This still is going on as this is written.

A recovering back patient is finally walking the distance the surgeon recommended because a friend figured out how to engage her with an iPod, to entertain her and help her track her distances.

It also helped that she finally had the revelation that walking was supposed to help her spine realign. She asked her husband why no one had told her that.  No jury would convict him, no matter what felony he committed in the face of such provocation, but he was just glad she finally understood why he kept talking about it.

The cliche, it takes a village to raise a child, also applies to many patients and, perhaps, especially patients in great pain.

Because she still is a patient, her privacy has to be more important than any story.

We can say that, without her husband, four of her best friends—two human and two canine—and e-mail, cell phone and other support, she would not be the happy patient she is today.

It is simply terrifying to be in constant pain. The patient doubts herself even with an MRI which showed a clear cause for that pain. She wonders if it really can be better. She feels like a burden. She gets mad that she is a burden. Then she loops back and worries about being a burden.

Without good team-work, careful tracking to be sure she was following the recovery plan and a lot of inter-group brain-storming, her husband would have fallen asleep in his office like Rip van Winkle.

This story has a happy ending for a happy woman who has people who love her enough to put up with a lot of grief to see her through a tough time. Not everyone is so fortunate.

When I think of how fast she has come, in clinical terms, going from C’s and D’s on the recovery plan to all A’s, it is impressive.

You may be sure it did not feel fast to those living with it.

This journal summary is about chronic pain but it calls attention to the fact that more women suffer from chronic pain.

Physician’s First Watch

“Pain is a leading reason that people seek medical care. Annually, pain is estimated to burden the U.S. economy with $100 billion in direct costs and $61 billion in productivity losses. These losses, which amount to a mean of 4.6 hours weekly, are largely due to diminished performance at work. Perhaps more significant, but more difficult to quantify, is the emotional distress and diminished quality of life that pain inflicts on individuals and their loved ones.” (Emphasis added)

WOMEN AND PAIN

…”Conditions such as headache, pelvic pain, rheumatoid arthritis, and facial pain are more common in women than in men; accordingly, women are two to three times more likely than men to suffer from chronic pain. Compared with men, women also tend to perceive pain as more severe and to report lower pain thresholds and higher pain ratings in research studies. Such sex differences could be secondary to the influence of hormones, family history, traditional sex roles, cognitive factors, and how the central nervous system processes pain.” (Emphasis added)

…”Collaboration among therapists, psychologists, and other supportive resources is crucial to delivering effective pain treatments. Helping women with chronic pain to take ownership of their conditions and to actively curb physical and emotional aspects will boost their functional mobility, productivity, and quality of life while also shrinking the associated financial burden.” (Emphasis added)

Source: Physician’s First Watch, Published in Journal Watch, October 8, 2009

Citation:Journal of the American Medical Association. 2003 Nov 12; 290:2443.