Chronic Persistent Pain

This began when I was in my  20's - 30's. I spent years trying to get a diagnosis & therefore an effective treatment. The diagnosis finally came in my mid 50's - a cluster of interrelated conditions. Over the years I have had good & bad doctors & alternative therapists. I now conclude that this type of pain is very difficult to get treated because not enough practitioners or patients know enough about chronic pain. Generally the only treatment offered by medics is analgesics of varying types, which can actually cause problems & don't work effectively.

I'm now reading an excellent book, which I wish I had read years ago. "Back to Life" by David Rogers (a Physiotherapist) & Dr Grahame Brown. Both work at the Royal Orthopaedic Hospital in Birmingham. The book is unusual in that a very complex subject is written in a very accessible way. It is hugely informative & practical. It's message is basically that we now know a huge amount about pain. Each sufferer of pain has the ability to manage their own pain & make their lives much better. It's called the Biopsychosocial Model. Simply put our bodies are a complex, interrelated system, which we need to understand & treat with respect.

Patients need to become well informed about their own bodies & conditions. We need an equal partnership with medics in order to help ourselves towards better quality lives. We have to be prepared to actively manage our own conditions & change ingrained negative patterns of behaviour. 

When a doctor tells you that "it's all in your mind" or "you are creating your own pain" you feel dismissed as a neurotic hypochondriac. It feels very negative. But the simple fact is that the underlying neural pathways of nerves carrying messages to & from the brain are at the root of pain. The pain we experience is the result of those messages. Sometimes that pain is an important warning that we need to heed. Sometimes it is as a result of life events, stress & trauma causing tension & a whole raft of biological changes in the chemical messengers the body produces. We all develop patterns of thinking & behaviour which are not in our best interests & which cause actual harm.

The really good news is that these behaviours are learned & can be unlearned. It isn't easy, but it can result in remarkable improvements in chronic pain. 

So I'm half way through the book & I'm going to give it a go when I've finished. I'm optimistic that at the least I can reduce or stop taking the many pills I'm currently on.

Ardern & Sturgeon - Wonder Women?

Ardern is 42. Sturgeon is 52.

Ardern became a New Zealand Labour politician in 2008 & Prime Minister in October 2017. Sturgeon became a Scottish Nationalist MP in 1999 & First Minister in 2014. 

Ardern gained Bachelor of Communication Studies in politics and public relations & worked as a researcher in the office of Prime Minister Helen Clarke. Sturgeon gained a Bachelor of Law & worked as a solicitor in the Drumchapel Law and Money Advice Centre in Glasgow.

Both women have chosen to retire almost simultaneously without being pushed. Both have been very straightforward & honest about their reasons for leaving. Both have been very influential at home & on the world stage. Both handled the Covid pandemic extremely well. Both have been unique & very competent leaders. In particular both have been excellent communicators. Unlike so many of their male counterparts, both believe in answering questions simply & clearly. They know what they believe in & are conviction politicians.

They both proved that it is possible to do a very difficult political job well. I'm sure mistakes were made by both, but equally they would both accept that. Again unlike so many male politicians. Both recognise the price paid for doing such a high profile job, both on themselves & their friends & families.

They have both been leaders it is possible to admire & have left a legacy they can be proud of. They earned the trust of the public. They both have a vision & a moral compass. Would that were more commonplace in UK politics. They have been tested & not found wanting. On the whole their legacy is a positive one & they will both be missed.

It would be nice to think that whoever replaces them had similar qualities. But those qualities are in very short supply in the political world today.

Armageddon??

Book of Revelation - "The End Times". Megiddo is an actual place, inhabited since Neolithic times, which is prophesied as the site of a battle at the end of the world.

It is tempting to think that the world is fast approaching it's end. We just can't know exactly when, or what will end. Today there are armed conflicts in too many places to mention here, but it's a frightening list.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ongoing_armed_conflicts

Action Against Hunger gives the appalling number of countries experiencing famine or extreme hunger. People are dying every day.

https://www.actionagainsthunger.org/the-hunger-crisis/world-hunger-facts/the-worlds-hungriest-countries/ 

The AHA centre has statisitics for natural disasters worldwide now.

https://ahacentre.org/weekly-disaster-update/weekly-disaster-update-9-15-january-2023/

Last but not least we have the overriding problem of the Climate Emergency threatening everything. 

On top of these major world calamities, we in the UK face economic decline, recession, strikes, food banks, serious problems in providing effective healthcare, education & transport, increasing poverty & a glaring, unacceptable, wealth divide. We have politicians who are unable to meet these challenges resulting in a total lack of confidence by the public.

