“My symptoms were completely out of control.”
Thanks to the Pain Clinic at HSC, Sarah Painter has regained her quality of life — made possible through the support of donors.
As a flight nurse for STARS Air Ambulance, Sarah Painter knows about saving lives. And as someone successfully treated for chronic pain through the Pain Care Program at HSC’s Pain Clinic, she also knows a thing or two about a life saved.
“I spent lots of time thinking about the life I lost. To lose your health, job, mental well-being, income—it was my whole life,” she says. “That’s what I got back.”
“It is in every way a life saved.”
Life as Painter had known it fell apart in 2022, when she began experiencing an agonizing and persistent gynecological condition. Standard surgical intervention was repeatedly unsuccessful—one year and five surgeries later, she was left with excruciating neuropathic pain and was deeply traumatized. Each time “was just as painful”; each time carried its own psychological impact. “My symptoms were completely out of control, and I don’t think anybody knew what to do with me,” she says.
Painter’s turnaround began once she was accepted into the Pain Care Program at the Pain Clinic in May 2023. In 2024, the Pain Clinic moved to the Manitoba Clinic building, which had been acquired by the HSC Foundation in 2023.
“The moment I was accepted to the program, my life changed for the better,” she says.
The program offers expertise in persistent pain, Painter explains. There, she received dedicated care led by Dr. Waiel Al-Moustadi. As she unravelled her story, he listened intently, asking detailed questions. “Everything was relevant and important. To be in front of somebody who’s like, ‘you are what this program is about,’” was validating, she says.
Painter learned that overwhelming pain and traumatic experiences during the course of her care had left her psychologically scarred. “Pain and fear were together in all those experiences, and pain is made worse by fear,” she says. “My brain started to get rewired to have the constant sensation of pain. There was legitimate pain to the tissues, but my brain was interpreting everything as pain.”
She says 50 percent of her treatment was retraining her brain. “Our brains have a characteristic called neuroplasticity, where they learn and create new neural pathways. My brain became wired for pain, and I needed to retrain it.”
Painter also took advantage of the numerous learning opportunities offered at the clinic to support her pain management plan, ranging from “managing chronic pain, wellness strategies, to sleep and physical fitness.”
“I did almost everything,” she says. “I showed up to this in a tracksuit.”
The care and her efforts paid off. After two years in the Pain Care Program, Painter is getting ready to return to work as a flight nurse. She has her life back, and she owes that to HSC’s Pain Clinic.
“This program is really important and in such demand,” she says. “With the new building they’re in, hopefully the program is really going to grow.”
by Leslie Malkin
The expanded HSC Pain Clinic in the Manitoba Clinic building was made possible through the HSC Foundation’s Operation Excellence campaign. Thanks to donor support, more people are getting more timely access to pain care. Please donate to Operation Excellence to help HSC deliver tomorrow’s health care, today.
