accountability

Chronic Pain In College Part 4 – Pain and Your Social Life

/ Thomas Cohn, MD

Chronic pain Social College Minneapolis(Below is Part 4 of a four-part series on chronic pain in high school and college. It was penned by a college student who has dealt with chronic pain throughout her academic career. The four-part series will cover four important aspects of college life – Academics, Dating, Employment and Social Life.

Here’s Part 4 on how to manage chronic pain and your social life during an important stage of your life. Click these links for Part 1 and Part 2 and Part 3.

Chronic Pain and Your Social Life

Pain can dominate your life, or you can make it just something that is part of your life. It starts with how you interpret life. If you take charge, you can change the way you interpret your pain and take back the control of how you live your life. The key is to find what you enjoy in life and to never loose sight of it. Make that your motivation through the tough days and a perk to enjoy on the good days. Make social events/time with other people a regular part of your week. It is really easy to isolate yourself from society when you have health problems, but life is a lot more manageable if you don’t.

If you’re in college, consider joining a club you’re passionate about. Clubs are a great way to get involved with your university, gain leadership experience and meet new people. Clubs can be social, professional, community service driven, or a combination. Most universities are also open to students creating their own clubs, so if you have an idea and want to implement it, you can do that too. I’d suggest being involved in at least one student organization in college. If you have chronic pain or are in a tough major (or both), joining a club can help give you multiple things in your life to distract you from the unpleasant aspects.

Friends Are Key

Good friends are a lifesaver. Having buddies that live with and know you well can be extremely helpful as you cope with chronic pain. It’s important to have someone to be able to go to (physically or a phone call) and be able to connect with, vent, or just distract you from what is going on. If pain prevents you from doing “extreme sports” then plan fun activities that will be less strenuous: game nights (board or video), movie nights, watching a TV show with others, playing pool or going to an arcade, going to a bar or out to dinner, going to a movie or comedy show, doing open skating, going for a walk with a dog or just with your friends exploring the city. I’ve found being surrounded by good company is enough to take my mind off the pain for a few hours and allow my life to have some normalcy. Just because you have chronic pain doesn’t and shouldn’t mean that you shouldn’t have a social life if you want one. Yes, you might have to make some adjustments, but here again, if you put your mind to it, you can make it what you want to.

All in all, these are the things I’ve learned and I hope you consider. Firstly, humans are generally kind, considerate, helpful, and understanding. It’s in our nature to help each other out, so don’t be afraid to lend a hand or ask for a hand when you need one in return. We (especially people with pain) catastrophize present and future situations, often assuming much worse outcomes will happen than are realistic. Don’t let this prevent you from trying new or different things in life. Humor and distraction can make an awful day a good one. Surround yourself with people that know you well and make you happy, don’t waste your time and energy with people that bring you down or make you feel bad about yourself. Be there for others the way you want them to be there for you. And LIVE the life you want to, don’t try to restrict your life to “fit” what you think you have to because of your pain; instead, do the things in life you want to do, and make the adjustments you need to in order to make sure you can indeed do what you want. Don’t let pain and others define your life—define your life how YOU wish to.

Being Accountable For Your Health

/ Thomas Cohn, MD

Taking control of your health requires daily management, and it’s not always easy to do on your own. Sometimes help comes in the form of a gym buddy, but recently we’ve seen a rise in the number of people who wear a fitness tracker to help them track their activity, which is a great start towards a healthy lifestyle. That’s because people who wear some sort of fitness tracker tend to exercise more regularly and they are more accurate in reporting the time and amount of exercise. In the end, it all comes down to holding ourselves responsible for our health, but if these devices can help you stick to a schedule, it seems well worth the investment.

Fitbit Eagan

The boom in activity trackers hopefully will lead to higher rates of compliance with fitness. For my patients with pain, those who have included the use of a fitness tracker to monitor activity have been more consistent in exercise. They have also tended to be more motivated in performing an exercise routine, use less medication and have better control of symptoms.

One of the most important actions necessary to control pain is exercise. One needs to perform muscle strengthening and aerobic conditioning on a regular basis to control symptoms. Working with a physical therapist to learn how to perform the correct exercise is a good start, and after learning how to exercise appropriately, consistently being active is critical. The use of an activity tracker can significantly help a person stay the course of appropriate exercise.

The cost of a good fitness tracker runs about $100. As medicine goes, this is a relatively cheap investment into your own health. If pain is a factor in your health, get a fitness tracker, use it and get active.