Learning to live with chronic pain can be frustrating, exhausting, exasperating and heartbreaking, for patients as well as their relational partners and families.
The person with pain may not feel supported and harbors extreme guilt about not contributing to his or her relationship. The other half of the couple might openly question severity of illness. Even the most sensitive partners are weighed down at times.
Going from participating to feeling like a burden, the pain sufferer in a couple may not be able to work, help around the house, take care of children, run errands, go on vacation, spend time with friends, or engage in many of the other activities of his or her former life. The healthy partner may have to provide care, pick up the slack at home and with friends, and support the family financially.
Add to these factors short tempers arising from stress and even the happiest relationships are strained.
Chronic Pain and the Family, by Julie K. Silver, MD, explores the issues facing couples (as well as children and extended family) who have to deal with one person's illness. The author offers suggestions for each person in the couple to repair the relationship. She shares many additional sources to help couples.
The book also explains the debility associated with chronic pain and the havoc it wreaks on people in pain. For all pain sufferers who lament, "My husband/wife/boyfriend/girlfriend doesn't understand what I'm going through" — and their partners — this is a great place to start improving your relationship.
ed/Pub:NB
Article comments
1 - alpha
Exquisite headaches. Old friends that remind one of their mortality. But they can be more. Sadly the medical profession ignored them too long: tension, "female problems", too much studying...ad nauseum.
My chronic pain now comes from congestive heart failure, rhythm problems, chronic angina. BUT the heart attack that started it all was preceeded by a two week blinding headach. And why bother with a physician? They had been ignoring them since I carried my Darvon in a little foil package to school everyday as a 4th grader. It was "just a headache" after all. Could it have indicated vascular problems? Interesting question.
Time for more studies and more seriousness in medical diagnoses. Time for "just a headache" to be taken seriously. Good for you for publishing your blog.
2 - James
This disease is painful and people suffering from it suffers greatly by the constant pain caused by taking medications that are opioids narcotics such as Codeine, Lortab, Vicodin, hydrocodone, which are very effective in suppressing the pain that causes the disease, we hope that people care and know findrxonline adequately informed as well as notes on your site.