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For many years I was head of a special school for students with PMLD and Complex Needs. Some of our students had a low pain threshold due to their medical conditions ,their physical disabilities , their mental health or all three.

When you feel pain, nearby nerves send signals to your brain through your spinal cord. Your brain interprets this signal as a sign of pain, which can set off protective reflexes. For example, when you touch something very hot, your brain receives signals indicating pain and you react immediately. Many things can influence the complex system of communication between your brain and body. When you have students with communication issues they may be unable to communicate their pain.
I remember some years ago , when I was a deputy head of a special school , and a student with autism had a meltdown on the journey to school because the minibus took a diversion . The driver and escorts did not think it necessary to share this with the students on the bus. The student kicked out at several of his peers.
When they entered school an escort wheeled in a student with PMLD and informed me that she had been kicked but seemed ok. I phoned her parents and advised a visit to the hospital. The parents picked her up from school and told me she seemed fine, if a little quiet but then she was a quiet child. Nevertheless they took her for a check up. She had fractured her leg in four places. She may have been so traumatised by the incident that she was unable to communicate her pain. Or she may have been showing us that this kind of level of pain was normal for her.

So as a headteacher you research ways to enable your students to be as free from pain as possible in order to be in the right frame of mind in order to learn . Whether that is to learn how to tolerate physio ,communicate ,give eye contact etc.
To be able to take part in the outside world they have to be free from pain yet drugs can cloud the mind and affect their levels of consciousness. Many students take drugs for epilepsy and their diagnosed conditions and these already have an effect on their capabilities.

So what do you do? I believe that you provide therapeutic interventions such as physiotherapy breathing exercises, meditation, therapeutic music, massage, hydrotherapy, sound therapy, biofeedback, relaxation techniques and many more to override the body’s response to stress or pain.

One of the most successful therapies that we used was Vibroacoustic therapy. I have done a video on my Youtube channel on vibroacoustic therapy for you to watch. You can find a link on this website.

I believe that this should be available to students in all special schools. It is cost effective and extremely effective.

My sister is currently in hospital ,having undergone a second stroke. She is paralysed ,is epileptic now and in constant pain. She has neuropathic pain , muscle pain and spasticity . Due to the drugs she takes neurologists are wary about increasing her pain relief with more drugs.

Am I missing something here? Why aren’t more hospitals providing therapeutic interventions? Vibroacoustic therapy is cost effective. I have proved that in my school. Hydrotherapy is cost effective. Why isn’t my sister able to alleviate her pain with these therapies? Why don’t all new hospitals include these facilities as standard?
Please don’t tell me that my students were lucky. They had what they were entitled to . No one ,regardless of disability ,age or illness should be denied what could so easily be made available.