Chronic suffering a pain in the life
News Desk
Edmonton Journal (subscription), Canada - 4 hours ago
... The pain can be constant, like Ireland's, or intermittent from
migraines, arthritis or fibromyalgia, an inflammation of tendons,
muscles and ligaments.
Debilitating lifestyles to be examined at national conference
Jodie Sinnema, The Edmonton Journal
Published: Wednesday, June 14, 2006
EDMONTON - Catherine Ireland has had 15 back operations, 10 brain
operations, several cardiac arrests, and such intense pain spasms that
her right leg curls up and can't be straightened.
She has been on a morphine pump, on woozy trips with intravenous
Novocaine and had stimulators implanted into her brain to scramble the
pain impulses.
One time, the pain was so unbearable that Ireland was about to
purposely overdose on her medication when her daughter walked into the
bedroom and stopped her.
Now at age 60, she manages her constant pain with methadone and
Oxycontin, an opium-based prescription drug. She hopes more doctors and
the public begin to understand the huge impact chronic pain has on many
in the community.
"For every doctor who believed me, there must have been 20 to 25 who
didn't," said Ireland, who will be sharing her story during the Chronic
Pain Society national conference in Edmonton.
The conference starts today and offers workshops on pain management,
alternative medicine, headaches and the pain that babies experience.
"You can see acute pain," Ireland said. "It's immediate. You can put a
bandage on it and stop the blood. You can't see chronic pain.
"People look at you and say, 'What's wrong with you? You look
absolutely healthy.' "
When Ireland was 21 and in her last year of nursing training, she was
lifting a patient when the patient's legs gave out. Ireland took all
the weight on her back and suffered a herniated disc.
She expected the pain to go away, but it never did. An operation to
fuse her spine resulted in spinal fluid leakage. A deep brain
stimulator worked for three years, then inexplicably moved and the pain
came back.
"When it hits, it hits like a bolt of lightning and takes the breath
out of me," Ireland said.
She couldn't participate in her children's field trips, go on swimming
excursions, even make baby formula or pour a baby bath during some
stretches.
She said the pain has worn down her immune system and she is now hooked
up to an oxygen tank after losing one lung to cancer.
Barry Ulmer, executive director of the Chronic Pain Association of
Canada which represents patients with chronic pain, said pain needs to
be treated as a disease in itself, not simply as a symptom of other
medical complications.
Instead of offering limited lectures to medical students on the topic,
he said, medical schools need to do a thorough job of training health
professionals about chronic pain.
He is working with the University of Alberta on a supplemental workshop
on the issue.
Studies have estimated that Canada loses $17 billion in lost production
each year because of chronic pain sufferers missing work, Ulmer said. A
1996 National Population Health Survey found that 11 per cent of
Albertans report chronic pain -- that's 327,228 people based on today's
population -- with 2.3 per cent saying their pain was severe.
The pain can be constant, like Ireland's, or intermittent from
migraines, arthritis or fibromyalgia, an inflammation of tendons,
muscles and ligaments.