to absolutely get why people who get no respite from pain commit suicide?

[ShouldIworryornothelp]

DH is being a twat and saying I'm moping, too bloody right I'm moping.

I have been in pain for over half my life. Latterly I've been in horrific pain due to unknown problems with my nerves meaning I get nerve pain in most of my body for around 20 hours in any given day, this has been going on for months and I'm totally at the end of my tether with it, I'm getting no respite and fed up with having to pretend I'm OK.

Don't worry I'm not suicidal. Just utterly fed up and pissed off more research isn't funded in the area of pain management

Aibu to totally understand why people commit suicide in these circumstances?

In the past ten years I've had spine surgery, CANCER surgery, torn ACL ligament surgery, adhesion surgery, bladder surgery and gallbladder surgery. I'm in pain most of the time and on morphine. I recently lost my job because I made too many mistakes as the drugs mke my head fuzzy. I wake up in pain, go to sleep in pain. I'm 47. I'd never do it but yes I can totally understand why some do.

You all write so eloquently about your pain.

I do get bad, really awful pain but I do get respite too. That's the bit that makes life worth living. The bit when the sun comes out.

I know I'm different when I'm in pain. Quiet, grumpy not my usual bubbly self.

It seems the older I get the more I'm sliding into pain but for me respite ( and all the things I love) make life worthwhile.

I don't take any painkillers. They were messing up my digestive system. I just sit it out.

I woke up one morning in top to toe pain. It took me over an hour to get dressed. Luckily I was seeing my homeopathic doctor. She said my meninges were inflamed and gave me the appropriate remedy and i started to feel a lot better. Then my daughter came ( also a homeopath) and she felt that my body was reacting to the fact that my ex husband had died. ( so she suggested a different remedy. She too had been ill at the loss of her ( estranged) father. By the end of the day the headache that was crippling me had gone) . It was like a miracle. Ridiculous I know.

I spent 5 days in bed just getting up to to do the necessary and then I was able to start the preparations for Christmas five days later.

It's not always as miraculous as that but I do get a lot of relief from regular use of homeopathy and osteopathy. I just think I could be so much worse.

Pain is a useful tool in letting us know that something is wrong in the body. So we need some pain to let us know we are hurting ourselves. It's just that in some of us ( and I'm not sure I would include myself in that) there seems to be an exaggerated response where it forgets to switch itself off.

It's finding that switch.

My heart goes out to you if you are ones that don't get that respite. I know exactly what you mean when you say you are not suicidal. Far from it, you really just want to live and live well.

It's like just see what ican do while I'm like this and imagine what my life would look like if I was totally pain free!

Yeah right!

Pain is awful. Its draining and takes everything out of you. Im lucky enough to never have suffered but are seeing mil at moment and its awful knowing theres nothing we can do. Shes so tried as this pain is there 24/7. Painkillers dont work! Tens machine also. Have you tried to pain clinic. Yanbu op xxxx

I dont take any regular pain medication it either gives me a fuzzy head or dodgy stomach i keep it under control when im struggiling with anti inflammatorys and heat .

I've read your blog glitterbelle.

Very insightful.

Has it been in the lancet! It needs to be shoved under the nose of every practicing doctor.

No one understands unless they have been through it.

12 years for me now. I do the same thing as you and pretend everything is fine. I manage it ok most of the time, by my standards at least. I feel like my life is on a very delicate balance and all it takes is one thing to go wrong and I'm really struggling to cope again though.

Think it gives you a totally different outlook on life to everyone else. I struggle to explain it to people.

Someone once said to me that they totally understood chronic pain because they've driven their mum to the pain clinic before. I laughed at her, couldn't help it.

Oh and someone once asked me "are you sure you're in pain and that's not just how everyone feels?"

I do. My mum has had a terrible back problem since 2011 and says that on a scale of 1-10 the pain has been 11. She's had a cocktail of drugs including Tramodol which has helped but brought its own problems (stomach ulcers). She has had two operations to try to deal with the problem, which have helped somewhat.

She now has a pain-killing patch which seems to be very effective and she is much better than she was - she can now go out for meals and sit through an entire film at the cinema etc.

She has said quite matter of factly that if it didn't improve she would end it all. Fortunately it has got better for her.

Dont know if anyone has seen "cake" yet? Was one of the things that really bugged me about it, that the ** members of the chronic pain support group were whinging about how they couldnt understand how a member had committed suicide as it is so selfish. Ime, i dont know a single person with chronic pain who doesnt openly envy people who are no longer suffering.