It's a very complex world we live in. Everyone has to work to find solutions. It's everyones problem. It is a battle for survival of the world as we know it. We cannot afford to loose.

Ego, Confidence & Trust

Ego is a person's sense of self-esteem or self-importance. Confidence is the feeling or belief that one can have faith in, or rely on, someone or something, including oneself. To be egotistical is to be excessively conceited or absorbed in oneself; self-centred - "he's selfish, egotistical, and arrogant". Trust is reliance on the character, ability, strength, or truth of someone or something. Basically, trust depends on feelings. It is the belief that we have in someone or something.

All three are interrelated. There is a difficult balance to be achieved if we are to be good human beings. We should not subsume our belief in ourselves to the beliefs of others who may be more dominant. We should have the confidence in our own beliefs to stand up for them, but we have a responsibility to fact check those beliefs.

 

I can remember being bullied in school. I was born in 1945 to a German mother & English father. My christian name is unusual even in Germany. It's meaning is either "beloved of the woods" or "strong". I was tall for a girl, I needed glasses in Primary school, I was clever & worked hard, I played the piano & I had auburn hair. All characteristics which made me different. All led to teasing & bullying. It wasn't easy being me.

But, looking back, I don't remember many specific instances. I've probably blocked most of it out. I don't actually remember much of my childhood. The important thing is that I think it did make me live up to my name. I am mentally strong. I do have confidence in myself. I do trust my instincts. I hope I'm not egotistical though. 

                                                                                

 

No one goes through life without having to deal with s... of some form or other. Some people do seem to have charmed lives. Look on social media & you might believe that many people have everything their hearts desire. I'm very sceptical that is true. I think most people have to deal with varying degrees of hardship & difficulty.

Some have to cope with really dire situations. Look at the headlines in the media today & you will see just how true that is, all over the world. Those people have to trust that others will help them, that they can rely on people. That their governments will do everything necessary to save lives & solve the problems. They have to have confidence that they will survive the trauma. 

We are defined by what we do & don't do. We all have an inner voice. That voice should help us behave well instinctively. Not everyone is trustworthy, but I want to believe that most people are essentially good.

Human Capacity

Not the maximum amount that something can contain, or produce.

I mean mental capacity, the ability to use and understand information to make a decision, and communicate decisions made. We lack capacity if our mind is impaired or disturbed in some way, which means we are unable to make decisions at that time. 

I joke about my increasingly poor memory, saying that it's because I have 78 years of data in my brain, which means there isn't much storage space left. The data is all there somewhere, but retrieval is the problem. My brain is literally it's own "cloud". 

There is also physical capacity, the ability to improve your health, well-being and physical performance, which acts as either an accelerant or drag on that performance. When your physical capacity is strong, you have more endurance and resilience. This too is an increasing problem. Bodies wear out. Simple tasks like getting dressed, turning over in bed, cooking a meal, doing housework, walking, become more difficult.

I am fortunate that I do still have capacity to live my life. It isn't as easy as it was. Certainly not as easy as it was when my husband was alive & there were two of us to share the burdens of modern life. Our skill sets were different & complimented each other. We shared the day to day tasks. We shared conversations and were able to discuss events. Marriage at it's best is a symbiotic relationship.

Loss of human capacity is an increasing problem both for the individual & society with an ageing population - (In 2021 17.66 % of the population in the U K fell into the 0 -14 year category, 63.42 % into the 15 - 64 age group and 18.92 % were over 65 years of age). Especially as we are coming out of a pandemic which has been devastating to mental & physical health. The prevalence of chronic illness, not just due to Covid is a NHS problem. About 15 million people in England have a long-term condition. Long-term conditions or chronic diseases are conditions for which there is currently no cure, and which are managed with drugs and other treatment.

It's a worrying picture. Successive governments have promised to tackle the problem of social care, then kicked it into the long grass or put it in the "too difficult" box. That results in human suffering for both the individuals with capacity loss & their families who are forced to care for them, if they are lucky enough to have families who will do that!

This is an issue that needs political will to sort it out. We should not tolerate forcing children & old people to take on the burden of care. We should all make clear that we are prepared to pay more in tax to provide decent care for the people who need it. Those of us who are lucky enough to be financially secure have to accept that the State can't pay for everything. We must pay our share. Those who are very wealthy should contribute more for those who are poor.

It isn't rocket science. It's what we should expect from a wealthy, "developed" nation.