Keeping Positive With a Chronic Illness

Many people who develop a Chronic Illness or Chronic Pain have a hard time staying positive during their treatment and life through out their illness. Sadly many Dr's still believe that these conditions such as RSD are caused by depression when depression and other mental disorders develop afterwards.

Thankfully I avoided going into a depression when my RSD came back. I believe this was because I had the support of my family, friends, church family, and online friends. It greatly helps to know that you have support from all these people. Not everyone who develops Chronic Conditions have this support though. So it helps when Movie / TV stars like Michael J. Fox who have Chronic Conditions show us that it is possible to be possible and live a full life.

I recently read an article in Reader's Digest from May 2010. They did an interview with Michael J Fox about a new book he has coming out and how he is able to stay positive. I recommend that if you haven't read it that you check it out.
We all go through a mourning phase when we find out that we have a Chronic Illness or Chronic Pain, this is very normal. Being angry that we can no longer do things that we once were able to do is the next phase. Acceptance is the last phase in mourning. It took me a while to accept the fact that I had RSD. I didn't admit to others I had RSD until people knew something was wrong when I was 17 and I had it since I was 12. Now I love my RSD, yes I love it. I hate the pain but its taught me so much and its made me, me. I also love the fact that its given me the drive to do things some people don't believe I can achieve because of it.

Once you accept your Chronic Illness / Chronic Pain its going to help your treatment plan. If your constantly fighting against your Illness or Pain than your going to be stressed out and in more pain. I really started loving my life its reflected in my completion, the way I act with family and friends, the way I view life, ect. I really don't like when people call me "sick" since I'm not. I don't have the stomach flu, pneumonia, strep throat, ect. Unless you really do have an infection or are classified "sick" by a Dr you are perfectly healthy, your nervous system is just a bit messed up. Yes I still have pain but I'm less apt to focus on it during the day. My SCS remote and meds are with me to help bring the pain down so I'm able to enjoy my life like life is suppose to be enjoyed.

Peace, Love, Happiness

Always,

Erikka

The Affects Of Pain Medication

Pain Medication can be a RSDers best friend and worst enemy. For me I absolutely hate taking medicine. The more medicine I take the more I feel like my body is being stuffed with substances that shouldn't be in it.

On Thursday my new pain medicine, Nucynta arrived at my house. My mom brought it up to my school so that I could switch myself over. I didn't think I would have that much of a problem with it. I did realize that the Nucynta was stronger than my current medicine but didn't think much of it since my pain has gotten worse. I started on Friday and just simply thought my body was overly tired from my massage. I was entirely wrong. All weekend instead of catching up on studying like I normally do I just wanted to sleep. Since I wanted to sleep during the day my body didn't want to sleep at night. This has never happened to me before when switch or going on meds so I caught on very quickly. Since the Nucynta was every 8 hours I tried not to take any pain meds when I woke up in the wee hours of Sunday night / Monday morning hoping to get all of the Nucynta out of my system. Since most of it is out of my system and I am back on my original pain medicine I am somewhat starting to feel like myself. I should have went with my gut instinct and stayed with the original medicine.

Since I had a bad reaction my mom is calling my Dr tomorrow to let them know how things went. She called today but my PM and his Nurse Practitioner both were not in the office. Hopefully they will be able to find a pain medicine that I will be able to function on. I need to be able to think clearly and not want to sleep all day, after all I am a college student.