Pain

I have been dealing with lower back pain (this episode) since Christmas Eve. That puts me at about 6 weeks. 

I just looked up the definition of "chronic pain". According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), "Chronic pain is often defined as any pain lasting more than 12 weeks".  According to WebMD, it is "pain that lasts longer than six months". 

I am only halfway there based on one of the definitions. I cannot imagine continuing with pain like this for another 6 weeks, for 6+ months, for more than a year. I am sure I felt like this with my back pain last time too. 

Pain takes up a portion of the brain and never lets it go.  It is a constant annoying distraction. While watching the super bowl last night, my mom was distracted by a sound of a fan or many fans yelling "woo woo" at the same tone over and over. The sound became all she could hear over everything else and she wanted to "punch the fan in the face". Constant pain is like that. It sometimes becomes so loud and annoying that it overtakes all the other inputs and I want to punch it in the face. 

Sometimes my pain is more under control, better managed. I have a combination of things that help. Physical therapy, rest, pain medication, lying in the right position, using my electro therapy unit. There are also things that make it worse. Driving, sitting make it much worse. 

With the pain medicine, full pills control the pain better but make me a little drowsy. Half pills don't make me drowsy, but leave more lingering pain and therefore more distraction. 

Last week I had two busy days in a row - lots of driving and standing.  After those two days, my pain was out of control for several days after, even with full doses of pain medicine. I had to spend an entire weekend at home with no driving and no activities to get things back under control. 

Living with this pain and not yet having a plan in place to get rid of it, means I can't plan life. I can't make plans with friends. I can't accept invitations from others. I can't commit to any plans in the next couple months. Some days I am lonely from being at home controlling the pain. Some days the pain makes it so I don't want to deal with people. 

Today the pain was more under control- after a weekend of rest and this morning's physical therapy session. I was hesitant to do anything - even work much- because I didn't want to trigger the stronger pain. I wanted the pain to stay lower. It took so much to get it lower, it makes me fearful of setting it off again. 

I took a full pain pill and now I am drowsy this afternoon. I am behind on my work and feel guilty. It's a constant battle going on in my head. What "should" I be doing? Should I push myself more?

I start to wonder about my pain. What if someone else had this same level of pain? Would it bother them as much as me? More? Less? Am I being weak by not being able to keep up with all my activities? I know these thoughts aren't healthy, but they creep in now and then. 

I am sure those closest to me are tired of hearing me complain. I am tired of complaining. 

I want to punch pain in the face.