feel—this is a form of denial. You are denying the reality of your body to get stuff done.
Don’t get me wrong—this can be an effective strategy for some, for a short while. It often seems necessary. But in the long term, it has many flaws. For one, it will spectacularly blow up in your face the minute it is stress-tested. Because, if you’re already living on the edge of what is possible for your body, when you are as healthy as you can be, what happens when you get a cold or break a bone or have to stay up through the night to meet a deadline? Or your kid gets sick, or you miss a meal, or any one of a million large and small things that happen to everyone all the time? You can’t push any more, and stuff starts to slide.
Or, what happens when your body fights back against always being ignored? When the pain increases because you’ve been pushing through it and, again, you can’t cope? Your life won’t magically put itself on hold or restructure itself while you fix the problem. Denial is an extraordinarily powerful thing, but it can only last so long, and, when it’s gone, the whole system collapses. And then you realize that you’ve spent your life coping rather than living.
I doubt anyone who has picked up a book titled Managing Your Pain While Living Your Life is still in this denial stage, but maybe you know someone who is. Maybe you lived there for a while yourself. Maybe you’ve still got one foot back there. There is no shame in that state; it is a natural emotional reaction to something that you cannot cope with. But this book is not intended for those living in that state or those who want a quick fix. Living and accepting a life with chronic pain is not for the faint of heart and, I’m sorry, it will require a lifetime of practice. But living can, absolutely, definitely, become easier.
I am not a doctor and I am not a miracle worker; I am not here to sell you snake oil or promise the unreasonable. I’m a scientist and professional problem-solver who has spent thirty years living with chronic pain disorders and the last ten studying them, researching tools and therapies for alleviation, and understanding the impact pain can have on every aspect of your life. Anyone who has been in long-term pain knows that this is not just about your body. Your mood, mental state, romantic relationships, financial situation, family, friends, career, hobbies, and life plans are all victims of pain—and that is the basis for this book.
There are a lot of books out there about living with chronic illness and living through pain—of many types. Many are excellent, and I have widely referenced plenty throughout this work; I encourage everyone to read as many as possible, do your own research, and listen to as many perspectives as possible. No two people’s journeys will be the same; you probably already know that pain is individual, so having as much information as possible will provide you with a solid base from which to manage your own unique experience—which is why this book offers a little bit of everything. So, yes, we cover the science, the why—because understanding helps decrease the emotional suffering related to experiencing physical pain. Management techniques and practical suggestions are also here, in an effort to provide useful, actionable tools that can improve your life. And discussion of the emotional and mental effects pain can have on you and your family—because oftentimes, this is the worst part. This book may be whimsical or even silly at times, but that’s okay. Pain isn’t always rational, and we don’t have to be, either. Part of my personal experience is that pain can make you a little crazy, and having a sense of humor about it is at times the only solution. We need to do whatever we need to do to make life’s journey with pain as manageable as possible, for ourselves and our loved ones. But I guarantee, with work and time, you can get your freedom back and learn that pain does not have to dictate your life. Take heart, for others have been through what you are going through, and there is light at the end of the tunnel.
In order to get anywhere with your pain, you have to understand it. So let’s start simple.
What Is Pain?
The nervous system runs throughout your body and sends electrochemical signals along its network of neurons, up the spine, and to the brain, where your brain interprets the signals it receives. The nervous system is the information highway for pain, but it is not the neurons themselves that “feel” the pain—your brain is what receives the information and draws your awareness to the part of the body that sent the signal. The central nervous system is an incredibly complex, highly developed system whose main purpose is to send messages between different parts of your body—from one cell to another. Pain is just one of these signals. When a part of you hurts, a signal is sent from the sensory receptors at that site, along the neural network to the brain, where the message “pain” is received and interpreted.
Pain serves many functions, but its most basic is to alert you, your consciousness, that something is wrong and a response is required. The response may be simple and reflexive (take your hand out of the fire), or even unconscious (causing your glands to secrete hormones to counteract the situation). Adrenaline may be released. Your body may tense up. Inadvertent and complex results may and do occur as the result of physical pain. But the thing you need to remember is: pain is there to help you. It warns you when something is wrong, makes sure you know to protect yourself. It is a valuable evolutionary tool.
But that is not to say it is infallible. Pain can be misleading. Your brain does not always interpret pain correctly and your sensory receptors do not always receive information accurately. There are many ways your body can fail you when it comes to pain, and one of the most common is for pain to be of a greater magnitude, of a longer duration, or simply from an insignificant cause, leading your brain to overreact and you to feel much more pain than is appropriate.
Broadly speaking, there are three traditional classifications of pain: acute, chronic non-cancer, and chronic cancer pain. While all pain is painful, not all pain is equal or behaves in the same way. Those who experience chronic pain feel changing effects over time, as their nervous system reacts to the environment of ongoing pain. In this way, acute pain is very different, and while they may be hard to differentiate in any given instant, chronic and acute pain are treated differently. Note, however, that acute pain can transition to chronic pain over time.
We’re not going to delve into all of the various pain disorders here, as there are many, and even the same disorders can have different effects on different people. There are also many types of non-physical pain, and this is where life can get really complicated, because emotional pain and physical pain are not mutually exclusive. Feeling physically crappy can cause a negative emotional response. Feeling anxious or overwhelmed or depressed, or any number of other negative emotions, can cause physical symptoms of pain. Emotional and physical pain can become a self-reinforcing vicious cycle. The two go hand in hand, and pretending they don’t means ignoring half of the problem.
Diagnosing and treating emotional pain is an enormous task and one that should, ideally, be tackled with the help of professionals. Later in this book, we will look at some of the specific emotional consequences of physical pain, but the analysis of purely emotional issues is not our target here. We want to narrow our focus to physical pain and its consequences, some of which are emotional.
So let’s look at physical pain in depth. Do you know what type of pain you have? Do you know where it’s coming from or what’s causing it? That can be a simple question to answer if you have a broken leg or a burned hand, and these are relatively easy problems to understand and treat, but it’s much tougher
