Self help for the Chronic Pain Sufferer

[Guest guest]

I found this article frustrating with it's references to joining a " recovery

group " , infomring relatives you are in the process of recovering from pain, etc.

How do you recover from something like EDS pain and pain from many other

disorders as well when it has a very reali and persistent physical cause. TO me

it seems a very unrealistic expectation and sets people up to fail. Learning how

to live with it is a lot more realistic goal. I know this article is meant for a

general audience but shows how certain people might find the content

frustrating, out of touch or even hurtful.

Chronic pain, simply put, is pain that persists beyond the natural healing

period. A problem arises when chronic

pain feels like acute pain, is described to (and is accepted by) physicians and

therapists as acute pain, and is then treated as acute pain.

- I would suggest that for those of us with EDS, who can feel pain from very

minor things or changes going on in tissues or at the cellular level that

perhaps there is an ongoing acute component. Plus there is always the issue of

continually getting hurt, adding new pain to old pain. Do we ever REALLY heal (I

mean this seriously!)

To me suggetsing healing something like chronic pain makes me cringe and

minimizes the very real suffering people undergo in their daily lives. Sounds

too much like the rise and walk approach

" Advise your family and friends that you are in the process of recovering from

chronic pain; that you are going to resume taking care of yourself; and that, if

you need help, you will ask for it "

- Is this person for real? FOr some people we cannot manage these things no

matter how much we want to. We dshould be lucky to have friends or relatives who

even have TIME to help us. Having help for things we can't manage allows us to

maintain some level of funcitoning and not waste energy on things that are high

energy consumers/ low yield results - like vaccuuming. If you spend the whole

day on one task that would take a healthy person maybe 20 or 30 minutes and in

return have spent your whole day vaccuuming or layingdown recovering from it

rather than doing the things you can do like getting a meal, going for a little

walk -what have you gained? Which is healthier? The latter because you are not

impsoing more frustration and more unfinished tasks on yourself. You want to set

yourself up for a win-win situation where you accoipmlish something and don't

exhaust or injure yourself.

" use the term " recovery group " instead of " support group " to distinguish between

programs which encourage growth and programs which encourage stagnation. "

- I just started leading a chronic pain group here and calling ours a supposrt

group and having anyone think the name means stagnation doesn't know that

support groups don't always involve sitting around the table whining at each

other. That is a sure fire recipe for toxicity but I think most supprt groups do

what we do and offer a chance for venting, keep it to a time constraint then

move on to something educational. You need a place to vent and sometimes a

support group is it. WE try to do a piece of that then move on to something

constructive and positive so people finish up on a high note. " recovery group "

provides false hope to emotionally worn and vulnerable people. Anyone I know

with chronic pain has had it for years and likely will have it for years because

the cause is not going to change. You recover from surgery, you recover from

breaking a wrist...

Joyce