2. An action or situation may result in pain several hours later, or even the next day. Delayed pain is confusing to people who have never experienced it.
3. Pain can inhibit listening and other communication skills. It's like having someone shouting at you, or trying to talk with a fire alarm going off in the room. The effect of pain on the mind can seem like attention deficit disorder. So you may have to repeat a request, or write things down for a person with chronic pain. Don't take it personally, or think that they are stupid.
4. The senses can overload while in pain. For example, noises that wouldn't normally bother you, seem too much.
5. Patience may seem short. We can't wait in a long line; can't wait for a long drawn out conversation.
6. Don't always ask "how are you" unless you are genuinely prepared to listen - it just points attention inward.
7. Pain can sometimes trigger psychological disabilities (usually very temporary). When in pain, a small task, like hanging out the laundry, can seem like a huge wall, too high to climb over. An hour later the same job may be quite OK. It is sane to be depressed occasionally when you hurt.
8. Pain can come on fairly quickly and unexpectedly. Pain sometimes abates after a short rest. Chronic pain people appear to arrive and fade unpredictably to others.
9. Knowing where a refuge is, such as a couch, a bed, or comfortable chair, is as important as knowing where a bathroom is. A visit is much more enjoyable if the chronic pain person knows there is a refuge if needed. A person with chronic pain may not want to go anywhere that has no refuge (e.g. no place to sit or lie down).
10. Small acts of kindness can seem like huge acts of mercy to a person in pain. Your offer of a pillow or a cup of tea can be a really big thing to a person who is feeling temporarily helpless in the face of encroaching pain.
11. Not all pain is easy to locate or describe. Sometimes there is a body-wide feeling of discomfort, with hard to describe pains in the entire back, or in both legs, but not in one particular spot you can point to. Our vocabulary for pain is very limited, compared to the body's ability to feel varieties of discomfort.
12. We may not have a good "reason" for the pain. Medical science is still limited in its understanding of pain. Many people have pain that is not yet classified by doctors as an officially recognized "disease". That does not reduce the pain, - it only reduces our ability to give it a label, and to have you believe us.
even though this was written in 1996 I feel that it still applies now. This would be a good information to pass on to friends, family and employers. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Found this on -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.medakate.org/pain.html --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
there are lots of good sites here.
------------------ The great art of life is sensation, to feel that we exist, even in pain. ------------------ -- Lord Byron
-- ------------------Helen Dynda <olddad66@runestone.net> wrote: X> Difficult to Manage Pain Of Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy http://healthlink.mcw.edu/article/1020192036.html
Q: " I have a young woman friend who has been going to doctors for three years with the complaint of a severe limp. She has been told that she has Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy (RSD) and that she’ll have to learn to live with this condition. Could you please explain this condition and what can be done about it?
A: " Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy (RSD) is a pain syndrome following an injury in which one’s nerves have been damaged or traumatized in the context of a sometimes more significant injury. The mechanism by which the injury causes pain is unclear. In the spectrum of kinds of pain, the pain that results from RSD is chronic, often burning, and constant. Even minimal contact with one’s skin often sets off an intense wave of pain disproportionate to the degree of contact. It does not respond to the usual kinds of medications used to treat pain. Individuals with RSD often have a great deal of difficulty being properly diagnosed and are sometimes wrongly labeled as malingerers or accused of drug-seeking behavior. " Treatment is usually on an outpatient basis and varies but can include:"
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