Episode7 Segment 1 - How can you plan for challenging situations?

When you've got chronic pain and your trying to stay on track with your management plan it's important to try and predict the things that you know always every time you encounter them, they're going to upset your pain so predict them, write them down, know them, come to know what they are, so that it doesn't mean you have to avoid them, you just need to prepare for those things.

The second thing is to learn your warning signs, learn the things that you can recognise in yourself the way you feel and what you are doing that suggest that maybe you're not coping as well with your pain as you have been doing.

And the third thing is to make a coping plan so actually actively think about well when something comes up that really is challenging for me what can I do to prepare for it what can I do during that activity and what should I do afterwards so that I keep making this progress that I've been making.

Some of the challenging situations that young people face, um young people with chronic pain often find doing an exam they're sitting still for a long period, being focused and having all your muscles tensed, um really concentrating that can be a real stress and a trigger for their pain.

Other young people find that sporting activities or social activities, parties where they're going to be doing physical things that they don't usually do quite so much of, those can be challenging situations.

Um and other things can be things from out of the blue, like um a stress in your family or something that you weren't expecting a surprise those things can really challenge how you’re coping with life and particularly with pain.

So every young person who has chronic pain is different and their warning signs will be different too, signs that they may be not coping so well, so those sorts of signs might be maybe, not sleeping so well changes in your mood maybe it being really down, or inside, like not wanting to be around people as much you may change in the way you relate to other people, friends and family even maybe being a little bit more irritable or a little bit on edge and withdrawing a little bit everyone's different so just learn to recognise the signs that occur when your feeling that your not coping so well with pain write them down if you need to and practice recognising them earlier and earlier.

The benefits of recognising your warning signs are that you can't always predict that a situation is going to be challenging you can just find yourself in the middle of it and if you don't recognise those signs you can't realise that you're not coping as well as you want to and um if you learn to recognise what's happening you can pause and see, really see the situation you're in, and maybe have the strength and space in your mind to call up some of those strategies the things and skills that you've been learning to help you out of this situation and also perhaps to recognise this as a challenging situation in the future that you can make more plans for.

So when I go to Great Aussie Bush camp Wednesday I will, um if I get lots of pain then things that will help me I will use my knee braces I'll wear my splints if I need to, um I'll get myself some medicine or get a teacher to give some to me.

Um, I will also use my cool cold pack if it really really hurts and my thermometer if I feel sick I think what we've got to be very mindful of, Bayly, really important that you use all the tools here that you have, okay so if you don't put your guards on or your knee guards on, two days later your going to pay for it okay.

So we want you to have three fun days at the camp and it's about, at the end of the day, it's about all kids having fun at camp but this is about you having fun as well, okay we're not going to let you miss out on that I wouldn't miss going to Great Aussie Bush camp because… 'cause it looks really fun and if I do miss it and my friends come back saying it was really, really fun I'll just feel sad.

Shopping is still actually a little bit hard, or not hard but I still enjoy it, um but no, it's a lot of walking around and that still can hurt, like especially on my feet all day.

I'll plan it out, like I'll start from this end of the shops and work my way to the other end of the shop without walking back and forth, back and forth and then if I get in pain, I'll just stop, sit down, have a drink maybe, or just even if I just sit if I know I'm going to have a busy morning or busy day, um I come home and get as much rest as I can make myself feel better and um and instead of taking pain medication I'll just get as much rest as I can and if I know that if I, like, gotta go out that night or something l get as much rest as I can before and I'll try and have like a chilled night like out and not go crazy