Chronic Pain and Social Withdrawal

I've been having more back pain lately.  I don't really know why.  For a while, I was pretty close to pain free.  At least, the pain had lessened so much, I barely even thought about it, except to be amazed occasionally at how easy it was to turn over in bed at night or get out of my car or get up from the couch.

The pain is still less than it used to be.  There have been times in the past when it was so bad, I literally could not get up.  Once I drove home and could not get out of my car.  Just could not.  The pain was so excruciating when I tried that I could not force myself to do it.  I ended up having to call Mike, who was at work, to come home and help me.  I had to sit there and wait for him to get home, then he went into the house and got me some Vicodin, then waiting in the car with me until it kicked in so I could stand up.

That hasn't happened in a long time.  Several months.  I think having Isaac has helped immensely, as I do much less bending and lifting now.  I've also been taking tumeric, which is an  herb that has anti-inflammatory properties.  I suspect that has helped, too.  I've been doing some energy work, and I think that has helped.

But for the past week or two, it's been bothering me more.  It occasionally wakes me up at night.  It's not really keeping me from doing things I need to do, at least not yet.  But it wears on me.

I think I have a high pain tolerance, at least most of the time.  When I had surgery to remove my gall bladder, an outpatient procedure, I took exactly one dose of pain medication after I got home from the hospital.  Didn't need anymore.  I had a natural childbirth when I was 17.  Didn't feel the need for any kind of pain medication during my 17 hour labor.

But I do sometimes feel the need for pain medication for my back.

Unfortunately, I've been out of pain medication for about a month now.  And with my new, emergency room-induced fear of doctors, I can't go see my back specialist to get more.

A friend was kind enough to call the back specialist yesterday for me, to ask for refills on my Vicodin and Flexeril.  He agreed to refill the Flexeril but not the Vicodin.  Flexeril is a muscle relaxer and I use it when I have muscles spasms in my back, which I have occasionally but not very often these days.  If I had to choose one, I'd much rather have the Vicodin.  And it's not like I was taking it often.  I got 45 tablets in October and am just now requesting a refill.  That means I took about 11 pills per month.  I'm not drug seeking.

But he says I have to make an appointment and go see him before he will refill the Vicodin.  And I can't do that.  I just can't.

Living with chronic pain is different than living with temporary pain.  If you have surgery or injure yourself or something, you know it's going to hurt, but only for a while.  When it's a chronic condition, when you know it's probably going to hurt forever, that's much harder to cope with.  The coping skills that help with temporary pain don't work so well with chronic pain.  It's depressing, but it also engenders great fear in me sometimes.  I wonder how I'm going to live with this for the rest of my life.

And I tend to withdraw, socially speaking.  Dealing with the pain takes a lot of energy.  I don't have much energy left for socializing, for hanging out with friends, even for talking with friends online or on the phone.  I'm preoccupied with my pain, but I don't want to bore or annoy people by talking about it all the time.

And the last week or so, I've been sleeping a bit more than usual because, when the pain was gotten really bad, I've been taking a sedative.  I'm out of pain meds, but I have plenty of sedatives and sleeping pills.  Yes, I know those aren't supposed to be used for pain.  But if I really need some relief from the pain, then I take one of those and I sleep for a couple hours.  Of course, sleeping half the day messes up one's social life, as well.