Chronic Pain - The Symptoms

My last several blogs have been (I’ll admit it) “sappy” ways for me to get out my own personal grief, as well as to show gratitude for those who have helped me this far along my journey. However, this entry will be an informative one, for if I’ve ever needed my Prayer Warriors, it’s now…

About three weeks ago, I began suffering severe side-effects of my condition. Officially, my new label has become a Chronic Pain Patient (also known as Stephanie Dodson). According to Pain Care Centers, “Chronic pain syndrome (CPS) is a term used to define patients with severe persistent pain from virtually any source which has resulted in marked changes in behavior, self-imposed restriction of daily activities, and heavy, largely ineffective use of the healthcare system. CPS overwhelms all other medical symptoms to the point of becoming the problem itself. It is often accompanied by bouts of irritability, uncontrolled anger, and depression,” (PainCare Centers, Inc., 2011). Additionally, “CPS has no specific cause but rather is the cumulative result of a combination of conditions including the one(s) causing pain. CPS is not fictitious or psychogenic pain but rather the body's psycho-physiologic response to chronic pain… CPS is managed best with a multidisciplinary approach as alluded to above; helping the patient return to a more normal life and accommodating to chronic pain. A lifelong program of graded exercise is a vital component of treatment management,” (2011).

Side Effects & Symptoms of Chronic Pain:

SLEEP DEPREVATION: The first symptom that caused me to worry (besides the never-ending pain in my body) was that I recently developed problems sleeping. Nightly (for the last two years), prior to bed and according to doctor’s orders, I took: 1 Tylenol PM, a prescribed Muscle Relaxer and pain medication – all just to fall asleep. Over the past few weeks, however, all of that medication was not enough. I found myself waking nightly anywhere from 1:00 am to 4:30 am in severe pain. While one would guess that I was woken by my back pain, this relentless pain rooted itself in my left hip. Don’t get me wrong, it often found its way across my low back, too, but the culprit itself over the past three weeks was (usually) my hip.

The problem with poor sleep is that there is not one simple solution. When I’d wake from pain each night, it wasn’t as simple as “just close your eyes and go back to bed.” Mark, my Biofeedback Therapist, taught me several relaxation techniques to try when the Pain Monster came out at night; sometimes they worked, sometimes they didn’t. Nancy, one of my PTs, also taught me various stretches that she thought could help; sometimes they did, sometimes they didn’t.

Gage, my poor husband, suffered just as much as I did. It’s hard to sleep when your wife is getting up every night, stretching, meditating, getting a drink of water, going to the rest room, making loud “relaxed” breathing sounds – or worse, crying, unable to get out of bed to get her heating pad, her ice pack, her medicine…

To get through the day, I’d try to compare my poor-sleep to several of my friends who have children – they went months, sometimes longer, on poor sleeping schedules and they still came to work, put on a happy face and lived their lives. However, Mark reminded me that even though my dear friends did not “have it easy,” they did not suffer from chronic pain ON TOP OF their lack-of-sleep.

While that was supposed to comfort me, it didn’t…

NAUSEA: The next symptom that I started experiencing was first an extremely decreased appetite, then nausea once I did force some sort of food into my stomach. I’ve battled this dilemma for over two years – since my back “went out” in July of 2009; however, never to this degree. In the past two years, I have lost 27 pounds.

As the weeks passed and the pounds dropped, I was often asked if I was “trying” to lose weight. People who were close to me knew that I was not. Others, at first, assumed that I was working hard to lose weight for my (then up-coming) wedding. Any woman will admit that it always feels nice when she steps on the scale and sees that she “lost a few,” however, when I had already lost so much weight that two months before the wedding, I not only had to alter, but I was told by the seamstress that I needed to BUY a new wedding dress AND STILL get it taken-in, I started to worry.

After the surgery, I lost even more weight. When I returned to work following both the wedding and the surgery, I had lost a total of about 20 lbs. Twenty pounds on a woman who was not considered “over weight” prior to the weight-loss is very noticeable. To some, I became the topic of conversation and it became embarrassing. Even the school counselor, a woman whom I consider a friend, asked me if I “needed help” (implying that I had developed an eating disorder). I politely explained that yes, I needed help; I needed to be healed.

Another five months went by and none of my clothes fit me anymore; however, I was “just waiting” for the weight to come back so I was in denial of the need to buy anything new to wear. There was a time when I was wearing pants 8-sizes too big for me because I was spending so much money on hospital bills, rehabilitation and prescriptions (not to mention the fact that I ran out of sick days and was not getting paid for the days that I needed off to recover or make those doctor appointments) that I could not afford to buy clothes that fit. Thankfully, my mom offered to take me shopping as part of my Christmas gift and I could at least start to wear pants that didn’t slip off of me when I didn’t wear a belt. Nonetheless, I was still losing weight…

Three weeks ago, it got worse. For the past two years, Gage threatened, “If you get below 100 lbs, we need to do something about it!” What that “something” was; however, neither of us was certain…

When the sleep deprivation began over two weeks ago, the nausea and lack-of-appetite went into full effect. For those two weeks, I couldn’t get above that 100-pound “goal.” At that time, the pain in my body was SO unbearable that knots filled my stomach, not food; and when I finally could eat, I immediately felt sick afterwards, deterring my desire to eat again later. As with the sleeping problems, everything regarding my body, it’s healing and it’s needs, turned into a vicious cycle.

STRESS: They say “it comes in threes” – it being misfortune, and it was happening to me. On top of the endless nights and the belly-aches, work had become a circus. Spring was in the air, then one random day in March, it snowed, followed by a record-breaking 82-degree-day later that same week; all just days prior to our school’s Spring Break.

Two days before Spring Break, my head was wrapped up with two students who were in what we call a “crisis.” That entire day, I literally dragged my limp hip up and down flight after flight of stairs, chasing students who dangerously eloped from their classrooms or were having temper-tantrums in the main hallways. These same two kiddos had been dealing with a lot over the past few weeks and, as their Case Manager, it was my job to take-over when such crises occur.

After being screamed at (literally) for over an hour, “I hate you!” by a student at the top of his lungs - a student with whom I normally have a wonderful relationship - I could not help the tears from creeping into in my eyes. I could not hear those words one more time! I couldn’t feel the tension in my muscles from the echoes of his screams for one more second. I couldn’t ward-off the looming migraine from the volume of his voice for one more round. “I need a time-out,” I told him (and my colleague who saw the tears swelling in my eyes) and I left the room. Thankfully, another teacher-and-Team Mate was standing outside of my door “on watch” so she and I switched places. After a couple of deep breaths and a few seconds of silence, I pulled myself together and was able to go back in and help my student “turn his day around.”

Even though I managed to help that little guy get through the stresses of first grade and field trips – I couldn’t help but feeling like a failure…

Sometimes, I cannot help but ask: Will it ever stop?