Cyclists

[VNVObit]

get well eventually

hope you can get some proper sleep soon
your body may be broken but your resolve definitely isn't

[adam]

quite a good mental exercise for pain relief is to focus on your navel when you breathe in, and the painful area when you breathe out (repeatedly)

[Baggypants]

quite a good mental exercise for pain relief is to focus on your navel when you breathe in, and the painful area when you breathe out (repeatedly)

Advocating navel gazing? I must be the world expert in pain relief!

[adam]

no it's a mental focus not a visual one only half the time too

[Viscount Charles]

After struggling for my whole life to fall asleep, I found a similar breathing trick a few months ago, and found myself able to put myself out within about five minutes. I was chuffing amazed when it was still working when I was in the strange surroundings of hospital, uncomfortable if not in pain.

[Baggypants]

After struggling for my whole life to fall asleep, I found a similar breathing trick a few months ago, and found myself able to put myself out within about five minutes. I was chuffing amazed when it was still working when I was in the strange surroundings of hospital, uncomfortable if not in pain.

What was it?

[Viscount Charles]

In through the nose. Hold the breath for 7/8 seconds. Then breath out slowly through the mouth, taking 8/9 seconds. Over and over. After about ten reps, you realise that it's not working, and you wonder how you fell for it. Then you wake up.

Apparently it fools the brain into thinking that it is already asleep, so it goes to sleep.

[adam]

something else to experiment with is to focus on whatever you can find thats pleasurable moment to moment - i haven't tried this with pain like yours, but for small aches i've found it fairly effective

i've found sometimes thinking about a pain can cause that area to clench up which makes it worse - pain does have this way of attracting attention of course

[gumboot]

The self-perpetuation of pain may be a part of why you should never start pain meds with a weak dose and try to top-up later. But there are other factors like how pain interferes with absorption of the drug.

First dose should always be strong; maintenance doses can be lower.

[(o)(o)]

In through the nose. Hold the breath for 7/8 seconds. Then breath out slowly through the mouth, taking 8/9 seconds. Over and over. After about ten reps, you realise that it's not working, and you wonder how you fell for it. Then you wake up.

Apparently it fools the brain into thinking that it is already asleep, so it goes to sleep.

Yes Yes !!!

The 4-7-8 method, promoted by Andrew Weil for a number of years now.

Breath in 4 seconds, hold 7 seconds, breathe out 8 seconds.

This particular timing physiologically drives relaxation very effectively it's way cool.

I'm composing a piece of music to aid the use of it.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science ... conds.html

[(o)(o)]

something else to experiment with is to focus on whatever you can find thats pleasurable moment to moment - i haven't tried this with pain like yours, but for small aches i've found it fairly effective

i've found sometimes thinking about a pain can cause that area to clench up which makes it worse - pain does have this way of attracting attention of course

Relaxation and acceptance.

It's possible to disconnect mentally from the sensation. Rationalise : "what I'm feeling there is the signal coming from those nerves there going to my brain because of that injury".

Much of what people experience as pain is psychological embellishment of the primary signals.

We've all heard of people being able to get into very relaxed states and undergoing surgery without anaesthesia

Done some pain training myself and it's mainly a matter of concentration.. but gets harder the more significant the injury. I also think the environment is important, and tbh it's pretty hard to relax laying grazed on cold wet road at the best of times.

[(o)(o)]

Oooh didn't noticed the video from that article on the first read.. I'll just post this seperately aswell because I think it's an amazing thing that's learned quickly and you can use for the rest of your life.

[Viscount Charles]

It completely blew me away when I first heard about it a couple of months ago. And the fact that could still get it to work when lying on my back (I don't sleep on my back, given any sort of choice) and surrounded by the bustle and beeps of intensive care was even more impressive.

Some pain I can cheerfully ignore. Or embrace, even. My party trick on the ICU consisted of allowing all manner of sticky tapes and pads to be ripped from my body (despite it being rather hairy) without any sort of wincing. If I did it myself, it wasn't even a tiny challenge.

The physio exercises - some of the pain IS psychological. But it's been too intense to get through in any way except by screaming defiance at my gorilla*.

* doing the exercises is like fighting a gorilla. You don't stop when you get tired; you don't even stop when the gorilla gets tired. You stop when the gorilla begs for mercy.

[Viscount Charles]

Screw all that. Today has sodding well hurt, and I'm thinking about requesting an amputation.

[venusian]

I'm going to assume you're joking there. Hand cycles are so passé. Good luck tomorrow.