My 5 year old son got me thinking the other day about perspective when, out of nowhere, he stated without any confusion, “Dad, breakfast didn’t work.”
After a bit of questioning, it became clear what he was talking about: “Are you feeling sick to your stomach?” “No.” “Did you not like your breakfast?” “No, that’s not it.”
“I’m just hungry again.”
This conversation occurred at just about lunch-time. Hmm.
I hear the same thing from my patients sometimes. In my approach to helping patients manage musculoskeletal pains, my first aim is to find a way to ease their pain, and as soon as possible, teach them how to relieve it on their own.
Often, when the condition is still quite irritable, their efforts to use the pain-relieving exercise gives them just a few minutes to a few hours of relief. This is when I hear the same statement my son uttered. “The exercises don’t work.” they say without any confusion.
I begin the questioning: “When you do the exercise, does it aggravate the pain?” “No.” “Can you at least get some relief of your pain?” “Yes. It just comes back after a while.”
“Excellent”, I say. “We’re onto it.”
I then tell them about my son’s statement. To explain further I add, “If you have your normal breakfast, but then start to feel hungry at lunch-time, would you say that that breakfast didn’t work? Of course not. You’d realize that that is simply as far as breakfast could take you. Breakfast actually did its job beautifully – it relieved your hunger for a time. And if you can get similar temporary relief using your home treatment strategies, your exercises are working great too!
This change in perspective goes a long way toward patient’s having a realistic view of recovery from injury. Healing is a process; it takes time. And when you, the patient, have some means of relieving pain on demand, this control over the pain is a great emotional relief. And offers true empowerment to the one person who actually has the key to restore their health.
For more contact us to Essential Physical Therapy.
