Chronic Pain: My Experience
I thought the best way to introduce myself and this new topic on Suite 101 would be to give some background on myself, and the ways in which chronic pain has affected my life. In order to know these things, you need to meet some members of my family:
Dorothy - My mother. She recently passed away after having successfully survived a kidney transplant for over 15 years. However, during that time she developed Hepatitis C from a blood transfusion and a lot of medications led to liver toxicity. Not only did these conditions cause her considerable intractable pain, but also a deterioration in her mental state. Far too often, depression or other mental states accompany long-term chronic pain.
Clifford - My father. He passed away several years ago now from a lump the size of a softball in his lung. He had been suffering, silently, for years with his Cancer and because of this, it remained undiagnosed until it was too late. Silence is another difficulty of chronic pain sufferers who feel they would be a burden to let those around them know their true level of pain.
Brenda - My sister. In her mid-thirties she began having difficulty with her joints and was diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis. Although she is on Enbrel which assists her pain and symptoms, she is still limited by her disease but has been able to remain working. Chronic pain has various levels of ability and disability associated with it, and these can vary from day to day.
Bernie - My wife. She was diagnosed with Epstein-Barr syndrome a couple years back after extreme periods of exhaustion that left her so tired after a day's work that she'd come home, flop into bed and sometimes not even eat. Bernie's a real go-getter and always doing for the other members of our family, often at the expense of herself. Many chronic pain suffers try to do beyond their limitations and end up causing further pain.
Lauri - My daughter. At 13 she was diagnosed hyper-thyroid, from there her health has gone steadily downhill with occasional peaks in the valleys. She has mild Lupus, Fibromyalgia, problems with her heart and liver. All these conditions combined often have her on medications which cause worse effects than her initial pain, and have prevented firm diagnoses in the past. Too often, chronic pain sufferers are overmedicated for symptoms, or trying treatments which contradict each other hoping for some relief.
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