Coping with Pain (and other symptoms)

Coping with pain and other disabling symptoms is a process. You can't expect the same thing to work every day. It's also not something you need to try alone. When you can't control the pain, you need to assemble your team and take advice. There are no bonus points for being tough or for being stubborn. Those are lessons that I learned the hard way. When I let myself tell the pain doc that my symptoms were out of control, he increased the dosage of my meds. I was not a chronic complainer so he knew something was up.

When he increased my dosage, I started sleeping at all hours of the day. My body was so starved for pain relief that it felt blissful. That dosage went from feeling blissful to feeling adequate to leaving me in agony. Unfortunately, all pain patients need to understand tolerance. Having an artificial pain blocking or numbing chemical in your body triggers a response known as homeostasis. Roughly defined, it means "keeping the body the same." When your body realizes that there's been an increase in artificial pain support, your body releases less natural pain support. It's called tolerance and there's nothing you can do about it. If you report pain levels honestly and follow your doctor's instructions, it will happen as slowly as possible.

Addiction and dependence are often confused by those of us who fear them. Dependence is the opposite side of tolerance. Since your body is making less of the chemicals you need to withstand pain, you become dependent on the artificial support. This is not addiction but only a natural reaction. In fact, no responsible doctor would ever take you off a long term medication all at once. You need to be weaned off these medications so that your body will produce enough natural chemicals again to keep you going.

Addiction happens when you misuse a prescription. If you take pain pills with the intent of going into a state of bliss whether or not you are in pain, that is addiction. As long as you follow your doctor's instructions, you cannot become addicted.

Pain pills are only one method of pain management from your doctor. I was having a miserable time with these electrical type pulses in my arms. I wanted to move them constantly and yet I learned that they would just get tired. Then I'd have the urge to move them along with the ache from them being tired. It felt as if I'd been lifting weights or something.

One day, I happened to notice an ad for a drug designed to treat Restless Leg Syndrome. The symptoms were awfully (and I mean awfully) familiar but it was my arms. When I brought this up to my doctor, he prescribed the same drug to treat my Restless Arm Syndrome. The symptom has gotten much better since then. When I continued to have unexplained pain all over, I suggested that a fibromyalgia drug might work the same way the RLS drug helped my RAS. The pain doc went down a checklist and decided that it was likely fibro. (If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck...)

That brings me to my current pain management regimen. I have a regularly dosed pain medicine along with breakthrough meds. The RLS drug and the fibro drug worked wonders which left me with my arthritis symptoms. Once again, they decided that having the symptoms made trying the medication a good idea. I'm happy to say that it works wonderfully.

I've reached a funny point in my pain management. As long as I don't do anything except meditate and we don't have any rain or thunderstorms, I feel my pain is under control. As long as I don't have a life, I feel pretty okay. In my first regular entry, I'm going to get to why that just plain sucks.