Chronic Pain
As someone coping with spinal injuries, early disc degeneration, disc bulging in the cervical and lumbar spine, and other body damage from multiple car accidents as well as post-traumatic Fibromyalgia, chronic pain is something I cope with on a daily basis. It is a constant presence in my life, something I have to factor into every planned event, every life decision (big or small).
After my first serious car accident, I was fortunate that my pain came and went. I would still have serious flare-ups, but during an average day, pain was not the norm. Experiencing Fibro was a different story – suddenly, I had pain and headaches every. single. day.! I spent the first 6 months trying to ignore it. I had assumed I would recover normally from this last MVA (I had recovered really well from an even more serious one, after all), so I shook off the pain with it’s ever-present state and tried to barge through it.
But then I really started to wonder… I started to worry… I started to push my doctors for more answers than just “wait and see”… And finally, I started to read, research and learn. When I saw other doctors and they gave me new words I hadn’t heard before, I would look those up… “Sciatica”, “Prolotherapy”, “Post-traumatic pain”.
I cannot stress enough how important this step was in the process of coping with my chronic pain condition – I believe it would be just as essential for anyone. Soak up as much information as you can from a variety of sources – and not just your primary care physician! Many family doctors (and sometimes even specialists) today are still frustratingly ignorant about pain conditions and in fact their “advice” can be harmful; it certainly was in my situation.
Not everyone will find the same treatments effective (be they medical, pharmaceutical, physical manipulation orientated, fitness orientated, or other). Some people will also not be able to tolerate the side effects that come with the treatments, regardless of effectiveness… for example, I found Lyrica (a commonly-prescribed medication for Fibromyalgia these days) pretty good for pain, but one of the many accompanying effects of the medication was severe grogginess and a “zombie” state so strong I was spending 4 hours a day sleeping and the rest of the day speaking so jumbled that I was asked to repeat myself (my thoughts felt about the same!). I’m still about half as bad with the other meds I’m on, but it’s about finding a balance you can live with where the pain is bearable for you but you still feel like your life is worthwhile.
Keep tweaking and working to find that balance – keep fighting to find the right treatments, the right doctors, the right way to move and to eat and to live. Don’t reject anything until you know something about it first – in other words, the old “don’t judge a book by it’s cover” applies here. Yes, check it out to see if it’s dangerous. Research it to see if it’s just a money-grabbing junk science treatment (after seeing a reliable TV News program exposing Disc Decompression as such, it has been bumped waaay to the bottom of my list)! But even if it’s something that you wouldn’t've considered in the first place or seems a little “weird” or “silly”, give it a go! I’ve tried meditation a zillion times and will keep trying it even though I’m really terrible at it, just because I’ve heard it is really great for you. I was super embarrassed to try to squeeze into an old pre-MVA swimsuit (and ended up ripping at least 1 because of the weight gain size difference!) to do Aqua fitness in a warm Therapeutic pool but it was one of the best treatments I did and I wish I could drag myself to it again.
It’s unfortunate that unlike those with cut-and-dry medical conditions, there hasn’t been one miracle drug or treatment developed that can help all of us with Fibromyalgia and chronic pain. But that’s to be expected when there are so many different types of chronic pain and so many severity levels of Fibroymalgia! I know people with Fibro who are still able to work a 40-hour work week and go out with friends and things like that whereas for me, the condition is so severe I’m hardly able to walk. I can attribute that to my problem discs but even there exists a wide variation – some people with disc bulges can feel severe pain and yet some people will full-blown herniated discs can still be OK! So all of us are left with a journey of finding a combination of treatments that will work. I’m still on my journey and still learning, but at least I’ve learned how to proceed, how to gather the info I need, evaluate it, and toss it out if it’s not good enough to ease my pain. Good luck on your journey and I hope even one piece of info I’ve shared here is helpful to you!
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Here are some of the many many resources I’ve consulted over the past few years… many of them also have links to other sites and articles as well, so they can be a resource in and of themselves or merely a jump-off point.
Blog Entries about Pain:
- Creatively Coping with Chronic Pain ~ a big entry describing how I’ve learned how to still be creative despite the constant pain.
- A Note to Those with Chronic Pain ~ sharing all the things I wish I’d known when starting the miserable road of discovering one has a lifelong pain condition.
- Pain/Disability category of blog entries
Articles:
- A Letter to the Healthy World from the Land of Chronic Pain and Fatigue (really excellent “letter”!!!)
- Debunking Myths: ‘More Exercise’ for Fibromyalgia & Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
- Chronic pain to cost economy $10B by 2025
- “A Way Out of Your Suffering” (Pain Clinic in the USA)
- Getting rid of unneeded medications: Out of sight is not out of mind (from painACTION.com)
More to come…
AND/OR check my delicious bookmarks under the “pain” category for articles that I’ve added!
Book Recommendations:
- The Chronic Pain Solution by James Dillard
More coming soon… when I can remember to record the titles when I’m on the same floor as the books themselves :S
Types of Treatments:
Coming soon… I have a list of about 50+ Tx, over half of which I’ve tried at least once!