BeyondDoesBootcamp - yes, I saw it. There were lots of unrealistic things in the film. The best bits were glossed over and not really dealt with. Her sucking up to the doctor was interesting, in the hopes she wouldn't cut her off. The physio writing a report on her, and her having to rely on what she wrote to continue treatment. Being told she wasn't trying hard enough as she hadn't improved.`

I though the sitting back in the car was good (something I have to do due to spinal damage) but then at the end that seemed more due to emotional problems than the pain.

Also - they had to add loads more emotional trauma on. Pain and disability is bad enough!

YANBU - as a sufferer of a chronic back condition which resulted in sciatica for years I was in AGONY. Nothing would help, pain management didn't help.

I very thankfully had a full lumbar fusion and now no longer suffer like I used to (infact my pain I have now is nothing and I am happy to have it!) but I did used to have very dark days.

YANBU.

YANBU. So sorry x

Dowser - no, it's not been in the Lancet, but the Huffington Post has just picked the piece up! So I really hope more people read about chronic pain and even maybe share it with others who don't have it? Fingers crossed.

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/jade-hamnett/living-with-chronic-pain_b_7020874.html

My DM committed suicide due to pain. Looking back, I think it was an immensely brave thing to do as she was scared of death but the alternative was worse. There seems to be no perfect painkillers. They either turn your guts to lace curtains, make your skin see-through or render you completely addicted. More research and development needed perhaps ?

This thread should disprove any people who say mumsnetters are horrid, you're all absolutely amazing

So so sorry to hear so many others are in the same situation.

glitter your article is brilliant and explains it so so well. I do wonder if you're in my area the way you described your treatment pathway

I'm very sorry Fruminaria, and yes much more research is needed on treatments.

ShouldIworry thank you ever so much! Am in Essex. And the spinal pathway is the worst. My GP said it was brought in as so many people had back problems and the waiting lists to see consultants were huge, and many were then referred onto to physio anyway. Well yes, that seems sensible to try and triage before that. But my GP said all that seemed to have happened is EVERYONE ended up being dismissed by a physio, after a huge, huge wait - and hardly anyone who needed to got to see a consultant.

Same system as me then! Physio kicked me off the pathway saying I'm untreatable and told me to join their pilates class which only runs in office hours

I'm so sorry you are in such pain. YANBU. My dh and I were just talking about this. I get migraines but they sound nothing like the pain you are in, and the migraines are bad enough.

Tower no, migraines are debilitating. I unfortunately get those too so i know how bad you you feel x

YANBU.

I'm going through the same.I can go to bed in pain and wake up hours later still with the same pains.Pain can get so bad that it makes me wake up.

The worst pain I've ever suffered made me throw up and then I blacked out.I came round and I'd managed to smash my head on the sink,the toilet and then the floor.The scary thing was I was a single parent to 4DC at the time.We'd just been out to the school Christmas fair,I hadn't even managed to get the double buggy in(baby girl only 6 months old and DS only 26 months both in the buggy)oldest two DS were only 7 and 5.

The oldest bless him managed to get the buggy into the house,God knows how he did(I still don't know how he managed it till today and that was 12 years ago)I think it must have been pure adrenalin bless him.

And my then 5 year old was stroking my hair,sat on the floor talking to me,trying to wake me up.

That still affects me greatly it makes me feel awful for all 4 of them.Anything could have happened bless them.Thank God they were so good and so cleaver.

I felt awful guilt then and still do,it wasn't anything I'd done to cause it,don't drink,never smoked,never done drugs.But I still feel awful because of it!

Never felt suicidal back then,despite being on my own with 4DC and youngest son being disabled(autistic)I was always really happy and loved our life's.

Now I feel suicidal nearly every day,sadly.I'm going to see the DR soon because my poor DH is really worried bless him.I am seriously ill now and really struggling to stay alive and I know it's killing him the poor soul.I've caught him crying a few times now.

So once again I feel dreadful guilt!Guilt because my disability now and chronic health problems affect family life.I try my hardest not to let it,but I get really ill and have to go to different hospitals,stay in hospital,go to the Drs.

My Husband has had to become my carer.He has to do the lions share of everything really now.There's time when I'm so ill I can't even move,can't eat and struggle even drinking water.So it affects all of them.

Were pretty certain now that the children will still be very young when I've passed on and DH will become a very young widow.It's just really unfair on all of them.

Painkillers don't work for me anymore either,on Morphine now but it may as well be paracetamol it doesn't touch it.Have to get put onto something stronger now.Hopefully that will help with the pain and help lift my spirits a bit.