General Advice and Guidance
General Advice
We always encourage people with pain to look into ways in which they can help themselves and take responsibility for control of their pain. Finding out information about how pain works how people can manage it is very important, this being the chief reason why we have written this website.
Just as with any aspect of health, healthy living and exercise are very important in ensuring that your pain can be minimised and impact as little as possible on you. The Trust's Physiotherapy Department have compiled a very useful list of links with general advice about healthy living.
As well as other aspects of healthy living, one activity that can have an influence on pain is smoking. Smokers have a tendency to develop more degeneration in the discs in their spine, and nicotine may have a bad effect on some nerve pains. The Gloucestershire NHS Stop Smoking Service is a free NHS service provided by NHS Gloucestershire, which offers, support and advice to people who are motivated to quit smoking, and you may find their website helpful.
We have compiled a useful further reading list, much of which is available through Gloucestershire Libraries, whiich you can access here.
Common Misconceptions about Pain
Over the years many myths and misconceptions have grown up about pain, such as the implication that it always indicates damage or that exercise should be avoided. Read more about this at this linked page.
Pain Service Website, Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
Webmaster Dr J G de Courcy, Consultant in Pain Medicine and Anaesthesia
email: pain.webmaster[at]glos.nhs.uk