Living with chronic pain
Most people are faced with acute pain, which lasts for a short period of time. When you are faced with chronic pain it never goes away. Chronic pain is an invisible disease, which invades every part of your body and mind and is with you seven days a week 365 days a year. You are forced to deal not only with the physical but emotional element.
Five years ago if I had a toothache I would have described the pain as ‘chronic’.
At 26, I had a great career and social life. It came to an end when a car reversed down a one-way street and sent me flying into the air. I had no broken bones only bruises and cuts that would heal.
But it was the start of a road that is demanding to the point of unimaginable exhaustion, not ignoring the frequent depression, frustration, tears and pain, which can be overpowering to the point of collapse.
Acute pain became long term. With my confidence gone, I could find no excuse for my bad temper, frustration, and inability to do things. My personality altered, I started to become withdrawn, angry and suffer from panic attacks. I could not understand what was happening, I did not acknowledge the pain.
I had a burning sharp pain in my neck, constant headaches and muscle spasms.
I began to lose the strength in my left arm. My lower back was a burning, crushing dull pain, which sometimes causes me to limp.
Because you have no visible injury, people do not understand the pain you suffer.
I have given up explaining my illness. Now that people who are close to me are beginning to understand, no one else matters. Five years on I am accepting that I have chronic pain.
Initially, I had MRI scans and x-rays that showed nothing. I felt a fraud yet I knew something was wrong and three years after the accident a doctor eventually referred me to a pain specialist. At last, I could put a name to my condition and realise that there are people suffering from the same illness.
I started a pain management programme that consisted of physical exercise, lectures, counselling and relaxation sessions. You learn about pain and how to manage it and pace your life. Activity levels for people with chronic pain tend to be erratic, when the pain levels are low they try to do all the things they used to, then send themselves into a spiral of pain again.
Nerves transmit pain signals to the brain. The specialist recommended a series of diagnostic nerve blocks, which could lead to a procedure called a rhizotomy. The pain signal is broken, but because nerves regenerate, this procedure is repeated for the rest of your life.
However it took me a further two years to realise and accept that this is not a cure, no matter how much I had been warned. My darkest moment was after the programme when I suddenly realised this would never end. After the pain management programme, I considered suicide as a way out.
I got through it with medication and professional management and had the rhizotomy. I am grateful for the 40% reduction in back pain, my neck pain remains the same. It has given me back some sanity.
I no longer work full time and any small task completed, without pain, is a sense of achievement. I can now avoid prescription medication and deal with the pain through relaxation, positive thinking, good pacing, small achievable tasks and the strength and encouragement of my loved ones.
Pain is an expensive illness, in the never-ending search for the Holy Grail, the cure. You become emotionally and financially dependent on others whilst learning to establish your own independence and rebuild a new life. The guilt you feel, for the burden you place on your loved ones, can often stop you progressing to the next stage.
Yet you can never return the support from them until you can heal your inner self.
Chronic pain is like death; you grieve for the life you had. To survive, you must go through the denial, anger, blame, acceptance, adjustment, and move on to become a whole person again with a new life balance and outlook. I am still on that road but the dark tunnel is behind me.
Written by Patricia Dunne, Dublin
Free Forum Hosting
Important Announcement
First 