OT? September is Pain Awareness Month - Page 4

> I remember how delighted I was (a couple of hours before someone rear-end=

> my car and put me back in pain!) when I was at work last April and realiz=

> that a task I have to do frequently at work, which usually causes me pain
> (sometimes agony), didn't hurt at all! =A0It had been a long time since I=

> that good. It will probably be awhile before I get back there. Hopefully,
> with treatment, I'll heal faster this time.

> > I remember how delighted I was (a couple of hours before someone rear-e=

> > my car and put me back in pain!) when I was at work last April and real=

> > that a task I have to do frequently at work, which usually causes me pa=

> > (sometimes agony), didn't hurt at all! =A0It had been a long time since=

> > that good. It will probably be awhile before I get back there. Hopefull=

> > with treatment, I'll heal faster this time.
> Hi Pam,
> This is difficult for me. =A0I don't begrudge you anything; I don't
> doubt your pain.
> I'm glad that you have been without pain at times and that you have
> the prospect of healing yet again.
> Yet I confess a jealousy, if I'm going to be honest, that may be
> shared by some, if they're going to be honest, who do not have that
> prospect. =A0For a great many of us the reality is that there is no
> prospect except to be the same, or more likely, to deteriorate as time
> goes by. =A0I'm not being negative or pesimistic; I've been told by both
> medical professionals and peers that I have one of the healthiest and
> upbeat outlooks they've seen for someone with my challenges.
> The "current" pain scale in use by most hospitals has many flaws, some
> of which have already been mentioned. =A0Another *major* flaw is that as
> human beings we are all different, including our tolerance for, and
> perception of, pain. =A0One person's "7" may be another person's "3",
> and when the pain is our own, it is naturally more intense/worse than
> the other guy's. =A0I've seen "drama royalty" (so as not to be sexist)
> walking around carrying on with activities claiming to be at level 9
> or 10 (the worst imaginable) when, as previously opined, those kinds
> of levels should have one in an ER in agony and in need of some
> *heavy* opioid pain medication.
> When speaking of acute vs. chronic pain the clinical differences are
> clear and fairly well-defined. =A0However there is another distinction =

> one that the literature (e.g. general med school curricula, which can
> amount to as little as 1/2 hr. spent on treatment of pain & pain meds)
> usually fails to mention - and that is a psychological difference.
> When we experience acute pain =96 hitting a thumb with a hammer, a
> toothache, breaking a bone, stepping on a nail =96 we know that that
> pain will end, whether with medication, physical therapy or
> chiropractic, or eventually, with normal healing. =A0It=92s just a matter
> of following a prescibed regimen of treatment and waiting it out.
> With chronic pain, we have no such knowledge. =A0Regardless of the
> intensity of the pain, we don=92t know when it will end or even IF it
> will end. =A0This has an *entirely* different effect on the psyche in
> ways that no-one is really prepared for =96 the unknown quantity*.
> * something whose nature, behavior, or importance is uncertain and
> unpredictable
> Without the objectivity of something like Dr. Hochman's scale, the
> subjectivity of the current scale combined with the psychological
> effects of *chronic* intractable pain, can easily, and over time,
> escalate a 3 to an 8, like the effects of so-called Chinese water
> torture.
> Doc

> Doc, your words are well chosen.
> I also have chronic pain, and have dealt with it for more than 20
> years. There are days I want to just pull the covers over my head and
> call in "ouch" for the day. Most often, I trudge on. I know how much I
> can do, and in my stubborness will not let the pain dictate [too much]
> the way I will spend my time. Some around me who know of the situation
> sometimes express concern about the levels of my activities. I do as
> much as I can handle and push it sometimes.
>
> So, I walk as much as I can, lift the sewing machines, sew, work too
> hard and too long every day, while I can. Is it shortening my time to
> be able to do anything at all? That's not even something I can
> consider.

> When I read these discussions I always end up at a loss for how to
> fee. I am on disability. Part of that is because the first symptom of
> my physical crumbling was mental confusion. I really believed I was
> developing early on-set Alzheimers. I lost all my contracts (I was a
> professional writer/PR/web content producer) and was unable to figure
> out how to look for more work. At the same time fatigue was turning me
> into a turnip.
>
> But the pain .... oh my, the pain. I tend to think mine is not that
> bad. I push on as best I can and my doctors assure me that exercise is
> necessary. I agree. But after 4 months of near daily walking for 30-45
> minutes on my treadmill, I just crumbled again. I never really gained
> any ability to do more or go farther or faster. The wall stayed pretty
> much in place. But one night after walking (I really thought that I
> couldn't, but pushed on), I couldn't step down off the thing by
> myself. It was several days before I could get on again, and now I am
> really lucky if I can walk 15-20 minutes, and when I do I pay for it
> big time. My pain does stop me. And if it doesn't, I get sick. Really
> sick -- fever over 100 F for days, pain at high levels all over -- not
> just in my normal pain spots, migraines and if I'm really lucky,
> vomiting. I want to be brave and I want to keep going. But if I do,
> the payback is hell.
>
> My DH and I drove over to Seattle Monday morning early. I don't take
> travel well. By the time we arrived at our agreed upon destination, I
> had a fever. By bedtime I was coughing and had a righteous sore
> throat. Poor Russ drove me home yesterday with me nursing a miserable
> head ache and dodging nausea all the way home. Today I'm "resting."
> Damn. It's this inability to actually DO anything that drives me to
> the brink. And yes, it will get worse. I can't stand to think about
> it, and I have my exit strategy in place.
>
> I agree that support groups are important, but I ended up having to
> leave the only pain support group I found here. I know this sounds
> totally stupid, but I was overwhelmed by the crushing wall of pain in
> that room every month. OMG -- I would walk in and it was like I was
> feeling everybody's pain. One young woman, I have no idea how she goes
> on living, would walk in and I would have to leave. If I didn't I
> would get a nausea effect from her presence. The air fairly vibrated
> around her. She was so frail and nearly transparent.
>
> I am better off by far than my friend who has Trigeminal Neuralgia
> caused by an auto accident injury. I am less well than another friend
> who has fibro but not lupus or Sjogren's Syndrome. Fibro will cripple
> you, but it won't make your organs shut down. At least as far as
> anybody knows right now, but I think that they know precious little
> about these autoimmune diseases.
>
> Doc, you give me hope in a grim sort of way. I sleep now. Didn't for 5
> years. Then on a whim my dr. gave me amtriptylene -- an old tri-cyclic
> antidepressant. I slept that night for the first time in years. It was
> precious and for the most part it has lasted. Sometimes I have to take
> two. Mostly I take one. I figure if you can keep going without sleep
> then I should be able to keep going for sure now that I have found a
> way to sleep. One warning: sometimes when I need two pills for an
> extended time it causes a nasty flare of my Interstitial Cystitis.
> Ugh. Look it up.
>
> Cindy, I stopped writing my blog because I ran out anything to say. I
> needed to concentrate on not being chronic for a while. I think I will
> start blogging again soon with a new blog that somehow incorporates
> all of me.
>
> I pray all you who hurt will find comfort, peace and ease,
> Sunny