How to enjoy Thanksgiving with Chronic Pain

As we approach Thanksgiving, many patients with chronic pain begin to ask us for tips to manage their pain symptoms during holiday celebrations. While many of our recommendations come as a result of knowing specific details about your specific condition, there are still some general tips we can offer anyone with chronic pain. So, without further ado, read on to learn more about what our staff have to say about minimizing pain at Thanksgiving!

Alternate Rest with Activity

The challenge with chronic pain is that inactivity is often just as much of a trigger as activity. This holiday season, try to avoid this trigger by alternating periods of rest within your preparation and celebration time.
We know that it’s easy to forget when you’re cooking, baking and visiting with family or friends. Try setting a timer on your phone or smartwatch for 30-minute intervals. When your timer goes off, swap out a physically active task for more of a mentally or socially active task. This will allow you to spend more time with your loved ones, too, which is certainly a reason to be thankful!

Eat Well

Try incorporating reasonable portion sizes and food choices rich in color and nutrition. Some of innovative ways to do this (that don’t involve maternity pants) include:

• Fill at least half your plate with vegetables and/or salad
• Commit to only filling your plate once
• Drink two full glasses of water before you sit down for your main meal
• Limit high calorie drinks, especially alcohol
• Eat slowly, chewing your food thoroughly and even putting your silverware down from time to time

The more you stick to healthy choices and portion control strategies, the less holiday pain flair-ups you should experience.

Minimize Stress

Stress and holidays often go hand-in-hand. But, as most folks with chronic pain can attest to, stress is not going to help anyone keep their pain under control during Thanksgiving celebrations. The stress of a family argument, trying to serve a meal or maybe even the lack of sleep can cause an increased sensitivity to pain. Some simple ways to minimize stress include:

• Focus on reasons to be grateful
• Choose recipes that you can make ahead of time and freeze them until the day of your Thanksgiving celebration
• Ask for help
• Stay on track with your pain medication schedule to avoid any gaps in pain management

Get Your Doctor’s Help

If you are already seeing a chronic pain specialist, that’s a fantastic step in the right direction towards controlling your pain during the Thanksgiving season. In fact, we encourage you to schedule an appointment a week or two before your Thanksgiving celebration to discuss helpful pain management strategies.

Be sure to share specific examples of holiday stresses or activities that might occur that would trigger your pain or symptoms. Dr, Solomon can give you tips on how to best navigate those challenges with therapeutic techniques, stretches, treatments, medication and more.