Conquering Pain Flare-Ups: Developing Your Personalized Management Plan

Living with chronic pain can be challenging, and one of the most frustrating aspects is the unpredictability of pain flare-ups. These sudden increases in pain can disrupt your daily life and leave you feeling helpless. As your Blood Buddy, we want to empower you with the knowledge and tools to manage pain flare-ups effectively and regain control.

Understanding Pain Flare-Ups

Flare-ups are a very real problem for many with chronic pain, even when they are taking pain medications. A flare-up is an increase from normal, or more baseline, levels of pain.

Unfortunately, pain flares can lead to many other problems including decreased mood, lower activity levels, and a feeling of being out of control. The key is to build up the right strategy to counter all these effects and the pain itself.

Key Strategies for Managing Pain Flare-Ups

The document contains two key section which can help with a management plan:

• Section 1 will identify ideas to consider

• Section 2 provides a framework for writing a plan.

What to Consider When Building a plan

Plan Ahead

When a pain flare occurs, it is often difficult to think clearly, focus, concentrate, or problem-solve. Often, a person may go into survival mode just by trying to endure the increased pain level. It is better for people to plan ahead, when they are not having pain, so that they will be ready for flares.

Hurt Versus Harm

It is important to be clear about whether pain is just related to “hurt” (very unpleasant sensations), or if there is actual “harm” (tissue damage) being done. In the vast majority of times, pain hurts but does not indicate actual harm being done to the body. This is important, because most people feel like there must be something really wrong if their pain flares.

Be a Detective

Try to understand what can create a flare-up, e.g. bending or lifting something, not getting enough sleep, experiencing an emotionally stressful conversation, or another event. Knowing what triggers flare-ups can allow a person to approach those situations in a different way in the future.

Key elements for a Personal Flare-Up Plan

Distraction

Have a patient look for ways to divert attention to other things to minimize over focusing on the pain, especially when pain is high. Ask, “What are the things that help to distract you?” Everyone is different. Distractions could include music, movies, conversation, games, etc.

Relaxation

Relaxation is a very useful skill to practice with chronic pain because physical tension and emotional distress can make things worse. What relaxation skills is the person already using?

Activity level

It is important not to give up on physical activity completely during a flare. It may be necessary to cut back on normal activity, but it should not cut it out completely. Encourage patients to ask for help. Have patients slowly get back to more activity again as the flare quiets. For example, try increasing activity by 20% (or some other percentage) each day.

Medications

New medications or additional medications may not be needed to manage pain flares if a person engages in some of the helpful behaviors above. However, if a person uses more pain medications during a pain flare, they should discuss it with their prescribing providers.

Blood Buddy can track these points. It is important to identify the foods that are triggering and what exercises help the best.

Key Takeaways:

• The key is to building a management plan.

• Each flare up must be taken seriously.

• Consider what has changed recently to have caused the flare up.

• Record your activities to identify the core triggers.

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