By Dr. Femi Ogunyemi

There are more chronic pain sufferers than diabetics, stroke and cancer patients added together. In 2012, the American Academy of Pain Medicine published figures that showed 27 percent of reported pain was backache, 15 percent was neck pain, 15 percent was for severe headaches and 4 percent for facial pain. The same publication stated that among chronic pain sufferers, 86 percent report poorsleep, 75 percent report depression, 74 percent complain of low energy, 70 percent report poor concentration and 59 percent complain of decreased enjoyment of life.

A complaint of pain in itself may bring friends and sympathizers. We have all experienced the bumped knee or twisted ankle, the bad headache or toothache. The pain of labour is history once the cry of the baby is heard. The jaw will feel better once that rotten tooth is pulled. Imagine those pains continuing for weeks, months…… years. Scientific research and clinical studies have shown that pain can drive you crazy. And pain can kill! How? You may ask.

Pain separates and isolates

The last thing you want to do, when you are in constant pain, is attend that corporate party, your neighbor’s naming ceremony, or even small gatherings with your closest friends and family. You still love and care about friends and family, but the physical and mental energy it requires to go out and socialise is just too much for you. You start to bow out of parties and cancel plans, not because you don’t want to go, but because you just can’t.

Eventually the invitations will stop, the phone calls to plan this and that will stop. Strangely, you are OK with this. Its even a relief. The pain has slowly, but surely, isolated you. You can’t concentrate. Most chronic pain patients try to ignore the pain and live as near normal as possible every day. This is hard. The pain is relentless. It is difficult to focus on work, or play.

Here the actual words of a patient: “You can sit at your desk, working on your computer, trying to concentrate, while your pain plays the part of a toddler desperate for your attention. Pain will poke you, tug at your clothes, spill juice on your keyboard and scream your name.”

Tired and cannot sleep

Constant pain always stays on your mind, screaming for attention, draining away all of your energy. “I’m tired just thinking about it.” After a long difficult day, one would expect sleep to come as relief, but this is not so. Chronic pain makes it hard to get to sleep AND to stay asleep. To get a good night’s sleep we must all go through a deep REM (rapid eye movement) phase. The pain will pull you out of REM sleep. “Even when you do sleep, the pain signals continue to your brain and can cause sleep to be broken, restless, and oddly enough, exhausting.”

Pain makes you irritable.

Pain drains you physically and mentally. Even the simplest things can overwhelm. You may have only asked your chronic pain spouse if they would like to go to that wedding ceremony…..but in their head they have considered : if they can sit still that long, how much medication it would require, if they have the energy, if they will stay awake through the ceremony, how high their pain is now and how it might increase, if they go will it make getting through tomorrow harder, and most importantly, given all this, will it be any fun.

Lastly, pain damages your self esteem.

It has made you tired, irritable, and killed your concentration. Everything becomes a challenge. Your quick temper has strained or destroyed once strong interpersonal relationships. Your inability to concentrate has hurt your job performance. Life as you know it is crumbling and all because of …you? Most pain sufferers blame themselves for these failings, remembering that they used to be able to do everything.

They see chronic pain as a sign of weakness or a personal defect that they should be able to overcome. The end result is a loss of self esteem. Don’t take any pain lightly. Don’t let it get chronic.