sheliesshattered:

sparkly-bandaid:

hyperscraps:

vashito:

I don’t have chronic pain but this artwork is so nice to look at *^*

Just because we’re not writhing on the floor doesn’t mean we’re not hurting. We’ve just gotten really good at hiding it and functioning with it, otherwise we’d literally starve in our beds.

🙁

I don’t think I’ve had a day even that good in at least seven years.  A day like that with chronic pain is a real achievement.

Also, pain receptors can get a little confused.

I wound up in hospital and was asked to do the pain score. I literally couldn’t answer because I was beyond pain and mainly aware of the other symptons pain creates- nausea and inability to think and general disembodied feeling. So while I knew my body was in serious trouble I wasn’t using pain to rate it.

But it’s a good day today because I am sitting up and able to type 🙂 So the above would be a totally awesome day to celebrate because my pain levels match levels of disability. Usually.

Pain is “just” one symptom. It’s a result of ongoing processes that are sometimes understood sometimes not and sometimes partially understood even by the medical community.

In my case pain can be a sign of physical stress (on joints already damaged) or of disease activity (self targeting antibodies). The former is difficult and debilitating the latter is terrifying because of the systemic effects and the treatment is extremely aggressive (most overlap with treatment for cancer) when activity is regular.

Anyway, yeah sometimes it’s easy to see the pain, sometimes it’s not, sometimes the pain is an understood symptom of a disease you can see, sometimes it’s part of a misunderstood disease you can’t see. And everyone is different, and should not be used to put down others who either seem to be coping “too well” or “not well enough.”

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