Helping with Pain - For Children and Young People
Pain can be helpful – have you ever fallen over and grazed your knee? Bumped your head? Stubbed your toe? It was probably painful! Pain is not very nice, but it can be helpful. All pain is created in our brains: this doesn’t mean we’re “making it up” or “imagining it” – just like the hunger signals that our brain sends, and we feel hungry in our stomachs, our brain can send pain signals to anywhere in our body.
Pain can act like an alarm system – it’s our brain’s way of warning us that something could damage our body. It lets us know that what we are doing might not be very safe. We pay attention to this alarm, stop what we are doing, and make sure we are safe. Then we remember not to do it again. The pain alarm is like a really well-trained guard dog that is trying to look after us – the guard dog barks if there are burglars trying to break into the house, letting us know we need to avoid the danger and keep safe. This is helpful pain, which can be called acute pain. Acute pain reminds us to be careful in future, and helps us learn what is safe and not safe, and how to look after our body.
It can also remind us that our body needs time to heal and get better and stronger. When acute pain goes away, this usually tells us that the damage is healed and it is safe to move again. Our brain is not sending the pain signals any more, because the damage is healed.
If you have been poorly, you might have spent a long time in bed, lying down, or not moving very much. This can mean your muscles aren’t as strong as they used to be, and might hurt or ache a little bit when you start moving again. Getting moving again can be helpful, but it’s really important that this is tailored to your needs, so speak to your parent, carer or trusted adult, and they can get some help and advice from professionals about what would be helpful for you.
But, not all pain is a helpful, well-trained guard dog…
Imagine a really badly-trained guard dog – this dog barks at everything! Imagine the dog barks at the postman… at squirrels in the tree outside… at leaves blowing in the wind… at people walking past your window… at next-door’s cat… This guard dog is barking even when there is no real danger, but the alarm signal is the same. Just like a badly-trained guard dog, our pain alarm can sometimes become faulty, and our brain can send pain signals all the time, even when there is no danger. Just like that badly-trained guard dog, that pain alarm keeps on barking: “Danger! It’s not safe! Stop!”. This makes us worry about hurting ourselves even when we are safe, and there is no danger. It’s really unhelpful and really annoying! This unhelpful type of pain is called chronic pain.
Chronic pain is only called this once someone has had it for over 3 months, often longer. Sometimes an injury, illness, or accident can cause this pain alarm system to become faulty, and means our brain sends lots of pain signals even when there is no danger, but sometimes we don’t know why this happens. If you have chronic pain, it’s not your fault, and you are not making it up. Everyone’s experience of chronic pain is different. Although chronic pain can last for a very long time, sometimes not ever going away, there are ways to “turn down the volume” on the pain alarm, so it is easier to live with.
It’s also really important to speak to an adult about your pain. If you need more help and support with your pain, they can help you speak to professionals who can support you.
Things to Try:
- Deep breathing exercises – these can help signal to your brain that you are safe, and not in danger. This can sometimes help turn the volume down on the pain alarm. Try “birthday cake breathing” – breathe in through your nose (count to 4 if you can), then slowly and gently breathe out through your mouth, as if you were blowing out candles on a birthday cake. Try and count to 6 as you breathe out, if you can. Do this 5 times (imagine having 5 birthday cakes!) and notice how you feel afterwards.
- Being present – often when people experience chronic pain, your mind ends up thinking lots about the future and lots about the past, and you can forget to pay attention to what is happening right now. Trying to be present (sometimes called mindfulness) can help turn that pain alarm volume down. Try it out! Go through the colours of the rainbow, and look around you – what can you spot that matches each colour? What can you see that is red? Orange? Yellow? Keep going through the rainbow until you get to violet.
There are some more helpful resources and information on these websites:
You could watch this video with your parent, carer, or a trusted adult: