Trevor (Chronic Pain): Chapter 4 - Life now and looking forward

Episode 3: Chapter 4 - Trevor Barker - Recovery from chronic/persistent back pain (Chronic pain) - Life now and looking forward.

In this third episode we meet Trevor Barker, a former electrician and now support coordinator from north eastern Victoria who following a minor workplace injury, developed and lived with debilitating chronic lower back pain for over 20 years. His eventual recovery came swiftly through education and he now works with some of the world's leading pain scientists and educators to share his story and encourage others to learn more and make meaningful change in their own lives. Trevor has appeared on SBS’s Insight program, as well as contributing to various podcasts, radio and print media and continues to share and champion recovery from persistent pain.

In this chapter Trevor describes his quality of life now, how he challenges himself to further improve and how he deals with flare ups if they occur.

Full transcripts and show notes are available for each chapter on the podcast website: storiesofrecovery.buzzsprout.com

Shownotes:

• ^00:31 - Trevor has a growing confidence that he can do things himself that will make a difference in his life. He's made simple changes such as walking to the post office to pick up the mail rather than driving there and thus is getting more movement, more physical activity and more social interaction, all things which positively manage his pain,
• ^02:11 - Trevor talks about how he manages pain flare-ups if they occur, 
• 05:10 - Trevor discusses his quality of life now...a world away from where he was before,
• ^08:52 - Trevor reiterates his msg to those listening to avoid treatments focussed only on a 'Biomedical' approach, and to seek out those providing a 'Biopsychosocial' approach to chronic and persistent pain,
• ^11:45 - Trevor's msg to those still living with chronic and persistent pain.

^Trevor's main tips

Transcript

Note: Time stamps for the chapter episodes are based on the full episode recording.

Robbie Frawley  
Welcome to chapter 4. Life and looking forward.

Robbie Frawley  1:16:52  
We may repeat something here, but that's okay. Since your injury, what new belief behaviour or habit as most improved your life?

Trevor Barker  1:17:04  
Yeah. I just, I just think it's a growing confidence that I can do things for myself that will will make a difference. Yeah. So a good example of a habit is on our walk to the post office every day, yeah. So I could drive or drive past the post office two or three times a week. Okay, these are these stop the car and pick up the mail instead, or walk every day, and have a chat to the people that are at the post office come home. And I'm moving. And I'm adding to how much movement I'm doing a day. Yes, in the past five years, have gone from doing very, very little to, you know, post the pain management programme. Now, not being afraid of bending down and picking stuff up of carrying things of helping people. And it said, D catastrophizing and fear of movement and stuff that have let go. And so by incorporating movement, and more activity, that's become normal now. Yeah. Whereas what was normal was, people would see me lying down on the hot water bar on the back. Now, I did that for many hours every day. I don't do that a rule now.

Robbie Frawley  1:18:33  
And if you do have pain flare ups, I'm not sure whether you do you don't. Now, what do you do?

Trevor Barker  1:18:40  
That's a good question. Because in October on the sixth of October 2019, all America? Yes. And about four weeks before the wedding, I had a flare up. Okay. My right leg that's responsible for the accelerator pedal and the brake pedal, pretty importantly, stopped working. couldn't drive, it was in that much pain that I couldn't put enough pressure on the brake pedal. And honestly, I do have hydraulic brakes, so it doesn't need much, but I just could not drive. Yep. And I hit the panic button because Oh, my goodness, you know, we've got four weeks to go to the wedding. What's going on here? So what I did differently this time was that I found a friend. Yes. So a friend found a close friend of mine and she said, Trevor, do you think you might be a bit stressed? So do I hit my forehead? Tired I were cases Schiff and so on. He was organising the catering for the wedding. And we had a whole lot of friends that were going to help contribute. Yeah, someone's going to bring a salad, someone who's going to do this someone was going to, but we had to pull it all together and plan it. And, you know, ships are great at being able to serve something up at or nothing in five minutes, but plan a big event and involve other people. It's, you know, so it wasn't me the stress going on, but I hadn't realised that I was just going through the motions of trying to get all this coordinated, and coordination and planning is something that I do and I don't cope terribly well, when it's all disorganised. And so, when this friend mentioned to me, asked me the question, you think you might be a bit stress just the realising that, yeah, that's going on. Maybe that's having a bit to do with this league. So I went off and sort of physio, who I know has good pain science stuff, he got me moving. And I understood that I wasn't causing tissue, it wasn't a tissue damage thing that was going on, it was a flare up. And so that took the heat out of it, calm down. And I was able to walk down the aisle with no drama. Yes, so that was good.

Robbie Frawley  1:21:32  
Could you describe your life day to day now, and to contrast it with how we started? Also just write your quality of life? You know, how we'd write that now?

