How to Help Someone You Love When They’re in Pain
5 Tips to Help Care for Your Loved One with Chronic Pain
This is really a post for your friends and family. It’s some ideas to help them help you. All too often my clients ask me for tips are tricks to help their loved ones understand their pain better, and sometimes friends and family are more open to hearing about ways they can help you with your pain from a professional rather than from you. Please feel free to share it with your friends and family if it resonates with you, and if only parts of it hit home for you, I encourage you to use this as a jumping off point of conversation starter for you and yours.
So hear it goes: In this post, I’m going to focus on 5 tips to help you help your loved one cope with their pain.
1. Let them be independent!
People want to feel useful. People want to feel capable. Even though it can be tempting to try to say “oh don’t worry about that, I don’t want you to hurt yourself”, or “sit down, I’ve got this”, try not too unless your loved one is trying to do a task that the doctor has prohibited or that might cause a serious fall. It is completely understandable to want to help out and take on responsibility for chores around the house or yard in order to spare your loved one pain, after all you care about them; however, this can accidentally also lead to feelings of uselessness, depression, or “being a burden”.
Instead of diving in and taking over chores or other responsibilities, have a conversation with your loved one and ask them what things they still want to do, and if there are other tasks that they would like your help with (they may or may not). This way, they get the help they may need or want and at the same time they hold onto some independence and sense of capability. You can always re-evaluate and renegotiate who completes these tasks if your loved ones’ health situation worsens or changes or based on doctor’s orders.
2. Help them find new ways to do old things.
While we are on the subject of maintaining responsibilities and continuing to do engage in life, let’s talk about finding new ways to get the job done. Perhaps bending over to pull a large stock pot out of a lower cabinet is seriously painful, but your loved one loves to cook; maybe you can suggest that they keep their most frequently used pots on the countertop instead, so they are more easily accessible.
3. Encourage them to keep them moving!
Maintaining engagement in activities isn’t just important for your loved one’s sense of independence or meaning, it’s also an important part of managing the pain itself. Our bodies are designed to move. When we are less active, such as when start opting out of activities in order to avoid or prevent pain, it does not take long for our muscles to start to become weaker (atrophy). When the muscles become weaker in a process that is sometimes called “deconditioning syndrome” or “disuse syndrome”, it becomes harder to move or bones and joints because the muscles are no longer doing their part to help support the movement. This means that even small tasks that did not used to be painful (like walking to the mailbox), end up becoming painful as a result of lack of movement.
Check with your loved one’s physician and then with physician approval, encourage your loved one to stand up or walk a little every hour to avoid deconditioning.
4. Help them maintain social connections and keep doing activities that give their life meaning.
Human beings are social creatures by nature. Most of us want to feel connected to others. Yet, because chronic pain can lead to changes in mobility, sometimes it can also lead to people opting out (or at times being forced out) of social activities they once enjoyed. Talk to your loved one and see if there are social circles or specific people that they miss (if they’ve already pulled away) or that they want to make sure they maintain (if they are starting to talk about skipping out of a social function). Help your loved one brainstorm another way to engage with these people. Could they talk on the phone? Could they Zoom? Could they come for a visit in your loved one’s home instead?
It is worth pointing out that some people think “if I’m going to do it, I’m going to do it right”, or in other words, they don’t want to find an alternative way to see their friends, they want to do it the way they’re used to doing it or not at all. If this sounds like your loved one, you can try to encourage them to go to the gathering/game/event/meeting anyway, but help them make a strategic plan for recovery over the next few days that follow. Will need to make sure that someone is available to help during the recovery period? Will they need to stock up on meals that are easy to pop in the microwave? Will they have ice packs or heating pads ready to go? Prepare whatever they need to recover. *A word to the wise, this is sometimes tricky to do. Your loved one needs to be fully on board and want to go to the event with a full recognition and understanding that they may hurt worse afterward and that it was their choice to go. The assumption (for both you and your loved one) is that they are choosing to go because maintaining that social connection is more important to them and is “worth the price” or the potential spike in pain.
5. Believe them! The pain is real!
Last but certainly not least, do not assume that just because you can’t see the pain doesn’t mean that it’s not real or that your loved one is making it out to be worse than it really is. Pain is an incredibly complex neurological process with both a physical and emotional component, and no two people experience pain in the exact same way. In fact, chronic pain by nature tends to wax and wane, that means people with chronic pain have goods days and bad days. As someone on the outside looking in, it can be hard to wrap your head around the pain when one day they are able to do something (i.e. good day) and the next day they cannot (i.e. bad day). Again, this does not mean that your loved one is “faking”; it means that living with chronic pain can at times be unpredictable (especially without the right tools). Chances are, your loved one may push through their pain or try to “act normal” more than you know, and that can be extremely physically and mentally exhausting.
The best thing you can do to help you loved one with chronic pain is to believe them. Trust that your loved one is experiencing exactly what they say they’re experiencing (maybe even more). Talk to them about the tips above and see if they have any other ideas on how you can best support them. Check out the blog for more posts on ways to communicate with your loved one about pain.
Telling someone that pain is just part of life or part of the aging process can be incredibly invalidating and hurtful; it can make your loved one feel as if they or their feelings don’t matter anymore. Feelings of hurt and unimportance can quickly lead to depression. So instead of acting as if the pain is less of a big deal, try talking to your loved one about how they feel like it’s impacting them, and if you notice any signs of depression or loss consider whether a referral to a therapist might be helpful.
