Chronic Humiliation

Nothing is more humiliating that living in chronic pain and having to beg for help. Like Oliver Twist holding his bowl up..."Please, sir, may I have another, sir," millions of Americans go undermedicated because our healthcare industry doesn't give credence to what it can't see, diagnose or feel. It sucks!

Nothing is more humiliating than when a chronic pain suffer has to beg their doctor to give them the medication they need to even have a semblance of a comfortable life. It is one of the reasons why 50% of all chronic pain sufferers contemplate suicide. Depression as well as the physical agony of pain can lead to the complete annihilation of whatever quality of life is left, as well as affect the lives of those who love and support chronic pain sufferers. This is a situation which is totally avoidable.

I have learned that it's not the specific disabilities from which I suffer that are what make my life at times unbearable but the constant pain in which I live. In particular, the neuropathy or neuritis which causes the chronic pain in my feet and legs doesn't appear to be related to any existing disability or condition according to the doctors. And because the EEG I took almost a year ago now showed no significant signs of nerve damage, I was being led to believe by my doctors that it was all in my head. There was no doubt that pain was being caused by my spinal defects, but there simply wasn't enough empirical evidence for the constant burning of my feet. It made me wonder how many other chronic pain sufferers lived in the same darkness I was.

What doesn't make any sense to me is that doctors fear that their patients will become "addicted" to narcotics or opiates if they take them to relieve pain. There is no doubt that more than too many patients are given medications they don't need to relieve temporary pain and that their given these drugs like candy. This will result in addiction. But when someone who is constantly besieged with pain isn't given enough medication, then clearly a greater crime has been committed. When your body is in constant pain, there's so much shit coursing through their body, they can't become addicted to anything else...and that's a fact!

When in the name of God is the healthcare industry in this neo-con/corporate controlled country going to start pain attention to the degeneration and suffering of it's population? When in the name of compassion is this country going to stop looking at chronic pain as a "weakness" and recognize it for what it is: a genuine disability. According to the American Pain Foundation some 75 million Americans suffer with acute or chronic pain...how many more are going to have to suffer before something is done to finally give this disability the attention it deserves?