Pain is Relevant

“I know my pain is not as bad as yours!” I hear this from friends and family all the time. What nonsense! Pain is relevant! It doesn’t matter where you hurt. What I think is excruciating and rate as a nine or ten you might only rate it as 6 or a 7. Pain tolerance and pain thresholds are different for everyone.If your body is sending the pain signal to your brain, it is pain!


I also hate when my doctor says ‘Rate your pain from 1 to 10’!


Why? Because it depends on what I’m doing or not doing, if I’m standing or sitting, on the day, hour or minute and on the medication I am taking!


Personal I believe pain tolerance is higher RA patients because we are constantly in pain and have conditioned ourselves to only acknowledge the severe pain. Besides if I commented daily on my pain I am fairly sure my family would, after a short period time, condition them to ignore me and my complaints. By only commenting on the severe pain they know it must be bad or I wouldn’t be saying anything.


Why do we have different pain tolerances?


Evidence has shown that genetics as well as developmental, behavioral and social issues affect the way we react to pain. I know that my daughter when she young was less likely to cry when she fell (unhurt) if we ignored or clapped our hands and gave praise that she was so brave/strong. Researchers found that those with one type of a gene called SCN9A reported worse pain than those with a different type.


Pain Tolerance vs Pain Threshold


Pain tolerance is the amount of pain that a person can endure before breaking down emotionally and/or physically. We feel the pain but we don’t react to it.


Pain threshold is the minimum stimulus necessary to produce pain. E.g. Arm wrestling – how much pressure can your arm take before you start to feel the pain.


Does swearing increase pain tolerance?


According to a CTV news story, some researchers beleive that swearing triggers an aggressive emotion which in turn causes the body to release adrenaline and increase the heart rate. This triggers a fight response to the pain in the person and raises their pain tolerance.


I don’t know if I agree with this. Personally, I try not to swear but occasionally a few swear words do slip out. Has this helped my pain tolerance? I have no idea. But if it is true my husband must have a very, very high pain tolerance, lol!


What’s your opinion, do you think swearing helps with pain tolerance?

My RA Story - Part 2

Part 2

Over the next 15 plus years, I was put on a variety of medications – Advil, Methotrexate , Celebrex, Imuran, Plaquenil, and so on. The only medication that helped was Prednisone and I was on that for years. I have gone to physiotherapy, often coming out worse than when I went in. Acupuncture didn’t help at all and the pain was excruciation – I should have clued in when the Acupuncturist pulled out his textbook to figure out where the needles should go. The only non-medicinal therapy I found that really did help was Reflexology.

Adoption

We were still waiting for a child to adopt, a brother or sister for Lisa, when we had a heart to heart with our social worker. Apparently, she had blackballed us. She had a grandmother with RA and did not feel I could be a good parent. By now, I was using a walker and my hands were beginning to deform. Still, how could she make a decision like that - saying I could not be a good parent!  Just because I was not able to be physically active with my children, it would not make me a bad parent. Most of parenting comes from the heart and I knew I had room for more children in my heart. The only way around this blockage was to move to a different side of town, which put us under a different district and a new social worker. We adopted our 2 sons, Dez & Ron (3 & 2 years old) in 1996, nine months later. Side note – I have found that since I do not have the mobility most moms have, my hearing and ‘mom intuition’ have both increased.

Hip Joint Surgery

In 1999, my right hip pain was unbearable. The Morphine I was taking barely touched the pain. I had x-rays done and it was decided that I needed my hip replaced. If you need a hip joint replacement surgery, don’t put it off. Ankle surgery, well …. I will get into that a little later. The night after my hip surgery, I did not need Morphine or any other pain medication. Shortly after that, I was sent for another 3 weeks of rehabilitation. There, the doctors and Physiotherapist decided I needed to use a wheelchair to protect my other joints. The Occupational Therapist suggested I get a long shoehorn, elastic shoe laces, a dressing stick, key turner, special jar opener, etc. All of these aids do help make life a little easier.

Wheelchair

Wheelchair life stinks, at least for me. I give kudos to those wheelchair riders who have not let it limit their lifestyle. I just do not seem to have that in me. I hate needing someone to help me transfer from wheelchair to vehicle and back again and having to be pushed everywhere we go. A wheelchair van would definitely make life easier, but as with most of us, it is not in the budget. When my GP said I could not drive anymore due to my RA neck damage in 2004, the independence I had behind the wheel was gone. It was around this time my Rheumatologist, looking at the amount of neck damage on an x-ray, said I must have had Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis as a child. This explains all the braces on my legs when I was a toddler, special shoes, stomach problems, being diagnosed with mononucleosis every 2-3 weeks as a preteen and poor stamina for Physical Education. Leaves you to wonder, had I been diagnosed correctly, would I be healthier than I am now? Who knows and, at this point, it does not really matter. 

My RA Story - Part 3

In 2009, I had my left hip done. I was not in as much pain with this one, but the clicking and clunking was unreal. I do not feel this surgery was as successful as the first one. I had a severe asthma attack coming out of the anesthetic. I still feel some aches with it, but the noise has definitely stopped. At this point, my GP ordered ankle and knee x-rays too, and the Orthopedic Surgeon suggested I have both knees and ankles done so that, perhaps, I could walk again.

The ankles were the worst, so they would need to be done first. When you look at the x-rays all you can see is fuzz, no bone. Ankle replacements require 6 months recovery time and at this point they only have about an 8 year life span. So it would take approximately 2 years for complete recovery from both and then they would need to be done again or fused in another 6 years. My GP does not feel my body can handle all of these surgeries and I now agree.

However, I did research the ankle surgeries and spoke to another Orthopedic Surgeon who said, although the risk was low, there was still a risk with complications and infection which could lead to having my ankle/foot amputated. I decided no thank you! I do not know about you, but I am quite attached to my foot and it is still very useful even if I cannot walk on it. I can live with the pain, at least for now, maybe in a few years they will make ankle replacements that last as long as hip replacements and without so much risk.

Well that brings me up to date! 

I think I did a fine mothering job with my daughter and my teenage sons are still a work in process : ) Being a grandparent is the best! My little 15 month grandson has learned how to climb up onto his Nana’s lap and maneuver around me in my wheelchair, as I’m sure my granddaughter, arriving in June, will too.

Are there things I would like to be able to do? Of course, I would love to be able to cook in my kitchen, play with my grandchildren on the floor, and babysit them on my own! But my shoulders, neck and hands just cannot manage those things. Accepting one’s limitations is often the hardest thing, and most of the time I do.

I have been blessed with a wonderful, supportive husband who does everything I cannot around our home and never complains. I have great parents, thoughtful children and an amazing friend, who help me through both good and bad days! I would never have made it this far without them and I thank them!