Flare plan

When you're in a lot of pain, it's often hard to think clearly. The emotions often take over, you start thinking negatively, and you tend to forget all the techniques you have learned that help you handle the pain, which leads to a vicious circle. A good way around this is to make a flare-up plan in advance that you can read when your pain gets really bad. Here are some ideas that you may want to include:

• Important things to remember, eg that your pain leads to negative thoughts and unhealthy behavior which creates a vicious circle, or that your sympathetic nervous system is activated because of the pain and causes symptoms that are unpleasant but not dangerous.
• Distraction techniques that usually work for you (look under CHRONIC PAIN -> TREATMENT -> NON-PHARMACOLOGICAL TREATMENT for examples).
• Relaxation techniques such as breathing exercises or progressive muscle relaxation (look under SUPPORT for details).
• Non-pharmacological techniques, e.g. a warm bath, a heat pad or TENS.
• Motivational quotes that you find helpful.
• The name and phone number of friends that you can call for support.