COMBAT MYTHS/MISCONCEPTIONS WITH YOUR CHRONIC PAIN TRUTH
By Heather Grace, IPJ Staff Writer
For far too long, those of us who live with chronic and intractable pain have spent a great deal of time hidden away, behind closed doors—especially when the pain becomes overwhelming. It’s time to change that! Please join us in sharing what it’s really like on a typical day of a life lived in pain.
Show the world what it’s really like to live with chronic pain by being part of the 1st Annual Pain Reality Day—YOU are invited! Join us via social media all day 9/9/15, using hashtag: #PainRealityDay. This new social media event will take place every year on September 9th as part of the annual Pain Awareness Month campaign.
It’s time to tear down the walls that have separated us from the “normal” world for far too long—to finally fight the misconceptions about pain patients with a healthy dose of truth! Are you brave enough to snap a few pics or a quick video that shows the unshowered, PJ-clad reality of one of those days when you’re just too damn sick to step outside & pretend everything’s ok?
Good! So am I! Why? The world needs to see our puffy-eyed, slightly disheveled excruitiating truth! Maybe then, people will think before they once again brazenly say: “you don’t look sick” (or whisper it, behind our backs). They need to know what it’s like to hurt so badly you can hardly breathe, much less go out into the world and brave another difficult day among the misinformed masses.
They need to know how tough it is to be seriously ill yet seen as a lazy, possibly drug-addicted pill popper. They need to feel the indignity each of us has felt, as we beg doctor after doctor to respond appropriately to our cries for help. They need to understand the anguish of losing an entire support system one person at a time when you need them most—your best friend, your mother, your significant other.
Only someone like YOU, who has suffered one unthinkable chronic pain-fueled tragedy after another, can tell the world what it’s like to slowly fade into invisibility but still be fighting to be believed. So, let’s finally say the things that must be said. Let’s unite as we open the doors to the private hell of the pain patient. We need to be heard just as much as they need to listen!
You’re invited to share each and every raw, real, enlightening truth about your pain during the inaugural Pain Reality Day, September 9th via Twitter, Facebook, your blog or the social media app of your choice. Don’t forget to include the hashtag: #PainRealityDay with each post!
Oh, and feel free to share this event with *everyone* you know who’s impacted by chronic pain: https://m.facebook.com/events/330332963834825.
All About #PainRealityDay
Show the world what it’s really like to live w/ Chronic Pain—all day 9/9/15, the 1st Annual Pain Reality Day, via the Internet. This is an advocacy event that will take place across the whole of the web—every blog, Twitter account, YouTube video and Facebook page belonging to people impacted by pain. Don’t forget to add the hashtag #PainRealityDay to each post, video or blog entry!
Who’s in? Please join us, but don’t forget to share this event with *everyone* you know who is impacted by pain patients, caregivers, health professionals, advocates, loved ones, the media! Share it via Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc. This day, 9/9 is for everyone who is advocating for better treatment of all pain patients. Tell everyone to visit PainReality.com for all the details!
What should you share? Any information that expresses YOUR Pain Reality… people need to understand we are just like anyone else with chronic illness invading every aspect of our lives—except that we are also persecuted for our condition. Tell them how it feels to have the people you love most suddenly not support/understand you, or worse—believe you’re lying/exaggerating our your condition. Explain how Healthcare professionals have treated you, just for wanting the help you need to get better. Tell the world how you have had to set aside your feelings/dignity far too many times as people mistreated you for being sick.
If you’re like me, you’ve lost a great deal to your illness:
- your career/ability to work a “normal” job
- your social circle-because you can’t just hang out with friends whenever you want
- relationships with people you thought would be there ‘no matter what’
- your home & any semblance of financial security
- access to the quality of healthcare you could once afford
Express how it feels to lose a great deal of what made you you & to suddenly be dealing with your serious health issues alone. Or if you’re lucky and have family support, share how you have to meet familial obligations/expectations by pretending you’re well enough to do/be what they expect you to… often by pushing yourself/overdoing it/making yourself more ill.
How should you share? Via any social media app (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc.) or your very own blog/vlog—using the hashtag #PainRealityDay. TIP: Using short video clips/vlogs, audio clips or photos are great ways to share your pain reality, in addition to text posts.
Get as personal as you feel comfortable! Remember, #PainRealityDay is about making the world see us for who we really are! So, feel free to openly share all the ways pain challenges you & has made your everyday life different than it once was—before the pain. Got a famous quote from someone who lived with pain helps express how you feel? Or a psinting from a tortured artist? Those are also great ways to express your journey!
