Pain! What Pain?

The other day, a friend of mine told me she had been in bed for the week with pneumonia. My initial thought was, “You stayed in bed with pneumonia?” My mind flashed back to several years ago when I had pneumonia for a couple of months. I was very frustrated with the doctor because he wasn’t giving me the right medication to get over it. It never occurred to me that perhaps I was the reason I couldn’t get over it. I certainly didn’t go to bed, and I certainly didn’t slow down.

After surgery on my ankle (an injury from the time I was doing two hours of aerobics a day), I proceeded to exercise my ankle, even starting aerobics again. I thought if I didn’t it would stiffen up and I’d always have problems with it. I thought, “No pain, no gain!” Guess what? I have problems with it. It swells and gets inflamed just like it did before surgery. I was surprised when the physical therapist told me I was supposed to gently exercise it and that if it hurt I was supposed to stop.

I’ve discovered this has been a life-long pattern (and also a symptom of abuse). Once I had Mono and didn’t know it until I collapsed (while doing my second set of aerobics for the day) and couldn’t do another thing. I now have degenerate joint disease, rheumatoid arthritis, digestive problems including painful colon spasms, severe headaches, neck and back pain from old and new injuries and degeneration in my spine, and a host of other physical ailments.

There are a few things I do to deal with pain. I am numb to some of it, not realizing it hurts until a doctor or therapists pokes and probes. The rest of the pain I ignore till it gets so bad I can’t ignore it any longer. Then I take lots of Motrin and other medications to numb the pain, and when that doesn’t work, I get angry at my body for being so weak. Then fear that I’ll be crippled for life takes over, which means I better get more active.

It’s only been recently that I’ve been able to begin looking at pain differently. I’m realizing that pain is not my enemy, it is a friend that warns me something is wrong. If I pay attention to it, sometimes I can relate it to something I’m doing (i.e., sitting too long or incorrectly, carrying a too-heavy purse, getting too stressed out and too tense (which is my normal state), not getting enough sleep, and of course, going to the extreme with aerobics). I’m also learning that the longer I let the pain continue, the worse it gets. I don’t always wait till I’m climbing the walls now before taking my medication. I also treat myself to massage therapy which is helping my muscles and joints. I’m working on relaxing at night as well so I can sleep better.

I am working on overcoming the guilt that goes with not being able to do all I want to do, or feel I should do. I’ve had to make some changes in my life to try and relieve some of the stress on my body. I am also working on losing weight, which is a whole other issue.

I still have a lot of pain, but I’m learning to stop abusing my body by ignoring it. I’m hopeful that as I further heal emotionally, my body will also heal. I’ve heard that as I let myself feel the emotional pain, that, too, will help my physical pain. I may always have some physical symptoms because of the damage and the way I’ve abused and neglected my body, but I think I’m now getting it into perspective.

I’ve decided that I’m important enough to take care of myself from now on. It feels good to know that I can have some control over the pain, and certainly can have control over how I manage it and how I view it. And now, I think I’ll go take two aspirin and lie down for a few minutes.