Seems strange ?

[Calceolaria]

That you can have pain, more pain, worse pain and yet - still live ! How can this be ?

[Hidden]

Hello

This human body can get used to most things thrown at it over an extended period of time.

When pain comes to us possibly very quickly say in a car accident, the body starts using up natural opiates in the body, we have only a limited amount of them over a short period of time This possibly happens during the final stages of life, so they up the amount of medications that the body requires to suppress the pain eventually the body becomes saturated by opiates given to keep the patient comfortable, overdose occurs, death follows.

Same happens if you have a car accident, the body pushes your natural opiates, possibly that is why people remember only short clips of what is going on , like a film, opiates are given the body pushes less and burns up the opiate given, this happens with concussion as well.you loose memory, this may be a bad example

I think that is what can happen, when we are suffering constant persistent pain the body uses up natural body opiates that much slower, so we never really can actually suppress all pain as we are taking an oral or injection of opiate, possibly the body becomes used to this and becomes lazy in its production of natural opiates, hence addiction. now we are hooked on the opiates that we take, The body can only produce limited supplies of this drug

One of my concerns with regards to this,when I begin too die and in pain my body will possibly react to wanting more and more opiate, the body will not be able to cope so will demand more opiate, to compensate for its lack of its own, larger and larger doses will need to be given to give comfort and relief. Doctors may not know what you have taken in life and the dose will remain possibly static at the levels of a normal patient, so pain rules. This happened to me when I developed gallstones, pain control was not even touching the sides

The emergency team in hospital kept pushing and I needed more, they could not understand what was going on

Chronic pain, is basically a real problem the body can just about keep running on for long periods, it is not the same as an acute pain where the body, say that hurts and compensates in a more hurried fashion, the body takes on that surge of your opiate for a shorter period of time so less is used, although pushes more fast

What I have discussed here is my own interpretation . of how pain works I may be wrong the GP may give a more educated idea of what can happen.

All the best

BOB

[joe69]

Pain is a weird thing...it certainly gets around.

We all have our own ways of dealing with it, but it will bring a big man down to his knees...

It's made me feel at deaths door on a few occasions, but all it takes is a bit of a fight to get through the pain, and get it to a level to which you can live with...

Pain is there 24/7.... you just need to be the boss and try and keep on top of it...this coming from me is hard, it's taken me a very long time to get used to my pain... I now don't let it get me to the stage of deaths door...

Joe

[Calceolaria]

Thanks Joe and Bob. Been having a rough couple of weeks. Best wishes. Mary.

[superannie]

I have been thinking about how people rate their pain on a scale of one to ten. I am asked this a lot either at the hospital or surgery. How does a person know what level of pain is low, say 3 or high as in 9? What are we comparing it with? What I might rate pain as 3, another person might rate the same pain as 8.?

I reckon the highest level of pain I have endured is during childbirth with my first child. I was young, inexperienced, had no idea at all what I was about to endure and so my body could not cope. I tensed and fought it every step of the way which made it much worse to deal with.

When I had my second child five years later, older wiser and having more knowledge about the procedure. it was a totally different experience, I could handle the pain.

Maybe as I have got older I am more able to tolerate the pain, understand not to tense up, try to relax into it? Not sure if I am making any sense at all?

Have a pain free day all, Ann

[Hidden in reply to superannie]

Morning Ann

In the one to ten rating the pain you feel is very subjective, it is the person who is suffering pains, how they are suffering from it, the numbering system is how you are feeling at that time

All the best

BOB

[superannie in reply to Hidden]

Thanks Bob, I will ponder on your answer. Have a good day, ann

[johnsmith in reply to superannie]

I have giving up on pain 1 to 10. I find pain a moving target. A nice sunny day and at the right temperature my pain will drop even though it remains the same. On a day that is at the right sort of dampness my pain although it remains the same will increase a lot. It feels that there is a moving reset button which keeps changing the pain scale.

My scale now is how much does my pain stop me from doing something. The high pain on a miserable day still allows me to be functional. That same pain on a sunny day leaves me unable to function.

Some types of pain leaves me feeling sick and unfunctional. This is not on the pain scale. I get by by ileaving the emotional aspects of pain behind. Someone asking me what it is on a scale of one to ten brings back the emotional aspect of the pain, which I can do without.

[superannie in reply to johnsmith]

Hi there, what you say is so right for me. Pain scale is how much it affects what I am able to do. For example today I have put the hoover over a very tiny bungalow, walked to my corner store with the aid of a walker, cooked a light meal and I am knackered ( excuse the French!) so I know that my body is not coping with such mundane activities.

