Pain Awareness Month and Suicide Prevention Month - Do We think about just how badly chronic pain can be and for some, almost to the place of not being able to live with it....

This is so well put! WE, many of us, with chronic daily pain, the kind that without any treatment would leave you in bed, on the sofa, and without ANY quality of LIFE!!!!! Yet, those FEW who choose to "abuse" medications, cause a ridiculous amount of questioning, hoop jumping, "looks at us like we are "addicts" " and even many that all of a sudden can no longer GET their meds... as she put it... to HAVE A LIFE  ... we do not use meds to "escape" from living... that in itself was one of the best ways I've heard to speak about the people that abuse medications. But those that do cause harm by their own abuse, and making life almost unbearable for those that do everything correctly.... just to as I say, and the article says to have "life"... NO PAIN medication EVER completely takes pain away.... it makes us "able to deal" with the pain better, when it is "less" than unbearable. I have an implanted pain pump that my Pain Doctor implanted in 2010... and we have "tweaked" the medication in it over the years, if need be. But, I still have a script for "back up" pain... maybe I am having more pain than usual from a weather change, or from doing something in my daily life that may exaserbate the pain at times. Yet, nothing takes it away... it helps me deal with what is pain remains... it allows me energy to DO my errands chores, go out for a day to have a bit of "off time" and so on.... if it were NOT for my pain medications, I would almost be to a place that it would be "intractable"... more often than not... and in fact, due to a lower back lumbar/sacral problem, there have been at least two times in the last 3 years that it was like I have NO PAIN medication at all.... In fact I even went through and had a talk with my pain doctor. All I wanted to do it sit in the floor and cry, the pain was so horrid.... I went that way for weeks... and we found the problem... and now due to this abscess I am still not able t0 have surgery... but at times even with what I have, it can be to the point you wonder if you are not just going to go insane from the pain.  So, each time I see or hear about how many "abuse" medications and all they want to do to make it almost impossible for us to get our medications, it just infuriates me... for ONE DAY I would like to "hand over" my pain to some of those that think it is all "bull" and let them walk in my shoes for 24 hours... I wonder how they would feel, when they awake to stiff, swollen, throbbing hands, knuckles, feet, ankles, hips, pain down my leg, severe headache from Lupus... and see how long they could "tackle" the pain without any help from medications... If you gave them a week, I bet 95% or more of them would be begging for relief..... And I have had several people over the years ask me how I "cope"?  How do I get up and around with the pain and chronic illnesses, the fatigue, the swelling in my joints the stiffness, the pain that does not matter if you sit, stand, lay down... it is just there,... and by "faith" and "hope" and taking ALL of my medications as I am instructed, and trying to stay as active as possible... helps me to cope... my writing, my blog, being here on FB, my activism, advocacy, and my Ambassador roles... the AF, WEGO, Lupus Foundation, IFAA.... all of those and more, that give me the will to know I must FIGHT not just for myself, but for others out there just like myself or even worse.... Rhia Steele​

http://nationalpainreport.com/pain-awareness-and-suicide-prevention-8827504.html

http://nationalpainreport.com/

 

 

After reading this article I felt compelled to share it. This is one of the MANY complicated emotions when you are dealing with Chronic Daily Unrelenting Pain....

3rd Day of the 30 day Challenge for the support and promotion of National Pain Awareness Month

I am taking the "30-Day Challenge for pain awareness".... which today is the 3rd day. Yesterday I wore "blue" along with a sign in my car from a photo I made like this one. Today, I am supposed to write down what I would be doing in life if, I was not sick, and have chronic pain issues. Well, first of all, I would probably be doing something in the medical field. I had wanted to be an RN ever since I was in my teens. But, now, if things for me health wise were different, I could see me being a researcher, and doing research on illnesses, such as these autoimmune illnesses, Lupus, RA, Sjogren's, Raynaud's, and so many more, hundreds, and would be trying to find out the "origin" of what causes them that hopefully would lead to a way to stop their progression OR possibly have a way that NO ONE ever had to even have them in the first place. I would be "more active"... going out more, taking my Mom out more... and doing things with friends... right now honestly, I don't have many "friends" as far as here near me... not those that I could go out to dinner, shopping, a movie, or even to the casino with for a day or overnight.... And the reason for that is these illnesses. I never know from one day to the next, if I will wake up feeling "okay" or wake up feeling like as my Dad would have said "pulled thru a knot hole backwards"... LOL... then there are days I wake up fine, but in a few hours I feel horrible, or can feel like hell when I first get up, and within a few hours, feel better... these horrid diseases, which 99% of them include some type of chronic pain, take over your life. Even though many say that can win the battle over them, and I do for the most part, they still have their way of putting you on your butt, even when you try your best to fight against them. I would also already have my 3rd book published, my home would be "more completed" as far as all of the DIY stuff I've started, and some I can't do simply because my health in one way or the other puts a damper on something. We, even myself, before the AI illnesses, took many things for granted... even though I suffered migraines since the age of 17 yrs old, I still could more or less "have a life"... go out, go to college at night, work, do lawn work which I love, and just go do things like shopping or eating out in Dallas, or going down to San Antonio to the River Walk for a weekend... now those things are either almost impossible, OR they are a bit more difficult for me to plan to be able to do... just the stuff here at my house, painting, laying the floors in my kitchen, bath finishing out the walls in my bath, and wiring the lights in, and things like that, some I can do, and others my body no longer allows me to handle. So, a "new normal" (which by the way is kind of one of my "mantra's".... would be to enjoy and do, all of the simple things I used to be able to do, and now I realize that my life has totally turned around and what was "normal" just a few years ago, is certainly not anymore.... 

If you would like to participate in the Challenge Or just find ways to promote "Pain Awareness Month" you can go to :

http://uspainfoundation.org/30daychallenge.html

And do your own challenge or find ways you can let others know about just how much chronic pain can change your quality of life....


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