Essay, Acknowledgements and Other Important Project Components Completed!

Dear Readers,

Hello. I have officially completed my honors college project, but I plan to still make posts on my blog periodically. I hope to continue to maintain my blog.

For today, I thought I would post acknowledgements as a thank you to those who helped me with my project, I really appreciate it! Also, I would especially like to thank anyone and everyone who has been reading my blog. While my blog is hardly well-known, it has been getting more hits than I anticipated, and I love knowing that others are reading what I have written and researched.  I hope that you will continue to read my blog.

I will most likely post my final essay on the blog at some point, but I think it would be most prudent for me to wait a few weeks before doing so, in order to allow time for my essay to be processed by the honors college.

Anyway, I have linked to my acknowledgements/thank yous below, and remember, the end of my project isn't the end of my blog, so please stay tuned!

Link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nFnB8l3kb2gUKKmFcXgpVW2CCCS_QSkc3SGRxzAsjfg/edit?usp=sharing

Chronic Pain Triggers Resources

Hi, readers. As a person with chronic migraines, I do my best to monitor my "triggers" and try to avoid them. In case you don't know, triggers are activities, substances, or occurrences that tend to cause worse pain episodes in individuals. For example, some of my triggers are stress, the lights in Walmart, shifts in barometric pressure, and artificial sweeteners, but triggers are different for every person. While most people associate triggers with migraines, they do play a role in other chronic pain disorders as well--just think about the people with arthritis who get worse pain when it rains, or my relative with Fibromyalgia who gets worse pain when she eats certain preservatives. If you are interested, I have gathered several resources that contain information about what triggers are, how to identify triggers, common triggers, etc.

Since I couldn't find a good online resource about this, I would also like to briefly discuss the difference between triggers and causes. I got this information from talking a doctor at Mayo Clinic, as well as my local headache specialist. They said that people with chronic pain are predisposed to feel pain, and often react to things that would not cause pain in other people. In other words, triggers don't cause the chronic pain disorder (usually), but it can still be important to identify and avoid them because it can help decrease the frequency of your worse pain attacks.

1. Identifying Pain Triggers

Link: http://www.headache-help.org/identify-migraine-triggers

This website is discussing migraine triggers, but  this advice is easily transferable for any pain disorder. The article explains the correlation between triggers and pain attacks, and offers some advice about how to track your activities, food, etc. with a pain diary to watch for any possible triggers that might be making things worse.

2. Some Common Pain Triggers

When do We Tell? When do We Act Like Nothing is Wrong?

Hello, readers. Remarkably, I have actually had a very easy time with my chronic pain lately, with little pain for a couple of weeks, and other people have been noticing a change in me, even though they don't quite realize that the change they have been seeing is because of a lack of pain. For instance, other people have been commenting on the fact that I am singing more, am peppier, and that my eyes are "much less foggy right now" (Side note--Does pain give you foggy eyes?) Anyhow, this surprised me, as I frequently hide my pain and do my best to act as if I have more energy than I do. I did not realize that others could tell the difference between when I am in a lot of pain and when I have little or (in rare cases) no pain.

This realization made me think a bit differently about the practice of hiding physical pain. For me, as well as for other chronic pain patients I know, hiding our physical pain as much as possible is second nature. It can often seem like a matter of survival. For instance, I know that it distresses my family to see me suffer, so I try to down play it as much as possible. I also hid the extent of my pain from most of my high school class because I was afraid they wouldn't believe me, and I hide it for many other reasons as well. It seems sensible, yet, I am slowly learning that this practice of always hiding my pain can be counter-productive at least some of the time. I cannot expect others to help me when I am struggling with my condition if they do not know that I have chronic pain in the first place. Furthermore, I now realize that, if people are noticing that my eyes are sometimes foggy or that I seem low-energy, they can probably tell that something is "off" with me but do not know what. Telling others may help with this, but it's rarely that simple.

New Poem-Migraine "Super Powers" (Quotes are intentional)

Dear readers, if you enjoy a strange sense of humor in the face of pain, maybe you will enjoy this poem. I'll write a bit of a blog post with it, as always, but I think I will do so after the poem this time, so scroll down if interested. As always, click "read more" for the full poem.

Migraine “Super Powers”

By: Blog Admin

If you locked me in cellar, where

my eyes would strain through darkness

and my ears would hear only the hum

of air conditioning and the rasp of my

own breath, I could not escape.

