Chronic Pain Series #3--Educating Others About Your Medications

     Do You Have Issues With Others Regarding Your Pain Medications?


Have you found that some of those around you do not understand, or, may have negative attitudes towards your choice to take medications as a part of your Pain Management regime?


Let's talk about this issue. 


As my blogging on this subject of Chronic Pain has reached nearly three years, of those that have told me their stories, those I know personally, and myself included, all have a common thread running thourgh this journey in pain.

We have people in our lives that disagree with our decision to take medications for pain.  I have found it is those that are the closest to us that seem to be bothered the most. 

All this is, is un-education on the subject.  Pure and simple.  If we have doctors who hesitate to prescribe pain  medications, or have a predisposed attitude towards the incorrect belief that all patients will become 'addicts', then how can we expect the medically uneducated to understand anything about our decision to take these medications? 

We can't blame them.  Yet we can change this.  By educating those that love us.  Those who truly care, and because of not understanding the entire picture, simply need us to sit down, and have a very open conversation with them.  It is time to teach, to educate, to explain. 

First, they need to understand WHY you are taking these medications.  What is your diagnosis?  Your prognosis?  Your history of surgeries, procedures, years of complaints of something wrong in your body; do they know about all of this in your life?

This is YOUR LIFE!  You are not your pain; you have pain.  We are not defined by our pain, yet it may be at a level in which you can no longer do certain things anymore due to your pain.  That is when I do feel that I am, at that moment, defined by my pain. 

Pain has kept me from many special events I had been looking forward to attending.  Unable to leave my home, at that one moment, at that one time of day, that second in which I realize that there is absolutely no way I can first of all, do what it takes to prepare myself to go, then the drive there, and straight into the event. 

That feeling is overwhelming, as we grieve the inability to do what we were looking so forward to doing.  As those types of situations arise, the medications we take are a huge section of our relief of pain program.  If those that were looking forward to us coming, do not understand our inability to make it; along with not understanding or agreeing with our choice to take medications, we then have a responsibility to talk to them, and speak openly.  Then possibly there comes the 'b' word, 'but', as in, "But I don't agree with your choice to take medications".  That attitude conveys to us immediately that there is a wall up in the other person, before we can begin to breach the subject with them. 

We, the people who live in pain on a daily basis, and the pain has interrupted and affected our lives to include our friends and family; want nothing more than to have open minds on both sides, so we can teach and have an interactive conversation.

Looks like another post to examine more closely, exactly how to start this needed conversation.  Also, some of the most important issues we must discuss with those that love us; and what to do when you have a 'but' that keeps you from feeling able to speak openly.

Big subject.  If you have experienced negative attitudes and incorrect beleifs surrounding your medications. please feel free to let me know your story in comments.  Always feel free to email me also; but leaving a comment allows others to read your stories, and together we are stronger, with a plethera of ideas from others just waiting to be shared.

Let's start a discussion on this subject.                             

 As Always--Gentle Hugs...