Share as many times as you’d like on September 9th, on any social media app… So long as you use the hashtag #PainRealityDay, your story will be connected to this important event. We will be hosting/sharing everyone’s posts via PainReality.com & on this blog. Note: The site is still being worked on, so for now it’s just this introductory information that’s been posted, but more is coming very soon!
When on September 9th? #PainRealityDay is all day long, so join in whenever you are ready! We will start at 12:01am and end at 11:59pm your time. Anytime you feel up to it, throughout the day, share aspects of your world with chronic pain via #PainRealityDay!
People need to see our reality, so please join me in sharing it! YOU are invited… to share our common reality and unite with all of the people who are just like you, on 9/9. In the meantime, spread the word about September 9th — Pain Reality Day, by using the hashtag #PainRealityDay! Feel free to link to this page and to the event on Facebook, as listed above. Can’t wait to ‘see’ you all there!
About The Author
Heather Grace is an Intractable Pain Sufferer, Writer & Advocate. She’s Co-Director of the 501c3 nonprofit Intractable Pain Patients United (http://www.ippu.info), has been a Speaker/Conference Planner at For Grace’s (http://www.forgrace.org) annual Women in Pain Conference and is a Pain Ambassador for the U.S. Pain Foundation (http://uspainfoundation.org).
© 2011-2015 Intractable Pain Journal & Heather Grace. All rights reserved.
Intractable Pain Journal 
I have been practicing medicine for 30 years as a FP using conventional medicine. In the past 18 years after adding into my daily practice many alternative and complementary remedies, I now have a better sense of what works.
What is even more important is I am 100% certain of what does not work and what does not make science sense.
How can I be 100% certain? You must obey ALL the natural law set forth by the universe, if not you will suffer or perish. A theory, thought, therapy, remedy or treatment can not work if it breaks any universal laws of nature. If a treatment is not grounded in reality, short cuts the biology and science it will fail and leave lasting misery.
A few intellectuals change the way we all think about the correct location of pain. In doing so they moved our thinking from the natural location to an unnatural location.
The natural location of everyday aches, pains and stiffness has been and always will be in the muscle system.
These intellectuals conceptually moved the location to the unnatural locations of the skeletal system, CNS and peripheral nerves.
This twisting or shifting of a universal natural law is leading to waste, fraud, abuses, high medical cost and malpractice. This seemingly innocent change in a universal scientific truth is leading to astronomically high medical costs, disrespect of those who must live in long-term pain, unresolved maladies, dysfunctions and malpractice.
This change in the true location of pain and dysfunctions is directly contributing to a massive number of poor clinical outcomes, opiate overuse and abuses, overdoses, suicides, drug abuses, failures of surgical pain cases, waste, fraud and abuses.
The FALSE, lie, fiction, conspiracy, racket or game:
The skeleton is the best and the exact cause of everyday aches, pains and stiffnesses.
“We can see your pain on this MRI.”
“We can remove your pain by amputation and trashing a God given knee joint or fusing your God perfect spine.”
“We can inject this toxic medicine into your spinal column to get rid of your pain”
“We can just give you pain pills for the rest of your life”
“We need to put in screws, pins or fix your rotator cuff or knee repairs-now or you will have arthritis later” LIE!
The TRUTH:
Everyday aches, pains and stiffness has been and always will be in the muscle system. The TRUE is that the muscle system is the only organ system that can store and radiate pain.
Mother Nature heals all injuries, lacerations, tears, rips and broken bone 100%, 100% of the time. or with minimal human intervention. If there is residual pain it is in the muscles.
The treatments of all invisible pain syndromes which are primarily caused by stressed and strained muscles is massage, stretching, range of motion exercises, then chiropractor adjustment, modernized acupuncture, dry needling and an old school concept called Travell Trigger Point injections. [Notice that none of these are globally accepted and readily available covered benefits. This is a negation ploy to keep them out of mainstream where people will find the truth]
I hope we can have a discussion of these issues.
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Reblogged this on Life of a Fibro Warrior.
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The biggest hurt is family denial. Family has absolutely nooooooo clue! The 2nd is the misconception by so many that just because I can often walk does not mean that I do not still need to use my wheelchair. They think because they see me with a cane or my walker a miracle has suddenly happened. Both are extremely frustrating & depressing! Strike 3 is the farce of equal employment opportunity! BULL CRAP!
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