Chronic Pain Management Program

Around 19% of Canadian adults live with some type of chronic pain. Normally, when we experience pain, it goes away once the injury or source of pain heals. Chronic pain occurs when there is a continuous source of pain or nerve problem that prevents the pain from ending.

Chronic pain can have a significant impact on your daily life and mental health, but research shows that it can be managed with the 4 pillars of exercise, rest, nutrition, and meditation & breathing techniques.

Our chronic pain management program is a 4-week course designed to help manage your chronic pain.

Who Is This Program For?

Anyone living with chronic pain can benefit from this program. You may be interested in chronic pain management if you live with ongoing pain from:

• Past injuries or surgeries
• Motor vehicle accident
• Back injuries or problems
• Migraines or other headaches
• Infections or infectious disease
• Arthritis
• Nerve damage
• Fibromyalgia

How We Measure Success

It might seem unmanagable, but there are ways you can manage chronic pain. Through this course, we aim to teach you healthy ways to manage your pain, helping to reduce the severity, frequency, and side effects of your symptoms.

Success is different for everyone, but with the right management tools, success can help you reduce your dependency on pain medication, reduce the impact chronic pain has on your mental health, and improve your overall wellbeing and quality of life.

Program Schedule

Week 1

In the first week, we’ll introduce you to what pain is, how acute pain differs from chronic pain, and how pain develops into a chronic form. We’ll then discuss the 4 pillars for managing chronic pain: exercise, rest, nutrition, and meditation & breathing techniques.

We’ll introduce a pain journal where we’ll discuss how to track your pain. Tracking your pain allows you to notice patterns in what improves or worsens your pain. We’ll also discuss diet and sleep habits.

An anti-inflammatory diet and proper sleep hygiene can help reduce inflammation and other perpetual side effects of chronic pain like fatigue. Finally, we’ll introduce light exercise.

Week 2

In the second week of the program, we’ll focus on stretching and diaphragmatic breathing techniques. We’ll do a group yoga class as a low-impact activity that incorporates breathing techniques.

We’ll also introduce mindfulness meditation, which has been shown to quiet the hyper-active mind of individuals with chronic pain, helping to relieve stress, improve sleep, and reduce pain.

Week 3

In week 3, we’ll introduce moderate cardio exercises. We’ll start by carrying out testing to determine appropriate levels of exercise for you and your unique pain, and show you how to incorporate cardio into your life safely.

We do this by recommending cardio exercises for how and where you feel your pain. If you have knee pain from arthritis, for example, we’ll show you low-impact cardio exercises that help to reduce pain, not increase it.

Week 4

In the final week, we’ll introduce light resistance exercises. Resistance exercises can be done with your own body weight, light weights, or equipment like resistance bands based on how and where you feel your pain.

As always, we’ll introduce exercises in a safe, supportive environment.