Trevor Barker  1:21:44  
Yeah, well, the easy thing, the quality of life question is, it's pretty good. It's pretty good. So you know, married him a new relationship. We, we have a completely different life together than than I had before. So that's quality of life is great. What's different for me is that I've started to reflect back on the changes happening more often last five years, and, and step it up another level. And what that means is that I'm now doing stuff today, there's no way I would have even considered doing a few years ago, yes. So I'm not worrying about driving a bit more than I used to drive or sitting. But we've been sitting for a couple of hours, and it's not been a drama. And I've just taken on a full time job. I love the work. It's working with people doing service coordination in the disability field. It's also working with complex clients. So there is any better level of stress and drama in what's going on in their life. You know, life's very challenging for those participants. And I understand that, and that has the risk of drifting into escalating drama and stress in my life, just just by, you know, taking on what's going on for them might change what's going on for me, absolutely. And so I'm working in an office, I'm sitting, talking on the phone a lot. There's no way I would have considered doing what I'm doing now in terms of sitting in a computer for a long period of time and other stuff a few years ago. But we now understand through pain science, that the mechanics of how we sit and move doesn't contribute to pain at all. So you know, this whole thing of you got to have the right posture. So I can take that knowledge and test it out. Because you know, I don't have the perfect posture and don't even think about it. I just do what I need to do. Now I've felt what's been interesting, I've felt pine in my low back again. But it hasn't been all the time. It's fine, occasional. So just keeping an eye on that, just playing with that. And being confident that I know what to do. And being relaxed about it, but also testing out how much can I increase my activity without causing catastrophic failure of focus? In the old days, I would have thought that my back would be completely stuffed and I'd be you In our, which would determine me lying down and staying still rather than giving new things that go? Yeah. So that's where things are moving for me. And it's working out

Robbie Frawley  1:25:13  
Any next steps or things that you are still sort of pushing for?

Trevor Barker  1:25:19  
The big, big issue that we talked about for about red flags. In clinicians, I would love for consumers or people experiencing persisting pain to really get that and to apply it, so they see trouble coming to run away. So Why trouble coming? I mean, somebody that's going to give them an approach that's just purely biomedical focused. If they see that far enough, off, they can almost not pick up the phone and make an appointment. Or they can ask some questions and go, Whoa, I'm not going there. Where else can I go? I would love for more people to use that. Which is going to mean that clinicians are gonna have to start thinking a bit more about what they offer to pay people that have persisting pain. Because it is complex work, we have complexity in our lives, it's challenging. It requires a different approach. But if we're feeding come about making a difference in people's lives and helping them to manage their pain themselves, then we have to put that investment in as clinicians and give give it time to work out. Otherwise, we're just going to have someone for 20 years. I mean, I've got a weekly message. I haven't had a message for five years. Yeah. Has it seen an increase in pain? Not at all. On $6,000 A year better off, I'm $30,000. better off not having that Trent, that wasn't making any difference to my pain. But I gave it a good red hot guy when I did. Yeah. Yeah, it was nice. But in terms of giving me better function, it didn't work out. So I would love to see people be a little bit more wise in the choices that are make when when it comes to getting help for their persisting pain. Yeah. And I would love clinicians to adapt and change what they deliver. And if they can't deliver social and psychological aspects, I'd really hoped that they have an understanding of that. And so what I'm offering is not going to help that person might help somebody else with a different problem. But I've got good people I can refer to Yes, rather than take it on. And just put someone in a holding pattern where their pain increases and doesn't resolve. Yeah.

Robbie Frawley  1:28:07  
All right, any final thoughts? For those listening for anyone who might be still in that dark place and feeling a bit trapped? What would you say to them?

Trevor Barker  1:28:21  
What I would say is that chronic pain is complicated. It does put you in a poor place with your thinking. That let's be real about that. It's tough. It's relentless. It can take over your whole life It took over my life. Yeah. I made a decision to have a life even if it meant more pain. Because I was in pain anyway. And what I discovered was that by having a life of reduced pain, so my message to someone in that dark place is that yes, to start with our respect and understand completely how tough it is. That I believe there is a way out. And instead of staying isolated and alone, reach out and and start connecting with people who can journey with you and help you through because doing it on your own isn't a good career move. I tried that. Nearly finished me off. I'm glad that I learned something different, I really want you to know that a different way can make a difference not only to your life, but also to your pain.

Robbie Frawley  1:29:46  
Fantastic. Thank you very much, Trevor. It's been a real pleasure catching up and listening to your story. And it's fantastic again, just to sort of to see That contrast between where you were, which just sounds unimaginable. And yeah, it's hard to imagine sort of seeing much hope at that point. And then just seeing where you are now and, and everything that you're doing, not only in your own life and with your beautiful, new bride, K bird, but also in how are you contributing to other people's improvement of their pain in their lives. So thank you very much.

Trevor Barker  1:30:30  
Thanks, Robbie, it's been great to sit down and just think about all this stuff again. So appreciate what you're doing, it's wonderful.

Robbie Frawley  1:31:01  
Hey, guys, it's Robbie again. I'll have shownotes on everything. We talked about this episode on the podcast website. There's a link in the podcast description, along with a full transcript. If you find that easy to follow along, or to find what you need. I do need to highlight that neither I nor any of the people that I've interviewed on this podcast are medical professionals. The advice and learnings which we share during our discussions are not medical advice, and should be considered and reviewed in consultation with a trusted medical professional prior to being acted upon. These are simply our learnings from our experiences. Take what is valuable, and leave the rest. Next episode, we'll change things up. And I'll share my story of recovering from post concussion syndrome. It took me over seven years, but hopefully by sharing my learnings with you, we can get you back to full health again in a fraction of that time. Until then, I wish you courage and energy on your own journey forward. Thanks for listening