Tag Archives: pain

Lucky break

I was recently scheduled for a CT scan to figure out my shoulder/neck pain I’ve been dealing with the last several weeks. I was told it would take a couple months to get it. This morning I got a call that there was a cancellation and could I come in at 10:30 this morning? Absolutely I could.

I hope to see the results soon, and maybe I can figure out a path forward without daily pain. It’s really the only thing on my mind for 40-60% of my day… and longer than that today. It’s frustrating. So, I’m really hoping the CT will at least show me where the problem stems from. I’m lucky to get the scan done so soon!

Pain & piece of mind

My back/shoulder pain is still continuing after almost 6 weeks, and I have just started new meds that make me feel loopy. Trying to describe the pain, I thought of a play on words for the phrase ‘peace of mind’ and switching it to ‘piece of mind’.

There is no peace of mind when pain has a piece of your mind. Pain sits with you like an unwanted, unliked friend who is constantly nagging you. Sometimes the pain is in the background and while it’s only vaguely present, you can’t find peace. When it’s worse than that it sits in competition with anything else that’s happening.

I have some clarity now, but writing yesterday’s post would normally take me 20-30 minutes and it took me over an hour to write. I wasn’t doing anything else, I wasn’t distracted with other tasks, but I was feeling a lot of shoulder pain. Constant unrelenting pain. And a 30 minute task took me more than double the expected time. There is no peace of mind when pain has a piece of your mind.

I know this will pass, but it truly gives me a new respect for anyone who deals with daily pain. It’s not fun, it’s not productive, and it’s not easy to act in any normal way when pain has a piece of your mind.

Not Firing All Cylinders

When your body isn’t working as smoothly as it should it’s hard to stay motivated. My back and neck issues continue to plague me, and I find it hard to give 100% to anything I do. My workouts have become mostly cardio and stretching, but at least I can do this maintenance. However it’s not just physical, mentally the injury is wearing me down.

It’s hard to keep my attention on something other than the discomfort and pain I feel. Moments like right now are rare, where I’m not actually aware of my shoulder or arm. I feel normal. But I’m going to get out of bed and slowly the pain will creep in. Still, I’m lucky because yesterday pain is what woke me up, and there was almost no break from it all day.

I have such sympathy and empathy for anyone and everyone that deals with pain regularly. I’m approaching 6 weeks of this and I’m finding it very hard to stay positive. Yet I know this will eventually pass. I know I’ll get all my cylinders up and running again. The trick is to care for myself now, and let my body heal. But until it does, it’s hard to think about other things clearly. When the pain is deep, the pain becomes topical… it sits on my mind and reminds me of its presence… it stays on my mind and doesn’t let me do anything without a reminder that my body is uncomfortable. When my body isn’t running well, neither is my mind, it’s not like they are separate operating systems, they both need to be working well. And that needs to be my main focus.

Maintenance mode

I’ve been struggling with an upper back injury that has involved shooting pains down my shoulder and neck pain and stiffness for over a month now. It’s frustrating. Regular massage and physiotherapy help but so has pain medication. I try to avoid taking painkillers (with chronic back issues there is almost always a reason to take something, so I only do so when the pain is restrictive and unrelenting), but I’ve had no choice the last few weeks.

This has made my fitness routine hard to follow. But I can still get on an exercise bicycle and not hurt my back. I can walk on a treadmill, and my hand movements help loosen my back. Running is out of the question. Still, I can also do leg workouts that don’t involve weights. And of course I can stretch… and need to be stretching.

Fitness isn’t just about constant improvement, it’s also about going into maintenance mode and doing *something* to take care of your body. Fifteen years ago my back would crash and it would takes months to recover. Now, this issue I’m dealing with is the worst I’ve dealt with in years. I know that a focus on fitness is what has reduced my down time, my days feeling hurt enough that pains and discomfort are constantly on my mind. However, the lack of these experiences over the last few years amplifies just how much this bothers me right now.

