Pain and discouragement

Good morning @kalo37, @primghar. Good morning @lisalucier. Lisa has tagged me to try my best to be helpful with the challenge of chronic pain that is trying to take over your life and the joy that you have found living it. My first pain of that strength arrived when I was 27. It is now 50 years later and I am at it again.

I must admit I was shocked to be in such pain after a lifetime of orthopedic surgeries to correct the problems. At times it seems like those pain signals have all ganged up on me once again.

And so....two suggestions.

1. Don't fight the pain. That only makes it worse. Instead, announce to yourself and others "My body needs to rest now" and retire to your favorite comfort zone. When you are sitting or lying as comfortable as you can be, welcome the pain and then study, analyze, and learn from it. Stay present and track it. Where does it start.....how long does it last? If it is constant, does it move around?

2. Check your posture....is your body in alignment? Can you draw a string from the tip of your nose to the space between your toes? If you are sitting, do you have proper support for your spine? I had lumbar pillows made just for the support needed to be sitting up straight. It really helps to sit "strong".

Pay attention to your sitting posture or even your lying down positions. Reset your body to a more healthy position. Much of our pain can be attributed to "habit energy" when our bodies slip back into old habits that may not be energizing and comfortable.

These may seem like small things. And yet they are the easiest self-treatments to do. I try to sit very upright using my back muscles. That means no sinking into the chair with your spine cocked to one side or the other. Its amazing how the muscles in our backs become much stronger when they have work to do.

May you be content and at ease today. Chris

@trellg132 You I repeat you are stronger then the pain don't let it win Its mind over matter . You do need to use all the tools everyone suggest to fight this .

I need to start keeping a track of these things

I have my next chiropractor body next week

Visit I meant

@tigreyes2004, Good evening. I am concerned that you have had no improvement in your pain. Were you given duloxitine (Cymbalta) for pain? My understanding was that it was for anxiety about the pain, I was a basket case mentally when my PCP prescribed that medication. It made a huge difference for me, I am now at 60mg in the morning.

Anxiety about pain, creates more pain which creates more anxiety and on and on. You get into a loop that is quite disabling. I am glad to be out of the loop.

May you have comfort and ease in your day. Chris

Thank you for your concern. I have been on this Cymbalta for 5 weeks now. I started with 30 mg & last week it was increased to 60 mg & still no relief. I don't have much of a life. I know this Cymbalta is an antidepressant but does it not help for pain?. I also tried the Nortriptyline & it was helping but made me so constipated that I had to get off of it. Then I tried the Gabapentin 200 mg & it made me so tired I had to taper off that. I don't know what meds to try. I worry a lot about the side effects. Mainly weigh gain & constipation. I am so glad I found this group because I am learning a lot. I also have pancreatitis. My lipase & amylace is going higher & higher & I had MRI & ultrasound done & they don't don't why it is like that so I am going through a ot right now. Thank you for your support.Genie

@kalo37 I understand the interaction between pain and mental health. I'm not seeing a therapist right now, but I have most of the time for 14 years, working with depression, anxiety, PTSD and suicidal ideation. I had six sessions with a pain therapist, which did help me.

I've never been able to pin point a trigger for depression. The first thing I did when I noticed that I was feeling down was to talk with my PCP to see if there were any organic issues that could explain how I was feeling. We worked on that for a year and I discovered I have sleep apnea (I slept more than 12 hours a day the first few months), my gall bladder was working at only 12%, so it was removed. I don't remember the other things we found and addressed, but though I felt better physically, depression continued to worsen, and I was so far down I attempted suicide several times. I finally checked myself in to Sage View, a new facility that's for suicide survivors, and stayed for six weeks. The norm is one week.

Within six months I retired and started the process of climbing up out of the hole I was in. It was a slow, painful process. At Sage View the therapists suggested that we rate each day on a scale of 1-10. 10 would be the best day of your life. On my scale, 4 meant that I was actively suicidal, 5 is I have suicidal thoughts, but not in imminent danger. I thought I would never get up to 6. It took a couple of years to reach 5, and there I stayed for around 5 years. I finally made it to 6! I've been at 6 with occasional dips to 5, for several years now.

While I was struggling to get to 6, I started having numbness and tingling in my feet and legs. A neurologist told me it was peripheral neuropathy. I learned that all of my 5 siblings and our father had/have neuropathy. It was only an annoyance for a couple of years, but then I started having burning pain in my feet. That pain is part of the reason I was stuck mentally, keeping me down to 5 and sometimes 4. One step in getting a spinal cord stimulator is an assessment by a psychiatrist. He cleared me, but in that appointment I kind of fell apart. I hadn't been able to see a therapist for a year because the only one in town is a hospital staff, and the only one who took Medicare. The psychiatrist told me that a new therapist was going through the routine of setting up an office and would start working with clients in a month. I had dropped back down to 4 by then. At the end of my first session, I told the new therapist that he had saved my life. With his help, I started to feel better over the course of a year. I know that pain was playing a role in the downward spiral. I work now on separating the physical pain from the mental pain. I think I have a way to go yet. On days when my pain level is up to 8, it does affect my mental state. Thankfully, I find that being busy in the yard actually lessens the pain. It hits me when I lie down in bed. We have ten acres, with irrigation rights for just over 7 acres. A neighbor leases the pasture and does the irrigation so her cattle have good grazing. And it's convenient for them. They put a gate in the fence line and she can easily work the stock. I have plenty to keep me busy, maintaining a barn, garage and house and a large yard and lots of planting beds and a garden. We live in central Oregon, where it's high desert, and usually have around 12" of rain. This summer it's rained enough that God did a lot of watering for me. Most years it's almost a full time job keeping things watered and weeded. Having this nice home in the country is good therapy. I hope to be able to stay here for many years.

So, I know that life is worth living, and I know what a negative impact my death will have on my wife. Much of the time I can convince myself that I can keep going. I wish the same for you and more.

Jim

Hello @tigreyes2004
Cymbalta is good for pain, but I found it took longer than 5 weeks before I really noticed a big difference. For me, it took perhaps 6 months.

@teresa
Hi Teresa
I went to the dr. yesterday & now they want me to take Cymbalta 60mg in the morning & to take a 100mg Gabapentin at night for a week & then increase the Gabapentin. I like the Cymbalta & have not noticed any real side effects. I just worry about constipation. Did you have any problems with constipation? I will try this & see what happens. I return to the dr, in a month. Thank you for your respond. It gives me a little hope bc I am in terrible constant pain. I can hardly walk bc it hurts so much.