Loneliness and pain go hand in hand. Even if you do not live alone, you can still feel lonely. Having pain 24/7 puts you in a different category than people that have experienced pain. Only people that have pain 24/7 can know what you are going through. Your family may tell you that they understand but they can not unless they too are having pain 24/7. You know this when they tell you that you are looking good today why don’t you try to get out? But what you know is that you may look ok but that does not mean that you are not having any pain.

  What aggravates me the most about people is, that they do not understand that just because they can not see my pain, does not mean that I am not having pain. People in pain do their best to hide their pain. They don’t want to appear weak.

   Chronic painer’s can become isolated and end up withdrawing from family and friends. They are no longer able to participate in the things the used to. So friends stop coming over or even calling. Even their own family can start treating them differently. It can even become so bad that people start calling them drug addicts because of the pain medications they have to be on just to have some kind of life.

  Then there are people in chronic pain that can’t get anyone to believe them. Family, friends and even doctors do not belie that they are in pain. Now you have a person in pain and unable to get the medication the do desperately need. They begin to look for a doctor to help them and get labeled “doctor shopping”. A friend of mine was doing just that. Trying to find a doctor to help her with her pain and in the end she was unable to find anyone to help her. She ended up taking her own life just to escape the pain, the physical and emotional pain.

  Yes, there are people in this day and age that are unable to get proper treatment for pain. So they end up stopping the pain by killing themselves. The loneliness people in chronic pain can feel is not the same loneliness that people without pain feel. I feel it everyday and have felt it for 10 years. Some days are better than others. I just want those out there that feel like I do, to know that you are not alone. Try to find others like myself. They are out there. Share in support with them. I have found very good friends that are in chronic pain and understand me.

   This is for all those poor souls like me out there. I’ll start with a little background about me. While being a paramedic, I did a lot of lifting. Some of the patients I lift weighed over 200 lbs. All that lifting started ruining my shoulders. It started with right shoulder first. I had an open shoulder operation on it in 1996. It is called an Acromioplasty. For those who do not know what that is I’ll give you a short explanation. They open up the shoulder and shave a little bit of the end of your collar bone off. After the operation I did well. Then in 1997, I had to have the right shoulder done. That surgery wasn’t a success. Not going into much detail, let’s just say I ended up with a frozen shoulder. I had several surgeries to try and fixed the problem. They did not completely free it up. Then in 1998, I slipped on black ice and fell. I tore my biceps tendon off the bone. Sadly, it took 3 months and two doctors to find the problem. By then I had lost my job because I couldn’t lift anymore. After the surgery, I had to keep my shoulder in a sling and swath for 6 weeks. As you can imagine, that did nothing to help my frozen shoulder problem. When I finally was able to get out of them, my shoulder was frozen completely. Then the doctor that did the surgery just sent me on my way. So I had to go see another orthopedic. He sent me to an orthopedic that was a professor at a major university. He operated on my shoulder four times. After each time, my shoulder was better but after about a month or so it just would freeze up again. After the four one, he told me there was nothing more he could do to help. So, I’ve got a shoulder that is partially frozen and hurts all the time. My bad luck continues in 2002. I got up, in the middle of a summer night, to move the fan from blowing on me. I had forgotten that there was a set of barbell weights on the floor that I had been using to try to help my shoulders. I got my right foot caught under it and fell twisting my ankle. Now, after two years different types of casts and a surgery, I still have severe tendonitis. So now I have to live in consent pain and I’m on strong pain medicine just so I can have some kind of life.

   So much for a bit of background, I just wanted you all to get to know me. Sadly, there are many others out there that have to go through what I have. Only to be told by doctors that there is nothing more they can do for you. Then the doctors go on with their lives and you are left with this broken body. I wish that someone would do a survey on how many people like me are in the world. I know that will never happen but I can at least dream. For all of you out there that are like me, I just want you to know that I understand and please know that you are not alone. We live this life of solitude and pain. I’m not just talking about physical pain but the emotional pain too. I believe that the emotional pain is worse than the physical pain. The emotional pain that goes along with a broken body is like being on a rollercoaster. One hour when the physical pain is not to bad, you are doing ok. Then the next hour, when your pain meds have stopped helping, you are angry. You take more pain meds and then you feel depressed because you have to take them in the first place. Then you read about someone that is a lot worse off then you are and the guilt feelings start creeping in. It’s a rollercoaster ride that you will never be able to get off of. Some days the coaster will be of the kiddy type and other days it will be the type you have to get harnessed into. I’ve been on all of them in the many years I’ve been suffering. The sad thing is that I will never be able to get off. Not until I’m dead. For those out there that are riding the same coaster, there’s an empty seat next to me. You are welcome to it.

Should untreated pain be concidered malpractice?

  If you are in severe pain and you go to your doctor, you would want your doctor to treat your pain. Right? Well lets say, you go to your doctor for severe back pain. Your doctor tells you to take advil for the pain, then sends you for x-rays and an MRI. You go back to your doctor when all the test are done. He/she tells you that you have a bulging disc in your lower back. Let's say, because you are having radiating pain to you right leg, your doctor refers you to a Neurologist. You tell your doctor that the advil are not helping you with the pain. So your doctor gives you a presciption for 10 darvocets. After waiting 2 weeks to get in to see the Neurologist, he/she tells you that surgery is not an option for you and tells you to go to physical therapy. You agree to go, then tell him/her that you are still in alot of pain and would like something for it. The Neurologist gives you a prescription for an anti-inflammatory.  After 1 month of physical therapy, you have made no progress. You are still in severe pain. You return to your Neurologist but he/she can not offer any other treatment options and refers you back to your doctor for treatment of the pain.

  2 months have past when you finally get back in to see your doctor. Your doctor reads all the notes from everything. You tell him/her that you are still in a lot of pain. Your doctor asks if the anti-inflammatories or darvocets helped with the pain. You say that they didn't. Your doctor tells you that he/she will write a prescription for more of the anti-inflammatories but does not want you to have more darvocet because he/she doesn't want you to become addicted. You walk out of the doctors office still in severe pain and with no medication to help with it.

  Now the above was just a hypothetical situtation. But people all over the US go through similar situations every day. The question I have for everyone is, was or wasn't the person's above pain treated? Yes, it might seem like a trick question but it's not. The answer is NO. Now why did I answer no? Most of you would have answered YES. But let me put it to you this way. Lets say the same person was diagnosed with cancer and the doctors operated on them. But they only took a quarter of the cancerous tumor and not all of it. Would you say, that the doctors removed the cancer? Of course not. Then what is the difference. Yes, the doctors gave the person pain medication but the medications did not help the pain.

  There are an estimated 60 million people in the US that have chronic pain. Of them, no one knows how many remain with untreated pain. I believe that there are far to many and the public is unaware of until they themselves develope chronic pain. Should a medical practitioner who significantly neglects a patient's pain be considered commiting malpractice?

  Many doctors, particularly those trained more than ten years ago, are very reluctant to treat serious pain with opioids unless the patient is at death's door (and sometimes not even then). They are often very unwilling to prescribe adequate amounts over a longer period of time. These outdated notions do not constitute a standard of care. There is, however, no doubt that pain alone is physically and emotionally damaging. Untreated pain can "rewire" the neurological pathways so that later pain is worse or more persistent.  Chronic pain patients who lose their ability to function productively suffer lost wages and other concrete damages. Spouses and partners may suffer the loss of consortium if the patient is in such pain that he or she cannot maintain relationships. 

  People either in pain or not, need to come together to bring the issue of Chronic Pain to the forefront. Chronic Pain is a "disease". Many do not know this and need to be educated.