bagpuss
Active member
Where I work we have a biannual e-newsletter and I decided to write about caving this month.
Caving and chronic pain
Caving and chronic pain is probably two phrases you probably won’t hear together very often, but here’s my story… A year or so ago I started to get a niggling pain in my back and so began my journey with chronic pain began. The back pain got worse and worse, to the extent I was often crying from the pain. I tried everything to fix the pain- physio, acupuncture, massage, medications, sorting out my home work set up. The pain eventually debilitated me to the point where I could barely walk any distance. As someone that is ‘outdoorsy’ by nature this had a huge impact on my mental health. The pain eventually spread to everywhere in my body. I had all the medical tests I could have, which showed absolutely nothing. I eventually started to read about mind/body pain (often referred to as ‘neuroplastic pain’) This condition causes real pain, it doesn’t mean that someone is making it up, in my case it’s that the brain is misfiring pain signals making me think something is wrong, therefore creating pain. I will often wake up in the morning have a blissful few minutes of no pain, until my mind wakes up and starts sending the pain signals again. Things like physio won’t fix my pain because it’s coming from my mind, rather than my body.
Trying to recover/manage pain has been a challenge, I did start to return to physical activity whilst still in pain. I would sometimes try and do too much which would massively worsen my symptoms and further debilitate me. One of the techniques to manage returning to activity is to slowly pace the return, to try and reassure the mind that activity is ‘safe’. I’ve always loved caving and that has been the hardest activity to return to, the oversensitivity my body feels to pain means that any slight knock hurts me much more than the average person and it’s quite hard to avoid banging into rocks when crawling underground! I am lucky to be in a caving club that is supportive and understanding, this has meant they’ve not gotten mad at me when I’ve dropped out of things because I’m too exhausted or because I've been more snappy due to pain (I've always apologised afterwards) They’ve been happy to do easy trips and have plenty of rest stops for me. The less I am able to think about the pain and be distracted by things I enjoy, the easier it is to manage.
I wanted to write this article to share a photo of a cave I recently visited. The cave is so highly decorated you have to have a volunteer conservation warden to take you around, it is one of the most decorated caves in the South West. I explained to our leader in advance that I had some health issues and we would need to go slowly, they kindly accommodated this throughout with lots of rest stops for conversation and photography. Sometimes I have days where I grieve who I was before the pain, but I try to remind myself that 6 months ago I wouldn’t have been able to cave at all, staring in wonder at ‘green lake chamber (see photo) I felt quite emotional at achieving something I didn’t think was possible. I think sometimes there’s the assumption that I am better because I am doing something very physically active as a hobby, but that’s largely down to adapting things to a level I can manage and doing it despite the pain.
For anyone interested in taking up caving more information can be found here: (obviously this link was more relevant to colleagues reading this than forum members!)
https://newtocaving.com/contacts.php
Caving and chronic pain
Caving and chronic pain is probably two phrases you probably won’t hear together very often, but here’s my story… A year or so ago I started to get a niggling pain in my back and so began my journey with chronic pain began. The back pain got worse and worse, to the extent I was often crying from the pain. I tried everything to fix the pain- physio, acupuncture, massage, medications, sorting out my home work set up. The pain eventually debilitated me to the point where I could barely walk any distance. As someone that is ‘outdoorsy’ by nature this had a huge impact on my mental health. The pain eventually spread to everywhere in my body. I had all the medical tests I could have, which showed absolutely nothing. I eventually started to read about mind/body pain (often referred to as ‘neuroplastic pain’) This condition causes real pain, it doesn’t mean that someone is making it up, in my case it’s that the brain is misfiring pain signals making me think something is wrong, therefore creating pain. I will often wake up in the morning have a blissful few minutes of no pain, until my mind wakes up and starts sending the pain signals again. Things like physio won’t fix my pain because it’s coming from my mind, rather than my body.
Trying to recover/manage pain has been a challenge, I did start to return to physical activity whilst still in pain. I would sometimes try and do too much which would massively worsen my symptoms and further debilitate me. One of the techniques to manage returning to activity is to slowly pace the return, to try and reassure the mind that activity is ‘safe’. I’ve always loved caving and that has been the hardest activity to return to, the oversensitivity my body feels to pain means that any slight knock hurts me much more than the average person and it’s quite hard to avoid banging into rocks when crawling underground! I am lucky to be in a caving club that is supportive and understanding, this has meant they’ve not gotten mad at me when I’ve dropped out of things because I’m too exhausted or because I've been more snappy due to pain (I've always apologised afterwards) They’ve been happy to do easy trips and have plenty of rest stops for me. The less I am able to think about the pain and be distracted by things I enjoy, the easier it is to manage.
I wanted to write this article to share a photo of a cave I recently visited. The cave is so highly decorated you have to have a volunteer conservation warden to take you around, it is one of the most decorated caves in the South West. I explained to our leader in advance that I had some health issues and we would need to go slowly, they kindly accommodated this throughout with lots of rest stops for conversation and photography. Sometimes I have days where I grieve who I was before the pain, but I try to remind myself that 6 months ago I wouldn’t have been able to cave at all, staring in wonder at ‘green lake chamber (see photo) I felt quite emotional at achieving something I didn’t think was possible. I think sometimes there’s the assumption that I am better because I am doing something very physically active as a hobby, but that’s largely down to adapting things to a level I can manage and doing it despite the pain.
For anyone interested in taking up caving more information can be found here: (obviously this link was more relevant to colleagues reading this than forum members!)
https://newtocaving.com/contacts.php
we've visited most the caves in the quarry in previous years and will likely return in the spring when the ones closed for bats are back open as there's always something new to see in these special caves.