Yet while the pain is bothersome and pretty consuming, I am thankful that this is now an anomaly and no longer the norm. I’m thankful that I can still get some exercise in and maintain my fitness enough that I’m not having to start over when I recover. A commitment to exercise even when I’m struggling, and to be smart enough not to overdo it or exasperate the injury, helps me stay focused on my long term fitness goals.

It’s not about giving 100% a hundred percent of the time. It’s about showing up every day and doing something to care for myself. Some days that means pushing what I can do. Some days that means choosing one part of my routine to do at maximum effort. And some days that means doing the bare minimum. What’s not a viable option is opting out.

Sleep and pain

I’m waking up between 3 and 4am with back and shoulder pain. It’s wearing me out. I had a great Physio session yesterday. I felt wonderful afterwards. I enjoyed a hot tub before bed, and I felt pretty good going to sleep. Then the ache creeps in.

I’ve suffered back pain for most of my life, but it’s usually muscular in nature and a good deep massage is all I need to make things better. This nerve/shooting pain is different. It sits in my brain as a constant distraction, with spikes of discomfort that consume my thoughts. Still, in the daytime I can handle it. I can stay distracted with work, I can pay attention to other things.

But at night anything I do to distract myself also keeps me up. I end up being too comfortable to sleep and so I get up. I try meditation, I try to focus on my breathing, and then I resort to looking at my phone or listening to music. What I don’t do is sleep enough.

Napping in the daytime just makes me less tired at night then I go to bed too late. I’ve got to break this cycle soon. It’s really getting to me. I think that’s obvious by how much I’ve written about it recently… I can’t help it when it’s the main thing on my mind.

Ready or not

It’s hard to believe I’m back to work tomorrow. I just wish I was running on all cylinders. My back and arm have been bugging me for weeks now and when the pain hits it’s all I can really think about. I have such incredible empathy for anyone who has to deal with pain every day. I know I’ll get through this and move back to normal, but for some people chronic pain is something they can expect every day.

The challenge for me is that unlike my usual back pain this is a pinched nerve and I’m getting referral pain causing my arm to ache. When it aches, that’s all I can really think about. It sits with me, both physically and mentally, taking up bandwidth in my brain.

My energy levels go way down and so does my ability to deal with things other than the discomfort I’m feeling. Today was a wasted day. I’d hoped to get a head start in things but I just didn’t have it in me. I have a Physio appointment set for after school tomorrow, I just hope the day goes better than today.

I’m reminded that I don’t look any different than I would if I wasn’t dealing with this pain and that’s something to remember when I’m at school… ready or not, students and staff will be showing up tomorrow, and some of them won’t be at their best, just like I might not be. We don’t always know the pain people are carrying, physically or emotionally. And that’s worth remembering even when I’m feeling great.

Aware of blame

Today I was driving and I missed a light because the person in front of me was too slow to follow traffic speed. I yelled a profanity or two as I watched the yellow light turn red and the car before me finally crossed the line into the intersection. 6-7 minutes later, and one light from my turn-off the car in front of me was driving the speed of molasses on a cold day, and while cars in the left lane sped through the light, I was left yelling profanities yet again, while me and the slow poke in front of me slowed and stopped in our lane… while the light hadn’t quite switched to red from yellow yet.

It took this second over-the-top-loud-yelling-in-a-car-just-to-myself swearing of profanities to make me realize that I wasn’t that upset at the other drivers. No, I have been suffering back pain for two solid weeks and this is what was really getting to me.

It wasn’t bad driving, it was a bad back. Neither traffic event warranted my overreaction. Both were minor inconveniences rather than major affronts to common sense or to me personally.

It makes me wonder:

How often do we discount how much our mood can affect our reaction to events?

In this case I made a proverbial mountain out of a couple mole hills. And recognizing where the blame lay allowed me to rebalance myself so that I didn’t continue doing this for the rest of the day.

