I am a chronic pain warrior. Unfortunately, pain doesn’t go on vacation, it goes where I go and participates in what I do. Some tips sometimes help with pain management with the long drives and other challenges on RV road trips I’ve found are:
- Bless my irritable bladder– bathroom breaks every couple of hours force us to get out and walk around, stretching muscles that have been in the “lock and load” position for a while.
- Being thankful –File this one under “things I need to work on” — feeling thankful, rather than annoyed, at how wireless internet at most of the campgrounds we stayed at sucked. So my computer time was greatly reduced. While it was somewhat difficult emotionally to stay unconnected from those at home, my body appreciated it..a bit less pain in my neck and shoulders. Trying to read on smaller-screened devices causes difficulties in reading content, so I rarely do.
- Keep it small–I appreciated the ease of clean up in a small RV, even if the small space made me a bit stir crazy at times.
- I’ve come a long way in terms of not needing assisted mobility fortunately; however there have been times in the past where I’ve used wheelchairs and mobility scooters, for example at outlet malls and theme parks. It’s not an easy thing for me to admit the need for same but swallowing some pride to use these devices helped me conserve my energy for something important I wanted to do later.
- Drinking’s good–drinking more (water) is better. It’s possible dehydrated muscles are more painful muscles but I’m no doc. This is the point where I curse, rather than bless, my irritable bladder.
- Distraction – photography, reading are a few hobbies I enjoy and also have the bonus “side effect” of distracting me from my pain.
May you be as pain – free as possible on your RV journey.
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