I live on the outskirts of a large city. I had an appt with my endocrinologist yesterday. His office is located in one of First Hill (or colloquially refered to as 'pill hill' medical office towers as part of one of the large downtown hospitals. this view taken from his waiting room looking out over downtown towards Puget Sound. Alki is the land seen across the sound with Bainbridge Island in the hazy distance.
Today my doctor asked me to write about 'unacknowledged pain'. I have a chronic non-trivial upper back condition. I've had it a long time and I know how difficult and painful it can be if my back gets stressed, overused and consequently inflamed. I keep it under control by restricting activities that aggravate it (hey, who misses mowing the lawn, raking leaves or vacuuming), some small amounts of painkillers, pool exercise and, most importantly cranial-sacral treatment. I don't expect it ever to be 'cured' but can keep it from interfering overly in my life.
I made up the term 'unacknowledged pain', times when you are in pain but don't really know or acknowledge it. Specifically sometimes at night, I will wake up uncomfortable on my stomach or with my hand asleep from cradling my head. I know it's because somehow I haven't been able to sleep soundly on my back. Though the pain has not kept me awake, my body has reacted to the pain and discomfort from my regular sleeping habits and I end up in these uncomfortable positions. The pain is there, I am not consciously acknowledging the pain but it's still present. If I up the painkiller medication for awhile, this resolves.
So my efforts to not take the painkiller do not serve me well.
1 comment:
I like this idea of unachknowledged pain. It's an interesting causal thing: that we can react to a pain we are not aware of, that we can cause ourselves more pain by ignoring other pain. It's a cool idea.
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