'I had chronic pain for over a decade. One thing changed everything for me.'

When my physio first suggested it to me, I was hesitant. Actually, that's an understatement. I got mad at her!

If you've had chronic pain, maybe you'll understand. You see, I was down bad. Bad bad.

It was 2021, and I'd been unable to work for over a year. My body was so deconditioned that I couldn't walk for more than a few minutes at a time. I was doing my physio exercises, trying to regain the most basic of basic strength, but for the most part, I was spending my days in bed waiting for bedtime to roll back around. Every day, I was in excruciating pain, and I truly believed it would never get better.

Let's get the "what's wrong with me" section out of the way: I was sick for weeks in 2010, which ended with appendicitis. The routine appendectomy, for whatever reason, triggered my nervous system like crazy.

I developed vulvodynia, which made any tampon I tried to use feel like a knife.

Eventually, this vulvodynia evolved into fibromyalgia, as the nerve pain spread through my body.

It felt like someone had strung Christmas lights inside me, and each light was delivering a sizzling zap as they flickered. Over the years, I had a few injuries as well, because I am nothing if not a clumsy girl. But because my nervous system was on such high alert at all times, there would always be some kind of lingering pain in the area long after the physical injury had healed.

From 2010 to 2021, I tried anything and everything to get the pain under control. I saw doctors, pain specialists, psychologists, psychiatrists, gynaecologists, endocrinologists, gastroenterologists, physios, pelvic floor physios, chiropractors, acupuncturists, osteopaths, massage therapists, whatever they call the people who do cupping… you name 'em, I've probably seen one.

Oh, and yes — I did try yoga.

Watch the trailer for Osher Günsberg: A World of Pain. Article continues below.

I did everything I was told and then some. I was relentless when it came to trying to find a solution. I didn't want to manage the pain, I wanted it gone.

I tried everything from the recommended multidisciplinary pain management plan, to spending $300 on essential oils in one day, to buying all kinds of junk from sponsored ads that promised to alleviate the symptoms of chronic pain. Still, my condition continued to deteriorate.

By 2021, I was exhausted. I'd spent over a decade stuck in the same cycle:

1. Research options that might help.

2. Allow myself to feel a tiny glimmer of hope — just enough to keep going.

3. Try whatever it was.

4. Experience the soul-crushing devastation of realising that it wasn't going to fix anything.

5. Fall into a deep depression.

6. Drag myself out of it and repeat.

I'd been stuck on the hamster wheel from hell, and I couldn't do it anymore, so when my physio suggested I read The Way Out by Alan Gordon and Alon Ziv, I'm not going to lie, I basically told her to f**k off. Whoops!!! Truly not my finest moment.

We sat in her room, locked in a stalemate as she gently, patiently tried to explain it to me, and I became increasingly resistant. It wasn't that I didn't trust her — she was incredible — or her intentions. It was that I had become stuck in my belief that things would never improve. I was so sick of absolutely forcing myself to find enough hope to try something new, to drum up a single shred of optimism, only to be proven right (again) when it inevitably didn't work.

I couldn't be crushed again; it was easier to just accept my fate.

"It's a book," I said, disdain dripping from my voice. "I just don't think, if the 4,000 other things I've tried haven't worked, that reading some book is going to make any difference."

Again, whoops! My bad! Because as it turns out, it actually made all the difference for me.

As I left the physio that day, I promised her that I would at least consider reading it. Resentfully, I paid for the ebook, and I'll be so honest, it was a purchase made out of spite — I figured I would read the stupid book and then go tell her about how it didn't work, just like everything else I'd tried. In hindsight, this was not my most likeable era.

Anyway, as they say, the best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry. Unfortunately, my hateful plan to return to my physio and tell her that I was CORRECT and that my decade of chronic pain could not be cured by something as simple as a BOOK never came to fruition, because LOL! It actually did kind of cure my chronic pain. For the third time, that's my bad!

The Way Out: A Revolutionary, Scientifically Proven Approach to Healing Chronic Pain.

The Way Out by Alan Gordon and Alon Ziv breaks down how a lot of chronic pain isn't actually caused by physical damage, but by your brain being stuck in a loop of unnecessary pain signals.

Gordon explains that through Pain Reprocessing Therapy (PRT) — which is basically a way to retrain your brain and stop misinterpreting safe sensations as dangerous — you can get your body to break the fear/pain cycle that keeps it stuck in the loop from hell.

PRT is based on neuroscience research that shows chronic pain is often learnt and then maintained by neural pathways in the brain. By rewiring these pathways, people can experience significant pain relief — even eliminating chronic pain entirely. Clinical trials have found evidence that PRT can dramatically reduce or even resolve pain for many people, especially those with conditions like back pain, fibromyalgia and migraines.