I could not conjure magic to glove my hands

in flames so my bonds would fall

to the ground as ashes. I could not

punch the door, with a fist of iron, sending

splinters showering the ground,

but I could tell you if it was raining outside.

The barometric pressure

would grab hold of the slicing pain in my head,  expanding it

until it ached and  fizzed, as if someone

flooded my head with carbonated soda.

I would grin at my weather-predicting skills.

Of course, I would remain trapped in the darkness.

Coping with Pain Through Non-Written Arts--Discussion with Resources

Below this discussion, I have listed some great resources about using art to cope with chronic pain, including a document with ideas about what types of art projects to do. These resources may be found by clicking the "read more" tag in this document.

Hello again, readers. I designed this entire blog and corresponding honors project around the idea that writing and reading literature can help people cope with and learn from their chronic pain (see the about this project page for details). However, I am well aware that writing is not the only art form that can be used as a coping mechanism for chronic pain. Any form of artistic expression, such as painting, sculpting, playing music, sketching, or dancing can be a means of expressing pain in ways that is hard to do through normal conversation. Personally, I have found that simply finding a way to express the pain makes a world of difference, as doing so helps me feel less powerless and encourages me to learn from my own expression of pain.

Many, if not all, chronic pain patients know how to stay silent and hide their pain. It's a matter of survival most of the time. Even friends may tire of endless complaints about pain, people may incorrectly label us or underestimate us if they find out about our chronic pain too soon, and those closest to us may grow aggravated by the details of our suffering. Often, it makes sense to stay silent about our pain, and I don't think that is wrong. I cannot count the number of times I have hidden my pain. Yet, staying silent all of the time can hurt us, both in the forms of misunderstandings with others who do not fully understand our pain, and in the sense that we need an outlet for the pain we endure. The arts can help provide this outlet, and, if you wish to share them, the artwork you produce can also help inform others about your pain in a way that conversation cannot.

Correction to "Holding On" Dedication

Dear Readers,

I apologize for a major error I made in the last post--I accidentally wrote that 90% of people with migraines can function in society, when it should have been that they cannot function in society.

I have since corrected the error.

Thank you

Holding On-Dedication and Poem by Me

Dedication (Scroll down and skip to the poem if you want-remember to click "read more")

Despite the pain I deal with on a daily basis, I never forget that I am undeniably fortunate. According to the Migraine Research Foundation, over 90% (other estimates say 93%) of people with migraines cannot function normally in society during them. When I try to calculate the statistics of my situation, accounting for the fact that I have migraines many, many days a month, as well as severe to moderate headaches most of the other days (which also can reduce productivity by up to 50 percent or more)...let’s just say... the vast majority of people with my level of Chronic Migraine Syndrome can’t function in society. And, of course, there are people with different types of chronic pain in the same situation. Those people lose everything because of something they can’t control. I know several people through online migraine communities who have had to go on disability and quit their jobs. Some of them can hardly ever can get out of bed to wash their hair anymore.

Yet, here I am, going to school, an honors student. It’s not very easy, but I can do it. I don’t think this because I have some sort of strength the 90 plus percent of people in my situation are lacking. In fact, I think they are stronger. I don’t think many people realize the kind of strength it must take to keep holding on through days of crippling illness, the strength that the so called “invalid” must have. I’m very, very lucky, and there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think of those who aren’t.

This is a major reason I am pushing so hard for advocacy for the conditions of chronic pain sufferers—I try to be an advocate for those who can’t be one for themselves, but I wish I could do more. If you are one of those people, my heart goes out to you. I think you are very, very strong, stronger than I can imagine, and this poem is for you.

Holding On

By: Blog Admin

A woman lies in bed as the sun rises and sets in

endless circles around the sky. Agony pierces her back.

She grits her teeth against the pain.

Others shake their heads at the woman in bed as she

“lets” the  world slip by outside her ashen

bedroom walls. They imagine her—leaning

 against a pillow of government dollars, closing

 her eyes, and inviting pain to swirl through her back.

They imagine her letting go.

But the woman rolls to rest her face in the sun beams

streaming through the window, ignoring

 the pain slicing down her spine. She closes her eyes and weaves

herself a net of thoughts, plucking and tugging each strand

to bridge the chasms in her life: