one woman’s journey navigating a new normal
Every day, our Research and Education Projects hear from persons with a serious pain problem who can’t obtain enough relief. There are multiple reasons, but a major one is that they are trying to relieve their pain with oral opioids. It appears to us that there is a gross misunderstanding and ignorance about the inability of oral opioids to ever provide good pain relief in many persons who have Intractable Pain Syndrome (IPS).
I’ve hit that wall again where I’m disheartened and overwhelmed. I’ve faced this throughout the 15 years I’ve been sick, and I know I’ll muster the strength to do what needs to be done, but today, in this moment, I’m grieving for what was and will never be again.
All Intractable Pain Syndrome (IPS) patients have nerve damage somewhere in their brain, spinal cord, or nerves. Consequently, IPS patients will either need extra GABA or a GABA surrogate to force damaged nerve tissue to correctly function and relieve pain.
On the good days when our pain level is low, we try to catch up on doing all the things we couldn’t do when the pain was bad the previous day. But this can cause a flare-up and the natural response is to rest or take a pain medication. Once the pain eases, we might try again, only to repeat the pattern of overactivity, flare-up, rest, easing of pain, then overactivity.
Chronic pain affects the whole person. It forces people to limit their activities, search for medical treatment that can meet their needs, and drain their resources—financially and emotionally.
Kratom is a compound found in the tree leaves of the mitragyna speciosa plant that grows in southeast Asia. It is an herb and not an opioid, but it produces pain relief like an opioid. Biologically, it attaches to the opioid receptors (pain relief sites) in the brain and spinal cord, and relieves pain just like an opioid.
What I've learned over the past 15 years of being chronically ill is that when turning inward to fight for yourself seems like the last thing you can do, it is, in fact, the most essential thing.
The truth is I don’t know what to say; don’t know what to feel; can’t possibly understand the depths of sorrow and pain so many have been forced to scale since terrorists crashed American planes into American buildings and took the lives of more than 3,000.
Having chronic pain means many things change, and a lot of them are invisible. Unlike having cancer or being hurt in an accident, most people do not understand even a little about chronic pain and its effects, and of those that think they know, many are actually misinformed.
It’s been 10 years since my surgery and I’m living what I refer to as my “new normal” – a life somewhere between the once healthy, active me, and the woman who had physically, emotionally and psychologically hit rock bottom.
You Don't Look Sick Blog 