How Chronic Pain Effects Our Lives.

Kathy and I married age 18 and 19. Our vows were in sickness and in health. We both thought sickness would be a cold, maybe the flu. never considered chronic disability. I watch from my office and on good days I'm amazed because I know she's still in pain. Her good days are days that would keep me in bed. Her goal is to be happy and she reaches those goals most of the time. It's hard when she's down and discouraged because it hurts me to see her hurting alone without those love and those she would love to see like her children and our grandchildren. But they have a life and they're busy. But just once a month would make her so happy. We have to accept this and that's how it is and will be. And that's difficult. It's a life that no one can understand. I couldn't understand. Day after day after day. Hi, I'm Kathy Turner, and you got a look at my caregiver and having a great day. And today is another fairly good day, but it won't last forever, as you know. I'd like to talk to some of you about chronic pain. Something that we often don't realize we feel like we're the only people around that have chronic pain. And it's actually one of the most common reasons that adults seek treatment or medical care. And it's very interesting because chronic pain isn't just pain. It affects our life. It affects everything. I think one of the hardest things for me dealing with chronic pain is lowering my pride and getting in a wheelchair or eventually years and years later getting on a scooter. You know your your pride does take a beating and so it limits what you can do. You've had this life and then it's gone. How do you explain that? And how do you handle it? It's hard. And then you need pain medication. And you know sometimes we're made to feel like we're an addict. Sometimes we're made to feel like we're seeking medications and we're not. You know, we're not addicted to pain medications. We are addicted to life. We are addicted to living and a lot of people have expressed with chronic pain that they feel that there's more anxiety and more depression, less of a quality of life, well when you can't get out and you don't do much that's kind of how you feel. But I think it's more of an offset from the other things that I'm going to mention and that is how much it changes relationships. There's a big change in relationships. I've done my own studies They match the big ones. You know it's interesting when people don't talk about their pain, they talk about what has happened since their pain. What has happened with their relationships? That's almost considered the most painful part of chronic pain is what it does to your relationships. And that's marriage, friends, family. There's no words. And you know when family is split and when you lose family that you love over chronic pain, we're gonna get into that more. There's feelings of guilt. Why should we feel guilty? I was hit by a 16 year old in an auto accident 20 years ago. I don't have a reason to feel guilty. It was not my fault. And you know, sometimes we make a mistake and it's not something that we need to feed on or think about or put that on ourselves because we all make a mistake. But there is an underlying attitude, I don't know how to explain it, where you do feel guilty and you feel guilty because of relationships, you feel guilty because of financial issues. Now me as the mother, I did have to quit my job that I loved and so there was that kind a switch in financial, but I did have a husband. But what if you are the man? What if you are a single person? This is devastating to your financial life and if you have children. And there's a lot of scenarios and I'm hoping that some of you will join in and tell us a lot of these things, and the different scenarios, and how it affects things, and you know, the time that you spend caring for yourself. I have to have a lot of certain treatments. Not only do they cost money, they cost time, and some weeks that's like, I just like to be at home. I'm tired of going. I'm tired of living in a doctor's office. And you start feeling guilty about that and changing plans, you know, that's a big one. And you make plans and you try really, really hard and you end up having to cancel. Well, after about three or four cancellations. Guess what? You're not invited anymore. And sometimes it's done because they understand you're in pain and so they think they're doing the right thing by not inviting you. But you know there's there's just so many... we could stand forever in this room and talk about the room of relationships, but that that is something I hear over and over and over. The pain I can handle, but I can't handle what it does with my relationships and especially what it does within my family. You know, it's pain is emotional. It's very, very emotional. And depending on the support will depend on how you do emotionally. And doctors know that. And it it shows up in ways that you have no idea if you don't have good support and the type of relationship that you have with others. Sometimes people go months without seeing a soul. Can you imagine? Most of you, if you're listening, probably can because you have chronic pain, but if you don't think about being in a room or a home, possibly with another person, but never seeing anyone else for months. Your pain is going to be high. You know what's interesting is that we know that people can lower a good support system, which is people, can lower blood pressure, things like that, inflammation, and pain. Why do we not have that connection with people when it actually is going to help our pain. We may not have to take as much pain medication if we actually had the right type of support. Where do we get the right type of support. I look back over the 20 years and I realize where that little lag was and I've asked around and many have agreed and your feedback is very important, too. But in my case, about the fourth visit, when things are really kind of, you know, pretty begotten, you kind of have some ideas, that's when friends, if there's close friends, but especially your family, especially your immediate family, needs to have a visit with the doctor. I think it's just across the board and it's not anybody's in trouble. It's this is, this is what it is. This is what's going on and this person is going to react in in this these types ways you may see. Don't take offense and when the family understands what is going on, I think the family becomes more supportive because you see that in I call it legal diseases. When you have a legal disease, People understand it. They want to look it up more. They're more supportive. They're bringing something to eat. They're, you know, right there because there's more understanding. And that's the problem. Chronic pain is invisible most of the time. Walking around yesterday, I would say I was around a four or five because you get used to it. I've had company, and I have faked it, and I was a six or seven. We get good at it. We're pretty good at acting, which is a problem. But you know, if we acted like we were in pain and nobody can see anything, then we have a problem too. So it's very important that they're educated and that's something I would love to see happen with those that have invisible chronic pain or chronic pain that just isn't really well known. I live in the United States. Out of 10 people, 3 have chronic pain. So, if I am in a group of 10 people, I know that most likely 10 will have chronic pain. I probably can't figure it out because we're all acting. In the United Kingdom, 43 percent, so that's four and a half people. I don't know where the half comes in. So you have 10 people and four, almost five, have chronic pain. and you probably can count on that. Which ones have it? You don't know. More than likely you don't know unless you know the person because we fake it. We have learned to fake it and it's good and bad. You know, it's like you're in a position where you can't win. So chronic pain starts because of different reasons And that's what we'll talk about in other videos is where it starts, why, and what does it cause? What is it like? How do you act? How do you feel? And the importance of education for your family. September is Chronic Pain Month. And and September is around the corner. So let's make September an educational month. If you'd like to do a video, if you'd like to write, whatever, I think it would be really good, really good education for people to understand chronic pain, all the different ways how it affects you it's not you know I've had people say oh I've had a neck ache before yeah most of us have had a neck ache most of us have had a headache most of us have hit our finger with a hammer that's acute pain. That's pain at the moment and it will go away. It won't affect your life forever or for very long. Chronic pain, it's usually lifelong. We can make it better and we do our best, but it really does affect us. But we want to live, and we're gonna figure out how to do it. So September, let's do it! Thanks.