Sunday 21 March 2010

Explaining pain

I had wanted to write daily, but unfortunately I have been suffering a bit this week.

For my second post I thought I would explain the title of this blog. This is a record for me, so that i would know what I was feeling later on.

I have lived with chronic pain for about three years now, and it has been steadily getting worse. I suffer from the rather unorignally named Chronic Regional Pain Syndrome, which, unfortunately has no known cause, and at the minute, no known cure.

Most people suffer from some kind of pain throughout their lives. Pain is split in to two main categories. Acute and Chronic. Acute pain is pain that follows a set pattern. For example, you get a paper cut which hurts a great deal. The body will start the healing process, and over time the pain will go away. With Acute pain, there is an end point, which can be anywhere up to three months, depending on the type of injury sustained. Chronic pain is a term used to describe pain that persists over time, like rheumatoild arthritis. It is also very unpredictable, with no two people finding that they suffer in the same way.

Over the last three years I have been from one specialist to another to try and find out what is wrong with me. It started out with a torn calf muscle, which happened when I got cramp in my foot. Then it progressed to me having a very sore stomach. I went to a gastroenterologist who did one endoscopy, three colonoscopys (which is a whole post on its own.) and resulted in a two week hospital stay! I also started suffering from a permanent headache at about that time. I was passed from one supposed specialist to another, without making any headway with why I was in constant pain. I was starting to wonder if I was making it up (like a very unprofessional "Professor"claimed - again, another post), or going insane. Finally I was referred to a pain specialist, who diagnosed me.

I also suffer from quite a lot of neurological pain, which mostly manifests itself with feet that feel like they are on fire. And even though I repeatedly request that The Mentalist (TM) and Tigga chop my feet off, they are still attached and still burning.

I am, at the moment, walking with two sticks, as my leg muscles are either spasming, or i have the sensation that they aren't attached, which has caused me to fall over a fair number of times.

So that should, explain the pain aspect of my blog title. Tomorrow, bushpigs, I am hoping to find the courage to write about The Mentalist and Tigga. Quite an exciting story, so hopefully I shall see you all here then!

Good night bushpigs.

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