forginon

I think we do tend to grow accustomed to pain after a while.

However, as I've been taught, we have two responses to pain. One is physical and the other is emotional. And, to a degree, experts believe we can get somewhat accustomed to pain with both responses. But, I don't think we can adjust emotional responses as easily as we do the physical responses. Or, maybe it's the other way around.

I have learned to expect pain. Not accept, but expect. When I do certain things I expect it to hurt. Like getting up from lying down or sitting. I expect going up and downstairs to hurt. I expect to hurt after my TT. Actually, I expect to hurt all the time, with some times worse than others.

Do I accept this? No. And that's part of my emotional response to pain. I can handle pain emotionally to a point, but I hate it and I do not think it is fair. I think it is wrong. Things were not meant to be this way. I feel violated. I don't dwell on this, but this is how I feel.

I was taught by a pain management therapist that there are ascending and descending pathways for pain, and for our responses, both physically and emotionally. Intellectually, we define pain by using certain terms - like stabbing, pounding, sharp, dull, intermittent - words we use to describe pain physically. There are other terms too. Debillitating, crushing, terrible, agonizing, depressing, annoying, etc. These are descriptions of our emotional response to pain. I was taught that if we can catch our emotional response to pain before it hits the descending pathway, we can actually "feel" less pain. But this requires recognition and practice. We need to recognize the very first inkling we have of pain, or rising pain, and right then and there adjust our emotional response to that pain signal. If, and that's a big IF, if we can learn to adjust our emotional recognition and response to pain on the upswing, then we can have more control over how the nervous and emotional systems decide how intensely we feel the pain. Our descriptions can go from debillitating to something less severe. It is kinda mind over matter, but my therapist tells me this is the future of pain management. Not to the exclusion of meds and other material forms of therapy, but this will become increasingly important as a tool in fighting CP.

If I ever learn to do this I'll let y'all know.

steve