Pain Reprocessing Therapy is built on five key principles:

Reconceptualising pain — Understanding that many types of chronic pain are caused by the brain misinterpreting normal bodily signals, rather than actual tissue damage.

Gathering evidence — Identifying patterns that suggest your pain is brain-driven (e.g, pain that shifts locations or worsens with stress).

Reducing fear around pain — Learning to see pain as non-threatening instead of reacting with anxiety, which can reinforce the pain cycle.

Mindfulness and somatic tracking — Noticing pain sensations without judgment and reassuring yourself that they are not dangerous.

Positive reinforcement — Engaging in normal activities despite the pain, which helps teach the brain that movement and sensations are safe.

How a book helped alleviate my chronic pain.

When I started reading The Way Out, I was apprehensive, and not just because I doubted that it would work. I was also worried that my doubts, my previous negative experiences with other treatment options, and quite honestly, my overall sh**ty attitude to the whole thing were setting me up for failure. Even if this was something that could help other people, I thought, it probably wouldn't be able to help me, because I was going into it expecting it not to work. I figured it would be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Still, as I read on, I couldn't deny that things were clicking into place. Yes, my pain had begun during a stressful, turbulent time of my life. Yes, I had "good" pain days and "bad" pain days. No, it hadn't responded to medical treatment. Yes, it flared up when I was stressed, or tired, or otherwise not feeling good. The book had my attention, and I began actually working through it. I also listened to Alan Gordon's podcast, Tell Me About Your Pain, and used some of Gordon's sessions on the Curable app.

Then came the tricky part: trying to break the fear/pain loop and observe the sensations without judgement. I'm not going to lie, it wasn't easy. What worked for me was trying to turn it into a joke.

I'm a pop culture girlie to my core, so I would try to use references from songs, TV shows, movies and memes that would help me laugh or lighten the mood — even just a little — when my body was trying to convince my brain that it was actually on fire (it was not!).

Every day, whenever I noticed my pain (which was frequently, at the time), I would take a few seconds and observe the sensation. Then, I would take a moment to accuse the pain of being "fake news" or "alternative facts", or accuse my pain of trying to gaslight me.

If I had a little more time, I would imagine an entire Tribal Council from Survivor and vote my pain off the damn island.

"Grab your torch; it's time to go!" I'd think, focusing on the pain.

Or, I'd pit my pain against a body part that wasn't in pain, and imagine both of them lip-syncing for their lives, like in Ru Paul's Drag Race.

The more absurd the scenario was, the more it made me giggle, and as I kept working my way through the book, I slowly, slowly managed to break the cycle I had been trapped in for so long.

The million-dollar question: Do I still have pain?

For years, every time I would go to a pain management clinic they would ask me questions like, "What would be an acceptable level of pain for you?" I always thought it was an absurd thing to ask, because DUH, ZERO???

The reality is a little more complicated. I would say that The Way Out cured about 90 per cent of my chronic pain, and that the remaining 10 per cent bothers me a lot less than it once did.

Most of the pain I still deal with is mostly because my body is very hypermobile, which is a recipe for weird aches, pains and injuries, but breaking the cycle of neuroplastic pain has given me the ability to do my physio (I'm currently working through The Muldowney Protocol for hypermobility and Ehlers-Danlos syndrome) without the once-inevitable pain flare that used make progress feel near-impossible.

Occasionally, I do still get hit with a pain flare that knocks me off my game, but they are so few and far between that I almost forgot to mention them. Usually, they come around when I'm super stressed, when my brain freaks out and reverts to those well-trodden neural pathways that it spent so many years in. But even when these flares hit, I know how to deal with them, and I know that it's my body's way of screaming at me to rest, to look after myself.

I'll probably always be a bit more sensitive to life's stressors than the average person, but I no longer feel like a prisoner inside my own body. And when I think about it, I truly cannot believe how far I've come in the last few years. I won't lie — it wasn't easy. There are parts of Pain Reprocessing Therapy that are difficult, confronting, physically and mentally uncomfortable. But it's given me my life back.

Will The Way Out work for you?

Truthfully, I don't know, and if you've been dealing with chronic pain for any amount of time, the last thing you need is some random person on the internet preaching at you about some miracle cure. Trust me, I have been on the receiving end of the "Have you tried [insert whatever so-called cure] before?" so many times before, and I know how infuriating it is.

All I can say is that if my experience sounds anything like yours, it's probably worth a shot.

Feature image: Supplied.