Pain and perspective

Over 25 years ago my back was in bad shape. I was so compressed that I lost almost two inches of height, and I was in pain every day… for 9 months. An amazing Physio changed my life in two sessions. I still remember the day I woke up without pain, two days after my second Physio appointment. I was in the shower trying to figure out what was wrong, and it was only when I was brushing my hair later that I realized what was ‘wrong’ was that my back wasn’t hurting.

For the past week and a half I’ve been feeling a dull but constant ache in my back and neck. It has affected my sleep, and almost every waking moment. Just having a conversation can be mental gymnastics as I try to pay attention to the subject matter and not be distracted by the ache of my back… an ever present dull roar that steals my attention away.

While I’m feeling a bit better tonight, and actually fell asleep for a few hours without interruption from the pain, I am reminded of the respect I have for people who live with pain daily. I know that while I feel this way now, I will have a time in the next week where my back issue will be resolved and this dull roar will go away.

For some people pain is a permanent part of their daily lives. Dealing with this constant ache reminds my to be more thoughtful and caring for those who suffer daily without the possibility of pending relief. Between my stint of 9 months in pain mentioned above and a later 6-month bout of chronic fatigue, I’ve had 2 moments in my life where I’ve thought, “Is this what my life is going to be like for the rest of my life?” In both cases the answer was ‘No’, but how different my life would be if that wasn’t the case. I’m reminded of this for a third time now, even though the pain I’m experiencing now has only been around for less than 2 weeks.

For anyone who lives with daily pain, I truly empathize. And for those who live the luxury of a mostly pain-free life, remember to be kinder and more thoughtful towards those that do suffer. Chronic pain is a horrible master, and we aren’t built to be servants to it. So when we are faced with daily pain, it takes a lot of energy to live a happy and fulfilled life. It’s challenging to stay positive and to have gratitude. Pain management is challenging with long term pain in a way that is hard to understand by someone who has only experienced short term pain. This past week and a half has humbled me and reminded me of this.

Pain again

It’s close to 2:00am and I’m up with pain in my back and shoulder. My alarm is set for 4:15am for my flight, and the last thing I want to be right now is awake. For the past week I’ve been struggling with a pain in my back, the last 3 days the pain moved more into my shoulder. I’ve been taking it really easy and thought it would slowly disappear.

Instead, my shoulder aches so much that I can’t sleep. I’ve had a painkiller and a muscle relaxant, and still the ache persists. I’m now on the couch sipping some scotch and trying to find a position where the ache subsides a bit. As someone who struggles with back pain, I normally avoid self-medicating, for fear of getting accustomed to the pain relief… but this powerful and constant ache has me willing to try anything so that I can sleep.

I’m still not able of sleep, but I know that looking at this screen won’t help. So it’s time for a meditation, and hopefully a little nap before my alarm goes off. If not, I hope that I can pass out on the plane.

May you always find relief from your aches and pains… cheers!

Pain and discomfort

For the past couple years my back has been pretty good. By pretty good I mean that I’m often feeling discomfort, but I’m not feeling pain. I exercise, stretch, get deep massages, and visit my hot tub to keep my back as healthy as possible. But sometimes I trigger some pain and it builds.

Yesterday was rough. My mid back felt like I was constantly flexing and all the muscles around it tightened to protect my back from crashing. Sitting or standing, I felt no relief. On the pain scale, I was only at about a 3/10, but on the discomfort scale it was a full 9/10. And while the discomfort scale can be more tolerable than the pain scale, I haven’t had this level of discomfort in a long time and it wore me down.

After work I had a chance to go out with some of my favourite people for dinner, and I went home after appetizers. I couldn’t even hang out with awesome people. Instead I went home to take pain relief and sit in my hot tub.

I feel better this morning. Today I will stretch for a long time, and hopefully my back won’t seize up again. It can affect my capacity to deal with things at work and at home. It wears me down when I’m in constant discomfort or pain. And although I separate the two, I think constant discomfort can be as bad as constant pain. It isn’t as acute, but it wears me down just the same. It’s just semantics really, discomfort and pain are both miserable scales when you have to deal with them.