Reflections on Ignoring Pain

 

Many years ago, I was talking with my brother about a health issue that one of my sisters was having at the time. He said, 'Well, I told her that if you ignore it, it will go away', to which I responded, 'YEAH! That's what I always say!'

'No,' he said, 'I was being sarcastic. You shouldn't ignore health problems', and he gave me a look, like, 'What's wrong with you?' But for me, over the years, honestly that has been the best approach. 

In the months leading up to my first marriage, when I was working and in graduate school, juggling a long commute from my home in southern Maine to my university in Boston, a strained relationship with my fiancé and his family, and wedding planning, I was suffering from crippling abdominal pain. It hurt just to breathe, as if all my organs were swollen. I went to the university health centre, and had all kinds of tests done, but they couldn't find anything wrong with me. 'It's probably stress', they finally concluded. And sure enough, after the wedding when I had slightly less on my plate, the pain went away.

In the months after my second marriage, when I was working three jobs, unloading 90% of everything I owned, moving into a temporary room in preparation for emigrating to a new country that I knew practically nothing about, leaving behind my family, friends, career, and everything I considered 'home', I started feeling this strange, painful sensation in my throat and chest, like I swallowed a hard candy. It felt like something was stuck, and no matter what I did, it wouldn't go away. The doctor examined me and ordered an MRI, which came out normal. 'It's probably stress', she finally concluded. And sure enough, the moment I stepped off the plane in Dublin, that feeling in my throat was gone.

Other pains, such as abdominal pain that I asked doctors about for decades, was put down to normal female reproductive pain, probably from ovarian cysts coming and going. Only through trying to get pregnant did anyone decide to investigate it. I had endometriosis, as it turned out.

I struggled with shoulder pain for years before a doctor finally ordered an MRI and whoops! By then, I had a partially torn rotator cuff from a bone spur that had been growing and the only course was surgery. When I tore the other side, a different doctor, incredulous that I'd had a tear ten years previously, told me I was too young to have torn it at my current age, let alone younger. The MRI, which I pushed for, showed (quelle suprise!) a partial tear. Since it's from an injury rather than a bone spur, and it's not as painful as the other one, I just deal with it.

I've learned that I have a high threshold for pain based purely on the number of ailments I have ignored over the years. When I recently discovered that I am peri-menopausal, I realised that I had had many symptoms leading up to it, but had ignored the majority of them.

Women are taught to ignore pain of all kinds.

In my previous post, I talked about all the symptoms that I have been unable to ignore these past few months, and my journey to figuring out their cause. Happily, all of the exams, tests, and scans have come back normal. The picture of health! And that old chestnut,  'It's probably stress' looms large. However, this time, there's no stress. Home life is great. My job is great. Friends are great. Family is great. Fitness levels are great. Money stuff is...good, which honestly I'm happy with. ('Great' would be a stretch!) I've never been less stressed in my entire life. 

My head isn't haunted, like. Something is causing me to hear and feel the blood pumping in my left ear. It's not a magic spell or a ghost. There is an explanation and I won't give up until I find it. 

However, I have had to go back to the drawing board. And that has led me to realise a sort of elephant in the room: I have been ignoring pain in my neck, back, ribs and hips to such an extent that I didn't even really acknowledge its existence until now. After ruling out everything else, suddenly there it was: I'm in pain! Pain that could be impacting the rest of my body. Pain that probably could be relieved. So I made an appointment with an osteopath.

The laundry list of ailments that I gave this poor guy - how was I walking around with all of that going on? From head to toe, I described no less than ten points of chronic pain that have been going on for months to decades. When he examined my neck, he described the left side as 'totally jammed'. As he turned my head, the rest of my body followed. I felt embarrassed for myself - I don't even remember the last time I turned my head without a cacophony of crunching and strain.

Is my 'jammed' neck causing all my problems? Probably not. But will I feel immense relief once it's unjammed? Once I start rehabbing my displaced ribs? Once I fix the pinched nerve in my leg? Once I stretch out the achilles tendon pain? Once I attend to this tennis elbow, and so on? I surely will. 

This is all a long-winded way of saying that despite all my work trying to be healthy and get a diagnosis for health problems, I still managed to shove down and neglect my body. So I recommend doing a scan of yourself and trying to be honest, like really honest, about how you feel? Do you have pain that you're ignoring?