The Pain Cycle: Understanding How Chronic Pain Becomes a Cycle

The chronic pain cycle is a pattern that becomes all too familiar for many people living with chronic pain. It develops when periods of activity are followed by pain flare-ups, leading to more rest, less activity, and eventually another cycle of overdoing it when you finally feel better. This cycle is a loop we create because of how the pain affects our daily activities. What happens is that when we feel good or are having a “good” day, we tend to overdo it. This sets us back for the next few days and often ends up creating a higher level of pain and fatigue than normal. When the setback occurs, it leads to more stress, fear, muscle tension, and amplifies pain levels.

How The Chronic Pain Cycle Works

Those who deal with chronic pain should be aware of its cycle and understand its psychological effects.

3. Then you find you are experiencing a period when your pain isn’t too bad, and you think you can finally get things done. This is the time when you want to prove to yourself, and sometimes to others, that you can still do everything you used to do before chronic pain.

4. Now that you’ve done more than you should have, the pain often returns more severe than it was before. You are now left feeling that you are unable to finish the things you need to finish and are unable to fulfill your goals. This is the end and beginning of the next chronic pain cycle, where, before long, it starts all over again.

I was very familiar with the chronic pain cycle. When I felt good, I felt like a superwoman and did everything I could do that I had been putting off. Then I would crash and burn until the next time. Finally, I figured out I needed to do something about it.

Breaking the Cycle

One of the best ways to break the chronic pain cycle is to recognize it and try to avoid doing it. Once you recognize you are doing it, try not to do everything at once when you feel good and create your new limits, or as I always said, my new normal.

Learning your “new normal” isn’t about giving up. It’s about finding a sustainable level of activity that lets you enjoy life without triggering repeated setbacks.

Key areas to focus on include:

• Pacing Yourself
• Managing Stress
• Daily Movement
• Sleep
• Eating Whole Foods

Recognizing the fact that you are living this chronic pain cycle is the first step to breaking it and smoothing out the peaks and valleys of managing chronic pain.

If you’re looking for additional tools and support for living with chronic pain, the American Chronic Pain Association (ACPA) offers educational resources, pain management tools, and support programs that many people find helpful throughout their chronic pain journey.

My Perspective

I definitely fell victim to this in the early days of managing my CRPS. When you become a person living with chronic pain, you tend to feel like you have lost a big part of your independence, and that’s a hard pill to swallow. I broke the cycle by taking a different look at it. I focused on building a new normal for me, similar to what someone who just had surgery or is now 20 years older than they used to be. I had to relearn my new limits. I couldn’t go to the grocery store, clean the house, and do the laundry in one day anymore. So I split the tasks up, and that did it for me. No one but that person in the mirror is telling you to do all three things in a day.

Key Takeaways

• Recognize the chronic pain cycle in your life.
• Identify the activities that trigger setbacks.
• Focus on creating a “new normal.”
• Making small, consistent changes often works better than overdoing it on good days.

If you want to learn more about living with chronic pain, visit our Living With Chronic Pain Learning Center.