassion permitting.


Want to know more about the journey out of chronic pain?


Read on to the next step: Listening to you, what happens in the consultation?


As ever, thank you for reading.


Hi, I'm the author, Carmen Makepeace, I help individuals open their hearts and minds to understanding and moving beyond their pain. I've been in their shoes and bring everything I have to help to the table.

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