Local Pain Management Groups

[PainGo1]

HelloDoes anyone know how I find people in my area who are also chronic pain sufferers? I think this would help me hugely to live with and understand my pain and hopefully help other people.

Any ideas?

[rabbits65]

That does sound like a very good idea . It’s a difficult one because obviously social services and doctors surgeries would know but they can’t tell you because of confidentiality . I do not know how your going to find out . Hopefully someone else might come up with an idea.

[PainGo1 in reply to rabbits65]

Yes exactly. These forums are good but I really need to connect with people locally ongoing. I was assigned a social prescribe but she has turned out to be unreliable and has gone AWOL just when I needed her help.

[Bevvy]

There may well be groups already set up. Your gp surgery could help if set up already because that wouldn’t be breaking confidentiality. Otherwise are you in Facebook? If you asked the question in your area potentially people could contact you……

[MSTKing]

I would ask your GP surgery - maybe the nurse or doctor knows of established groups. I think sharing experiences can help as this forum demonstrates.

[cyberbarn]

You may have to dig a little deeper than the GP surgery, depending on the area you live in. For instance in Gloucestershire the acute hospital trust runs pain support groups and courses. I was at a meeting with them and they had no idea that the community health trust had already been running courses for years: ghc.nhs.uk/our-teams-and-se... And the community trust co-produced the courses with people who have long term conditions, and they are also the ones that deliver them. So that is a real grass groups offer that gets great reviews, and the acute trust has done a top down one with little co-production.

And we are finding that the GPs surgeries often don't know about either service. And for some reason there seems to be a rivalry between the hospital and community trusts, and they won't work with each other either! We also have local PCN services set up by the GPs, things like Art for pain, which the social prescribers at the surgeries (also known as care navigators) should know about.

So there will definitely be something local to you, and I hope you can find it!

[PainGo1 in reply to cyberbarn]

Thank you very much for the information. I was very excited about having a Social Prescriber assigned to me but like many services that are free, you get what you pay for and she has turned out to be non existent. The GP's are becoming less and less helpful in my experience and it took me 20 minutes with one of them to finally be told about the Social Prescriber. She reluctantly put me in touch with her but it has come to nothing. I need to look at local community projects as I participated in a 2 week pain management course last summer but found that the other people in the class have gone their separate ways and we no longer stay in touch which is a shame.

[psytrancer in reply to cyberbarn]

Thank you for info on Gloucester community health trust, I live between Gloucester and Stroud. Been here 7 years and neither my GP, pain management consultant or spine surgeons have told me about it. I’ve attended two pain management courses between 2000 and 2010 in Ipswich where I was living before moving here but there’s always something new to learn about management of long term health issues. I last saw my pain management consultant, Dr Ann Young, two weeks ago, she’s put me on list for pain management course but it’s a one year waiting list. She never mentioned the community health trust though I cannot fault Dr Young at all and would recommend her highly to any one about to access her department. I saw her twice a year for three years for lumbar paraverterbrae nerve blocks before I had lumbar spine surgery, also for trigger point steroid injections. She is very professional, very calm and easy to get on with

[Crystalbowl]

Maybe if you give an indication of what area you are in, other people in that area might see your post and respond.

[PainGo1 in reply to Crystalbowl]

I live in SW London

[PainGo1]

Does anyone have any experience with chronic Achilles Tendonitis at all? I have been suffering with it for 5 years now and wondered what treatments are available to help it? I had shock wave therapy 2 years ago which didn't work.

[Crystalbowl in reply to PainGo1]

can’t join you, unfortunately, as in NW U.K. Hope you find others to join with. Have you tried the Curable app? Curable also do online groups but are expensive.

[fluffy10]

Hiya, I know exactly how you feel, I would love to link up with local people but unfortunately, I live in Basildon Essex. Is anyone from these sides??

[PainGo1 in reply to fluffy10]

I wish I was close by? It's difficult finding people in the area.

[fluffy10 in reply to PainGo1]

Yeah I know... can be lonely n frustrating sometimes

[armao]

Good morning… So whereabouts do you live ?

I am in Cheshire…

I wish you pain free days and peaceful nights.

[PainGo1]

Hello I live in London. Thanks for getting in touch.