One topic I haven’t written about, in my obsessions with child abuse and psychopharmaceutical malfeasance, is physical pain. Back in my days as a surgeon, so very long ago, my neck developed ruptured discs, bone spurs, and all manner of unpleasant pathology. The resulting pain forced me to quit that line of work. But physical discomfort did not stop just because I ended a career. It only lessened. Hence, a few years later I found myself addicted to Oxycontin. The drug, another pharmaceutical evil, helped with pain of all kinds. My neck felt so much better; it was easier to write, for instance. I could sit still longer. It also eliminated my depression, and replaced it with a delightful feeling of well-being—for a few hours. The problem was, when that nice sensation wore off, I wanted it back. And over time that meant taking more and more of the drug. It got to the point where I could hardly think of anything besides the narcotic, and when the hour would come for another dose. My life became handcuffed to those little pills. So I stopped. And it was not as easy as just writing that sentence. It was hell. Without Oxycontin my body and mind became vessels of pain and little more. In the end I fell back on Suboxone, a drug that helps a little with the physical aches, does nothing for the emotional hurting, but eliminates the narcotic craving. Since there is no euphoria, it is compatible with a normal life. But if I’d never been started on Oxycontin, I would not be taking it at all. Oxycodone (the active ingredient of oxycontin) reached deep inside my brain and turned a switch, leaving me with a permanent craving for narcotics. I know, it’s a weakness. If I were really ‘tough’ I could get by with no drugs at all. But that is easy to say and even try until the pain strikes.
I would force myself to taper off the Suboxone except for the mild pain relief it provides. These days, I need all the pain relief I can get. The arthritis now involves many more joints besides my neck.I also take naprosyn, Tylenol, and and another non-narcotic pain reliever.
Lately, with approaching winter, the pain has been ramping up. I lay awake nights unable to sleep because of it. It’s demoralizing. It becomes very hard to maintain a positive attitude with so much physical discomfort. So I sink into a low-grade depression and irritability that might be OK if I weren’t married. But living with someone else requires interacting in a civil way. I hate to admit this, but it becomes very hard to be a good husband when I can’t sleep and feel constant pain. It gets easy to feel sorry for myself. I had such a rotten upbringing, and have experienced such a run of bad luck as an adult, that now living with this pain seems unfair. And that kind of thinking just makes the pain worse, because a psychic value judgment gets added to the physical discomfort. I get to the point of not wanting to do anything, of having to force myself into the most basic activities. I become distant and quiet.
But when has life ever been fair? And what else is there to say besides that?
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Marian at http://diffthoughts.blogspot.com
Got arthritis, me too. Primarily in my knees and elbows, but more or less all over. Five years ago it got so bad, I couldn’t bend my right leg, limping about, and I thought I’d soon have to look for another, less physically demanding job. Well, I’m still doing the job, and right now I’m sitting here cross-legged – unimaginable five years ago.
My GP recommended the “horse pill”: glucosamine. At first, it seemed to help a little, but about half a year after I’d started taking it everything was back to normal, i.e. the pain and stiffness in the joints were back. In addition, I’d started to have palpitations, which I at that time attributed to too much coffee. Until I read that glucosamine was suspected to cause high blood pressure. Simultaneously with stopping the “horse pill”, I reduced my coffee intake drastically. The palpitrations vanished. I’ve since tried to have more coffee again at periods – I’m a stress-coffee drinker, as idiotic as it sounds… No palpitrations, so it looks like it was indeed the glucosamine.
Well, after the failed glucosamine experiment, I resorted to fish oil. It didn’t really have an effect, not on the arthritis, but I took it for a couple of years anyway, since everybody says it’s so healthy. The thing is, it’s also expensive, if you go for the quality stuff, that is. So, no fish oil recently, neither. Nevertheless, the miracle happened. And I’ve only one explanation. Also psychological trauma manifests itself in the body. And I’ve done an awful lot of trauma-resolving during the past few years…
Posted at November 2, 2009 on 11:14am.
