Chronic Pain members - Welcome, please introduce yourself

How about if everyone who reads this fills in the blank. I don't feel pain when.....?

For me, I don't feel pain when I'm petting my dogs and they're showing me affection. Now you try it.

I don’t feel the pain when...my mind is working overtime doing something fun or interesting.

That works for me too.

It is definitely helpful to be doing something you enjoy and can still do physically. If you don't have anything that fits into that space, try something new that is not physical. Anyone started a new activity lately that is undemanding physically?

Video games are my mental escape. I try to balance them with physical activity and will never replace being outdoors with video games, but I have found that they are the one true thing that allows my brain to shut off and I can be blissfully unaware of my pain and/or stress for a few short hours.

When we got past Atari a few decades ago and you had to use several different buttons to be competent, I had to abandon them. I had a golf game when PC's became pretty typical in most homes that was fairly simple and I could play for hours, but then I lost it and the newer ones are a little more complex than I like. I can do OK with the Wii version, but don't enjoy playing myself as much as I used to. I imagine the games are also a way to interact with others if you are connected live and that could be good for folks in our community. Thanks, Justin.

I forgot about the crosstrainer I loved it ,then moved and forgot ,but will restart it Any exercise is good for inflammation

Distraction is the skill that works best for this OGM. I have days I have the attention span of a gnat. Seems all of my issues are chronic. Have grown weary of the "C" word.

You sound like me same symptoms I went for almost 6months in P.T.before I started to feel better ,water aerobics in a warm water pool helped me also ice @heating pad ,moist one Dr.said to get.Exercises slowly,quite when your body tells you,you can hurt by overdoing.I bought a backbrush that had pad on ,put muscle rub on it for back ,tight muscles aTens unit relaxes them ,some suggestions that helped me

@vdrgwr

My wife has had two shots in her sciatica nerve, with only a few days of relief. She has an appointment for an EMG, then with the spinal surgeon and depending on what the EMG shows, will have surgery. It can't be too soon, as far as she's concerned. She has spinal stenosis in a few places, and the surgery would be to scrape the bone to give the nerve room, and not be squeezed all the time. I hope it will be the answer to her pain.

We have several friends who have had the same surgery and are very happy with the outcome.

Jim