Atomic Habits, by James Clear, is one of my favorite books. I encourage you to read it. Early in the book, Clear describes how England’s national cycling team progressed from being an embarrassment in 2003 to dominating the cycling world in 2008. Some sports historians fault Clear for not bringing up the role money played in the team’s rise, but the fact is that improved funding only started when the team started winning.
To summarize, the team hired Dave Brailsford, a performance expert who believed in “the aggregation of marginal gains.” Plainly speaking, Brailsford looked for dozens of tiny little improvements that, when stacked one atop another, would add up to something really big. Alone, none of the tiny little improvements were terribly challenging or terribly impressive: reduce friction of cycling shorts against bicycle seats; minimize dirt and debris in the gears; apply alcohol to the bike tires to increase traction; identify the most effective massage gel for post-workout therapy; teach the athletes how to effectively handwash to reduce transmission of viruses likely to cause illness and deduct from training; precisely balance carbohydrates, proteins, and fats to maximize muscle recovery; 20 minutes of meditation to create positive imagery at bedtime; custom fitting each athlete with the ideal pillow for restorative sleep. Nothing overwhelming, nothing too difficult to do.
Brailsford didn’t have hidden secrets that could magically double the speed of one racer or triple the leg power of another. Each little tweak provided barely noticeable improvement, barely a blip in the performance curve. No doubt, some team members remained very skeptical, and likely these athletes spent time with a sports psychologist to start thinking like winners. After all, the body cannot manifest what the mind cannot conceive,
Baby step by baby step, week after week, the team crawled its way out of the hole in which it had dwelt for decades, and, thanks to the aggregation of marginal gains, within five years, Britain’s cyclists found themselves transformed into world champions. From dead last to number one inside of 60 months!
Do you see where I’m going with this? Does your chronic pain seem like an inescapable hole? If so, you aren’t alone. Unrelenting pain can wear you down to the proverbial nub, leaving you feeling hopeless, helpless, and utterly stuck. Out of sheer desperation, many patients find themselves hoping for something magical or miraculous, that one treatment or medication or surgery or implant that will somehow eliminate their pain.
I propose a different strategy, one like what the British cycling team employed. I propose that we seek small, durable gains that, when stacked atop one another, can lift you out of the hole where chronic pain has you trapped. As was the case with the cycling team, so is the case with chronic pain. However, to arrive somewhere better than where you find yourself at present, you’ll have to open your mind to treatment approaches that at first might not make sense, or might seem to be only remotely associated with your pain.
Perhaps you’ve never thought of how the health of your gastrointestinal tract contributes to your pain. Perhaps you’ve never thought that low hormone levels from chronic pain, and not the pain itself, are the real roots of your fatigue and depression and lack of motivation. Perhaps you’ve never considered the link between nutrition choices and the inflammation in your low back. Perhaps you’ve never considered that resistance exercise (yes, I mean weight training) can work hand in hand with injection therapy to provide lasting improvement in both function and pain levels. What about regenerative medicine and the possibilities of actual tissue restoration offered by PRP therapy?
Revive Pain Solutions has been built to integrate interventional pain management with functional medicine. In other words, we treat your pain directly with precision injection techniques and medications while simultaneously helping you build a solid foundation of health and fitness. Even if you’ve had pain for years, there’s simply no reason why you can’t feel better. It will take time and energy, but we are here to guide you in your efforts.
If you’ve lost faith in pain management, please consider an evaluation with us, and please continue to check out our blog posts. We think you’ll find them informative and encouraging.