Chronic Pain: The Invisible Disease

When we are in pain, it can seem easy to make it go away or at least do it better: we can go to a doctor who tells us what the right treatment is for the pain to go away. But that is not always the case. One of the great challenges in medical science is the invisible disease called chronic pain.

What happens when the pain does not go away? How do you control something as debilitating as chronic pain? People with chronic pain feel as if thousands of needles are constantly being inserted into the body. You can see how this situation affects them, not only physically, but also emotionally and psychologically. It is something that also affects their relationships.

The constant stress they feel over the chronic pain can really shake up their relationships, ways of looking at the world and their lives.

It will not be difficult just for the person with the chronic pain. Close relationships can also experience some difficulties, especially when there is fatigue and lack of understanding because others cannot see the invisible disease.

Because they have experienced different types of pain in life, they think they can understand what you are experiencing. But because it is so subjective and depends on one’s own feelings, it is very difficult to put oneself in the situation of the person suffering.

Pain is a warning signal from the body that tells us that something is not right, but what happens if you follow the medical recommendations and the pain still persists? Life can be very exhausting. The daily activities make you suffer and it is very easy to look to the future with despair.

This feeling of being captivated by the pain is something that is very harmful to one’s self-esteem.

It is true that the level of chronic pain varies in each person’s situation. But no matter what degree of autonomy and functionality the person has, he or she will often feel limited and frustrated.

Generally, experts call it chronic pain when it lasts longer than six months and medical or surgical treatments do not help. And although there may be medication to relieve the symptoms, psychotherapy can also be very helpful.

Acceptance and improvement with psychology can strengthen one’s sense of control over one’s own life and counteract the invisible disease.

There are several techniques for dealing with chronic pain. We will now focus on those found in the “Pain Manual” (Moix and Kovacs, 2009).

The most important thing is to understand how something affects us. Once we understand the problem, we will become better at creating strategies, and the stress that arises due to uncertainty will decrease.

We therefore become experts at focusing. Learning to direct one’s attention is fundamental to understanding how much power we have over pain. It will be very helpful to train our attention to focus on relaxing stimuli instead of on the pain.

Here is another thing to keep in mind. The discomfort created by feeling down will only make the disease worse. Fear, stress and sleep problems will only increase the pain.

Because we know this, we can work in the opposite direction, by focusing our feelings and thoughts on health instead of helping to increase the pain. Even if it is minimal, it will help us move things in the right direction.

When we understand that we can take an active role in solving the problem, we can start working on it. Some good ideas to follow:

• Relaxation and breathing: this is important to relieve muscle tension. Relaxing not only means lying down and relaxing at muscle level, but also other methods, such as going to the movies, eating at a restaurant, listening to music, talking on the phone with a friend, going for a walk… which helps us to Disconnect.

• Emotions: This is another important part of the process. Knowing them and knowing how they affect the pain and working with distance techniques can be very helpful.
• Communicate in a healthy way: it is logical that you constantly complain when you have chronic pain. Working in the way you express yourself and how you communicate the same message but in a different way will be helpful for our relationships.
• To regain old and healthy habits: it is normal to stop activities that you used to enjoy, including things in everyday life, as they have become more difficult. But embracing an old dynamic and fun things in everyday life will help us build a better life.
• Put together a plan with a therapist: it is important to know what one’s thought filters and cognitive disorders are that prevent us from changing our thought patterns.

As you can see, not only chronic pain affects our body but also our thoughts, relationships and emotions. The invisible disease comes with a great weight even if we can not see it.