I have a companion who travels with me 24/7. I can’t call him friend, and even companion sounds a little too cozy. Gremlin? Hanger-oner? Pest? He won’t kill me, but if given the chance, he’ll steal parts of me, a little each day. If he wins, he will leave me incapacitated, so I must fight him constantly. He wakes me at night, limits my activities and tries to take away things which are important to me. When I am walking, he grabs at me, when I am sitting still, he makes me ache. He moves around my body, sometimes in familiar spots, and sometimes trying out new areas. He doesn’t play fair at all, poking and prodding unceasingly.
His name is pain.
The problem with pain is, he’s boring. I spend a large part of every day dealing with him, working around him, placating him, but I know one thing for certain.
No one wants to hear about him.
So, I don’t talk about him. Like I said, boring. But he’s there, and I guess because he’s so present to me, I assume others know about his presence in my life.
I’ve discovered they often don’t.
This month, we’re going to talk about chronic pain. 
Three out of ten people in the U.S. deal with it, and that statistic is likely the same for Canada, and probably a higher percentage among elders.
Chronic pain can be difficult to pinpoint due to a process called central sensitization.
Think of a city with just one highway leading into it. Now imagine that as the city grows, multiple highways are built leading in and out of the city. Similarly with pain, as symptoms develop and expand, it’s hard to pinpoint the location of the problem due to the multiple pathways involved.
How you act and think in response to pain interacts with the central sensitization process.1.
This is why, when the doctor asks about your pain and you start to list the areas where it hurts, you see her eyes glaze over. She wants to know about one highway when there are multiple roads leading everywhere.
So what do you do? How do you cope? What are some of the ways to find quality of life in spite of chronic pain? These are the questions we’ll be looking at this month.
What makes it worse?
What makes it better?
How can you work with your body to be your best self?
How much does “state of mind” affect chronic pain?
How can you understand and help your elder or anyone with chronic pain?
Stay tuned as we find the answers.
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1.https://www.mayoclinichealthsystem.org/hometown-health/speaking-of-health/8-tips-for-managing-chronic-pain