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Alison at http://alisonrising.blogspot.com
I went through very similar moods when I was having severe migraines that lasted for weeks for a 2-year period. The pain made even a humoring smirk a daunting task. At first, I worked so hard to cover up the pain because I felt so terrible for being mentally absent in my relationship. After awhile, pain became all I was. My husband got so familiar with the look of pain in my eyes, now he can predict when I have a headache before I even mention it. I sought relief through traditional ways (i.e., lifestyle changes, lots of doctor appointments and medication), and when I got nothing, I tried yoga and chiropractors. At some point I turned to Medical Marijuana, which really just takes the edge off (although some strains really do help in alleviating pain). And now I am dependent on it.
After making some lifestyle changes (reducing stress, religiously following the same sleep/eat routine every day), I have reduced my headaches significantly. (I also have my own personal theory that my long-term headaches were caused by antidepressants, since I started having them again while I was on Prozac back in July. They magically stopped when I discontinued the meds.) Luckily, I don’t have the constant headaches anymore, but I have developed a bit of a resistance to painkillers.
Aside from migraines, pain has been familiar to me throughout my life due to spastic hemiplegic CP, and I know as I get older, the pain is only going to get worse. I would really like to learn more about the pain pathways in the brain, the relationship between pain and mood disorders, and medication-minimizing methods for pain management. Eastern medicine’s approach to pain management fascinates me. I’m truly surprised that Western medicine is so limited. (Ok, not THAT surprised).
I wish that acknowledging the unfairness of life would somehow cancel it out. (What is it in our society that perpetuates that thought, anyway? It causes so much unnecessary psychic pain!!) I’ve found that every once in awhile rolling around on the floor kicking and screaming in full-on temper tantrum mode provides noticeable, albeit temporary, relief.
Posted at November 2, 2009 on 4:29pm.
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Will at http://willspirit.com
Alison–
Cymbalta is a medication I loathe, but the marketers do have a point in their ads: ‘Depression Hurts.’ There is no question that stress and/or down moods cause me to feel more pain. I could probably write a post about that relationship and pain pathways in the brain, since I devote so much time to learning neurobiology. On the other hand, I’m pretty ignorant when it comes to Eastern medicine. I have had mixed results with acupuncture, but great benefit from meditation and yoga (when I muster the discipline to practice them.)
The anxiety that pain will continue to get worse with age is familiar to me. My grandmother had severe osteoarthritis, and was wheelchair bound with exquisitely painful hips and spine by the time of her death at age ninety. Her hands had become badly deformed and crippled. She really suffered, and I both fear and suspect the same fate may await me. As we both are saying, life is not fair, and misery does not settle evenly on the population. My only comfort is in learning to appreciate the pain and despair as emotions with color. I try to experience them in a spiritual way, as if my mission is to bear a larger than average burden of humanity’s sorrow. The sadness also informs my writing, so I try to transform the pain into beauty. Sounds like a great approach, but of course in reality there are big blocks of time where I am simply in emotional and physical agony: nothing enlightened about it. There are also times (much rarer, but I keep trying) when I can feel a chasm of emptiness in my heart, with a sinking certainty of doom, and yet feel contented.
Thank you so much for your comment.
–Will
Posted at November 3, 2009 on 10:05am.
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Will at http://willspirit.com
Marian–
You are blessed to have been so relieved of your pain. Like I’ve said in a response to Alison, Cymbalta ads are correct: ‘Depression Hurts’, even if antidepressants are not the answer. Working past trauma and grief, to the extent it improves outlook, would no doubt help alleviate some of my joint pain. I am in a pitched battle to achieve such recovery. Maybe part of the reason the arthritis is so acute right now (aside from approaching winter,) is that I am exploring so much of what hurts me emotionally. That may be getting translated into physical pain. Hopefully, as I ‘work past’ all this, the discomfort will lessen. Whether I will be as fortunate as you, and so free of my arthritis, remains to be seen. Thanks for the comment, and the hope it instills.
–Will
Posted at November 3, 2009 on 10:10am.