Chronic Pain

[marcmagus]

Sitting here feeling tired and generally unpleasant and unfocused and not really realizing why, I felt a twinge in my wrist and an epiphany. Chronic pain doesn't just manifest as pain in the affected area, does it? In fact, you can experience those "secondary symptoms" while not consciously experiencing the primary sensation of pain? I think this may explain much which was unclear to me in the past...

Comments welcome.

Comments

[muppetk.livejournal.com]

It does. I treat that stuff. Get thee to a local acupuncturist. (if you've got any reason to be in the city, you can call me, but someone local wouldbe more useful.) But laying off the hurty stuff for a week or three while being treated is a good idea too.

But as to the main post, hell yeah. Pain, even if you're not paying attention to it is being reacted to in your body. The rest of your body will be tense both because a) muscles tense in respond to pain, and b) pain triggers fight or flight reaction, meaning you've extra adrenaline being pumped through your system making you edgy at all times, and probably not sleeping as well, which makes you more edgy & in more pain.

Chronic pain can easily lead to (or exacerbate) depression. IT just gets frustrating to HURT and have seemingly unreasonable limits on your actions day after day after day. It's a reason that people in chronic pain are often referred to therapy.