Coping as Individuals

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The National Center for Health Statistics reports that over 76 million people live with pain.  I was reminded recently that we must not just think of this huge number but of the individuals that comprise it. I met a woman who is living with disabling pain, trying to cope and support herself, even though the Social Security Administration has informed her that she does not qualify for disability insurance; she isn’t in enough pain.  We spoke for a few minutes and I was reminded that each of us is experiencing pain in a different way, facing life’s barriers and coping with the impact pain can have on our work, relationships, finances, mobility, and emotions as best we can, while few around us can even begin to realize the challenges we face.

The first time I heard the number of people reported to be living in pain I was amazed, and I wondered how these people were all coping.  Were they working or on disability? Were they seeing pain specialists? Was their pain being effectively treated? Have they ever had the experience in which a medical professional doubted their pain, or the intensity of their pain, and accused them of being a drug seeker?  I wished I could know more about the individuals who make up the 76 million people the Center refers to, but obviously I can’t.

A few weeks after learning about this huge number of people living with pain, I attended a conference for volunteers in the Power Over Pain Action Network (POPAN), a grassroots project of the American Pain Foundation (APF).  I had recently been accepted as a volunteer spokesperson by the Foundation and this was the first time I was going to meet other volunteers and staff of POPAN; I looked forward to learning more about the educational and advocacy work I would be doing.  I knew that most of the volunteers were people living with pain and I was interested to see how they were all coping on a day-to-day basis. I’ve lived with pain for over 45 years and while I mostly cope pretty well, there are still some days on which I feel as though I am not coping at all.  I volunteered for this work because I believe that others can benefit from the experiences I have had in relation to my chronic pain over the years, both good and bad.

What I didn’t stop and think about is that since each of us is very different in so many ways we will naturally react to our pain differently, and often uniquely. At the conference I met people who have lived with pain for many years and deal with it in ways I would never have thought of.  Some feel comfortable saying they must lie down in the middle of a seminar, while others would rather bleed from their very pores than ‘make a scene’ and lay down on the floor.  Others are taking strong pain medication, which is the only treatment that gives them relief, while others have doctors who refuse to accept their pain is that bad and won’t prescribe medication.  And still others have nerve stimulators, morphine pumps, and other more recent methods for treating pain; methods that some doctors don’t even know can be used for this.  The lack of knowledge by some medical professionals about the physiology of pain and the impact it can have on a person’s life is appalling and the more I heard the more determined I became to help bring about change.