dealing with chronic pain

i don’t think i’ve mentioned it here before in much detail, but not many whiles ago (within the life of this blog) i suffered from chronic pain. I posted about my last trip to the pain clinic here (note the unfortunate URL !). I threw all my old tablets away today as i no longer need them and i thought you might be interested in my personal story (or is that the story of my personals?)

the story:

So, i had incredible pain in a place you don’t want pain and went to the docs who did loads of tests then they refered me to the hospital who also did loads of test for things like diabetes and cancer of the downstairs blokes-bits (cough), the eventual conclusion was it was neuropathic pain which meant there was nothing really causing the pain. it was just there as a result of some earlier very real, but temporary, pain and my brain hadn’t switched the pain signals off. which was nice of it.
anyway, i took some mad tablets which ‘acted on my brain’ and made me feel dizzy for a few months (it wasn’t all bad). luckily i don’t think i got any of these great side effects (see here for a list of them – just what you want to read when you are thinking you are dying anyway!). Oh, and i also had tons of industrial strength pain killers and was on anti-biotics for about 6 months).
And they also attempted to ‘reset my brain’ by giving me an epidural, but my spine is too tight (more details here including an x-ray [don’t read if you are squeeemish)
To cut a long (and painful) story short, i got through it with prayer, family, friends, the pain clinic (quoted here), this splendid book (which although written by a christian isn’t overly religious) and working out my diet with Food for Thought here. It took about a year for me to be ‘normal’ again. I still get the odd pain (very minor compared to before), and my painkiller of choice has been deemed too dangerous and withdrawn, but really things are great and i’m back to how i was before things went bad.
anyway, the reason for remembering all this is because i ended up with a pile of various tablets which i managed to stop needing before their expiry date. yesterday i took them all to the chemist for a proper disposal and to me this felt quite strange – as i was totally reliant on these chaps for a while (hence the shadow in the picture).

i was reminded of my ‘miracle’ recovery by a friend whose family is also facing some major ‘hospital action’ in the next few days. He said he’d been encouraged by how good God had been to me through that period, and i thought i should let you know my own story in case it encourages anyone else who is in the depth of despair and can’t see any kind of future. or something.
If you’ve ended up on this page by Google, you might want to also check out the British Pain Society and the Neuropathy Trust
(sorry about the wordiness and non-funkypancake seriousness ! i won’t let it happen again)