Pain: Do You Get It? Comes to Grantham

An estimated 30-50% of people in Lincolnshire live with longstanding pain and it is a growing problem, particularly with an aging population and in areas of deprivation. In a bid to help people understand why their body hurts and why it sometimes keeps hurting, an engagement event was held in Grantham this month.

Hosted by Connect Health, the largest, independent provider of integrated community MSK (musculoskeletal) and pain services, over 60 attendees joined leading experts at the event held at Grantham’s Guildhall Arts Centre.

Experts included Dr Chris Barker, a specialist GP with over 20 years’ experience in the field of persistent pain and an advisory committee member for the NHS and British Pain Society, who introduced the latest science and expert opinion on the subject. He was joined by Pete Moore, pain sufferer and author of the Pain Toolkit – a self-help resource supported by the Department of Health and used extensively in the UK and overseas.

Tim Atkinson, from Lincolnshire, also shared his healthcare challenges at the event having suffered from pain related to psoriatic arthritis for many years. He described being on a healthcare plan dominated by the prescription of increasingly high doses of pain medications, which he realised were not relieving his symptoms and were causing undesirable side-effects.

Richard Pell, Connect Health’s Head of NHS Service Development commented:

The feedback from the event suggested that people were very keen to understand more about pain science – some of which is very different from what medical professionals believed to be true several years ago. Many attendees welcomed the acknowledgment of the significant psychological and social impact of living with pain. Others remarked that they had received mixed messages from healthcare professionals in relation to pain and appropriate management strategies.

An interactive discussion and audience Q&A combined a panel of people with experience of persistent pain with clinical experts. They discussed the importance of individuals owning their condition and being empowered to take control of living with pain through self-help strategies, seeking out support groups and accessing online self-care resources.

One attendee added:

Today’s session made me think about pain in a different way. I have contact with many people living with pain and I feel like I will now have more of an insight into this and will enjoy learning more.