I am grateful to have been given a mobility scooter and my husband just cannot understand why I am not using it? I have been told that my condition ,degenerative arthritis in the spine and spyndolothesis ( sp?) is going to get worse and worse, so, knowing that I will end up having to use it on an on going basis at some stage. I would prefer not to use it right now.

Another thing I do is try out certain activities as it is the only way I can gauge where I am physically. Pain and dealing with it is such a personal thing. We are all different and cope in whatever way suits us best. All I know is that I would give anything to be back to what I was a few years ago. I just get so tired of my whole life revolving around pain.

Thanks for letting me get that off my chest, have a good evening Ann

[johnsmith in reply to superannie]

Thanks for the reply. It gives me stronger leverage to argue with the GP.

I have a problem with slight curvature in the spine. I get McTimony chiropractic on the NHS. I see the chiropractor every six weeks. The chiropractor straightens me out and I am fine for another 6 weeks.

The Chiropractor also stretches the muscles in my legs at the same time as they are in the habit of getting too tight. The chiropractor cannot cure my problem, but she stops it from getting worse.

Just because a doctor says something is going to get worse is not necessarily so. Tight muscles can be helped so that things do not deteriate or their deteriation can be slowed down. Unfortunately most doctors do not know this.

If you can afford it look up an Alexander Teacher. They are muscle specialists and they can do very good things with their hands in regard to pain reduction.

[superannie in reply to johnsmith]

Thanks for the reply, I will look up Alexander teacher. I have noticed quite a few articles about it. Have a good evening, Ann

[Hidden]

Hi Mary,

It may be because not all the pain is real pain (directly resulting from injury or disease). The pain mechanism is designed to indicate injury and slow us down. Sometimes, ok, a lot of the time, chronic pain is just pain messages firing out because the brain doesn't know what else to do. Its a bit of a design fault, because we know we have a condition or illness, but the brain can't switch off the pain mechanism, because it recognises that arthritis is a problem but can't say ok this is going to ge a long roadtrip, lets ease off the pain. In extreme cases the brain will start to paralyse the body to slow it down.

It is hardfor us to know what is the real pain, what is compensation pain and what is the brain just firing out because it doesn't know what else to do. This is why pain is so changeable from hour to hour, day to day.

This is why meditation is fairly effective. It defuses the firing out pain, and in time can reach the others. Meditation does not lessen the pain it makes you relate to it differently by pushing it into the background. Several of the painkillers are supposed to work like this, by taking your mind to a different place but although the pain is the same you perceife it differently.

By taking focus off pain lessens it too - we know we have arms and legs, a head, mouth etc, I doubt we give them as much attention as we do our pain, but by the same rule, we have pain, like we have a head. We know when we get up we will have pain, just like we know our head sits on our neck. Therefore it needs no more thought than we give our head.

Hope things settle for you soon.

[Hidden]

Morning

Chronic pain is none productive pain. it is there it does not go away,it is not subjective

,

Acute pain is a means to an end,I have cut my finger,owe that hurtsOB

All the best

BOB

[Calceolaria]

Thanks everyone. Need to stop looking back and also stop worrying about the future too much. Having a blip - I hope!

[missrat]

If you go on a useful (US-based) site - chronicpainsite.com, you will find that the system operator has set up a descriptive scale for us to use, and I try to use this. (I've also done one for depression etc.) These things are always subjective, and we can only really compare OUR pain with our pain at another time, but John's description does standardise things a bit more - and certainly more than stupid definitions like '10= the worst pain you can imagine!' Now, are we thinking of ourselves, when it may be something like kidney stones or childbirth, or are we thinking of major accidents, burns etc. way beyond what we have experienced? We'd love to see you over on the website, too!

[Allanstreet]

When i get like calceolaria i want someone...perhaps to talk to. But i don't really want to talk to them because it means explaining. People don't really get chronic pain! There is no blood,no bruising sometimes no scars. Even your family. After a while (in my case 13 unremitting years and over 10 ops) they become used to it. Almost immune to it. It's there constantly. Oh they know all about pain and what it does to you,to them but in a way they get fed up with it. No one can blame them. All of us have days we need, but we don't have a clue what. A thousand things go through our heads. I used to ask "Why me"! However that is pointless. I've never been one for sitting around talking about pain. I don't see the point. If it works for you then great. Just not for me. At the end of the day there is only ourselves. We know better than anyone. Doctors can only do so much. G.P's once they are at the referral to the Pain Clinic stage are only of use to refer you again to a Consultant if you have slipped of the list and need to see one. Of course nowadays it is getting harder and harder to see a consultant or get an MRI or whatever. I've been waiting 5 months for another MRI and that's on the phone up and be their in 10 minutes list! The so called urgent list! Very easy to get cynical and no one should blame you. We all have got closer to the system than we ever wanted. As i say at the end of the day we just have to get on with it.