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Helping with Pain - For Parents, Carers and Trusted Adults

 

Pain works like an alarm system. Signals from our body are carried to the brain via the nervous system and interpreted by the brain. The brain “filters out” most of them as they aren’t important – we don’t need to know what our third toe on our left foot feels like all the time! But when we injure ourselves, the brain notices these signals are different, interprets them as dangerous, and sends pain to the location of the injury. All pain is created in the brain – this does not mean it is “made up” or “imagined” – just like our brain creates hunger which we feel in our stomachs, these signals are real and can be felt anywhere in our body.

Acute pain (pain which lasts a short time, and is proportionate to the injury or harm) is helpful and serves an important function – it helps remove us from danger, get help if we need it, and rest to allow for healing. When the injury has healed, these pain signals decrease and go away, and we can go back to doing our normal activities. It’s like an alarm system – acute pain 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, and stops barking when the danger is gone.

However, acute pain is not the only kind of pain. Sometimes pain continues for a long time, and doesn’t go away – this is called chronic pain. Chronic pain is pain that has lasted for more than 3 months, and can develop after injury or illness, or for no clear reason. In chronic pain, the brain is interpreting the signals from our nervous system as dangerous and threatening, even when there is no danger or harm to the body, and sending pain to these parts of the body. Using the guard dog analogy, chronic pain is like a badly-trained guard dog that barks not only at burglars, but also at the postman, at leaves blowing in the wind, at people walking past your window, at next-door’s cat… All things which are not dangerous or harmful, but which the guard dog is interpreting as such.

If your child is experiencing pain that does not improve with rest or normal pain relief medications, it is important to contact their GP.

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:

  • Deep breathing exercises – these can help signal to the brain that your child is safe, and not in danger. This can sometimes help turn the volume down on the pain alarm. Try “birthday cake breathing” – breathe in through the nose (counting to 4 if they can), then slowly and gently breathe out through the mouth, as if blowing out candles on a birthday cake. Try and count to 6 breathing out, if they can. Do this 5 times (imagine having 5 birthday cakes!) and ask your child to notice how they feel afterwards. It can be nice to do this together, as a shared activity.
  • Being present – often when people experience chronic pain, their mind ends up thinking lots about the future and lots about the past, and it’s hard 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 with your child: Go through the colours of the rainbow, and look around you – what can they spot that matches each colour? What can they see that is red? Orange? Yellow? Keep going through the rainbow until they get to violet. For older children/teens, trying to get them to spot tiny details matching each colour can be good, e.g. noticing that a tiny bead on a friendship bracelet is red, or that a button on the TV remote is yellow.

For more information and resources for supporting a child or young person with chronic pain, Pain Concern have a great leaflet:

And information and resources on their website:

These videos may also be helpful:

If you also live with chronic pain, you may find this website helpful:

 

 

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