Pain in the..... everywhere?

Pain in the....... everywhere?


If you have RA, you know where I am going with this one. The constant pain we live in day to day. You kinda get used to the background pain that never leaves your body. At least, I have..... but its always there, always nagging away at you, never quite letting you forget.
Pain in itself is something I've always been pretty good at dealing with. I know that over the years, because I've tended to have pretty physical jobs, which regularly meant I got hurt - I've also had expressed disbelieve from the doctors or nurses when I've finally given in and gone for treatment. I'm lucky like that I guess, unlike J, my civil partner who can and has passed out when having injections because it hurt. Even just the other day, I was seeing my doctor to organize some steroid injections for my shoulders, and she remarked that, because of all my other blood tests etc, I was going to be seeing a lot of needles over the coming weeks. I shrugged it off - I have no qualms about that sort of thing. 


Yet, I struggle with this damn RA pain. I use a specific proven meditation technique (based on Buddhist mediation) and it helps, but even I have to succumb and take slow release tramadol. This helps, but even so, I occasionally take a hiatus from it, for a number of reasons. Not least, I'm already throwing a lot of toxic chemicals in to my system, and I like to give it a chance to avoid one more as long as I can. It also means I don't become to reliant on the drug, and finally, I don't become immune to the dosage and it begins to lose effect. But, by doing that, I'm allowing even the base level pain to come and bite me well and truly on the ass. But that's okay, my decision, I'll deal with it.


The problem arises when I have not just a flare up (where joints swell up and become painful), but as the redness and swelling subside, it takes days for my body to get back in kilter. Worse still if I get a succession of flare ups over hours, not just days. This takes pain on to a whole new level, and quite frankly it is simply impossible to describe. Take a baseball bat and get someone to swing at every joint you can think of. I don't just mean hands and feet here in general, but I'm posting pictures to show just how many joints these have. Now, put the pain in just about each and every joint you see on the pictures - and its in both hands and feet remember, not just one, although occasionally if you're lucky, it might just be one sided.
This is as close as I can describe it. It is truly excruciating, and there is no relief, just pain. It masks everything else you are feeling. You hurt sitting, standing, lying down. Everything feels amplified. 


This is what most people with RA deal with, day in, day out. We might not show it, in fact, listening to other RA patients, we all seem to hide it as much as possible, including our own doctors, but its there. Always there.
So, if you know someone who has RA and seems quiet and withdrawn, don't take it personally, its most likely they are struggling. Whether in pain or some other part of this multifaceted disease.