My Constant Companion PAIN

[hosbay]

I now have a constant companion in my life…..he is called PAIN. He is not a companion I would have wished to accompany me but, to a large extent, I seem to be stuck with him.

He came to me about five years ago from a BAD PLACE (spinal nerve root trauma).

Spinal trauma was a very BAD PLACE then, and PAIN was pretty wild and uncontrollable.

I fought against him for quite some time till I realised my strategy was wrong and I could not get the better of him.

With time I changed my strategy and found that I could modify PAIN’s behaviour. I could not totally get rid of him, and I did not really want to because he was useful in letting me know when BAD PLACE was “kicking off”.

My strategy was to try to make BAD PLACE a better place but I needed PAIN to let me know what worked and what didn’t.

Living with PAIN is not so bad now because I now know more about his behaviour and bad habits. He had a habit of constantly reminding and annoying me even though BAD PLACE was not “kicking off” but I learned to try to ignore him and not focus on what he was saying by diverting my attention to other positive things, staying calm, exercising, resting, etc. This strategy now works for me and PAIN generally quietens down and, occasionally, goes away and hides. If he does not quieten down, or worse, gets louder, then I turn my attention to BAD PLACE to address what is happening there. BAD PLACE can generally be subdued by avoiding certain activities, pacing, relaxing, resting and, occasionally, NSAID medication, etc.

Although not ideal I can live with this. I am active, mobile and have reasonable quality of life and can generally prevent pain build up to the intolerable “pain fog” level which causes distraction, irritability and partial loss of cognitive functions.

[deejames]

I do see where you are coming from. I feel that acknowledging and accepting that pain is probably going to be with us for ever will help to break the cycle of despair, stress, tension and increased pain. Of course we try to find medications that can alleviate some of the pain but accepting and adapting can reduce some of the attendant mental anguish associated with chronic pain.

Sounds logical and for me it works most of the time until a new pain or flare up occurs then it can be back to the utter despair and lack of hope for the future.

You have a very energising attitude hosbay. Keep it up.

Hope you have a good day

Dee

[hosbay in reply to deejames]

Thanks for your reply deejames. It is gratifying to hear that people agree, or better still, derive some benefit from posts.

Good Luck with your journey

hosbay

[RedfoxMorse]

What a great written piece. Reminds me of myself. I have lived with pain for 10 years after a spinal fusion at the bottom of my spine after 30 years of nursing and having a crushed vertebrae in my thoracic spine due to osteoporosis at 48 at the same time! I agree with everything you write to control my pain within tolerable limits, looking out for the tell tale signs of overdoing it and resting before it gets too bad. Unfortunately I remain on MST and pregabalin which I have tried to get off, under supervision of my GP several times over the last 6 years without success. So I have nearly accepted the situation to keep my status quo pain relief ,but would love to get off the opiates. Keep feeling that the older I get, sooner or later a new GP will decide no more .....which makes me feel very anxious. Meanwhile I shall enjoy the status quo.

[hosbay in reply to RedfoxMorse]

Thank you for your reply RedfoxMorse

Like you I have multi spinal defects C7, L4/L5 and LI (which was due to diskitis infection 7 years ago). For the first few months after my most severe defect (L4/L5 nerve root damage) I was on all kinds of medication (including morphine sulphate, Amitriptyline, Diazepam, Gabapentin, etc. I made a conscious decision to come off the strong medications because they did not seem to give much pain relief and I was aware of some bad side effects (especially gabapentin which affected my cognitive faculties). I carried on with small amounts of Cocodamol and Diclofenic/Naproxen for a few more months while I concentrated on my strength and fitness which had deteriorated considerably. I realised that I needed this to compensate for the defects in my spine. I certainly still had a lot of pain and it was difficult but I gradually started to feel the benefits. Around this time I also came across an article by an American orthopaedic consultant who had carried out fairly extensive research on spinal defects (especially degenerative disk disease)and pain and he found what he called "the cascade effect" whereby the body adapts and re-organises itself with time and consequently pain reduces. Like lots of other study reports and hypothesis I did not know if it was indeed correct but it gave me hope and encouragement to carry on with my strategy.

I am 76 years old and managing as I said earlier to have a reasonable quality of life.

I know that everyone is different and what works for one may not work for others.

I hope your condition improves whether you manage to reduce medication or not.