I'm told that I am a classic AS case and yet I often wonder if there is more to the story?
My hands and elbows are generally the worst problem areas but the lower back never fails to remind me that he is the "King of Pain" at least two times each day.
The whole body involvement isn't very typical of AS it seems and the fact that I do not feel better after exercising gives me pause as well. Any exertion turns me pale, sweaty and nauseous requiring me to pass out for a couple of hours or more.
It seems that with the HLA B27+, the history of lower back pain and X-Rays that show degeneration and fusion, the bone spurs on the vertebrae and the UC lead all the doctors to conclude that I have AS but it stops there. I'm convinced there is more going on than anyone realizes at this point.
The fact that no amount of morphine helps me out (I've taken up to five times the prescribed dosage AND even tried chewing up the pills with NO effect whatsoever) plus my resistance to every biologic I've tried (Remicade is up to 600mg and soon to be administered every six weeks) really makes me wonder.
Each day brings more pain and a greater tendency to retreat from the world. It astonishes me that a human being can endure this kind of life...I never would have believed it four years ago. I would have thought that a person would lose their mind completely and the body would simply give up on itself but it seems this isn't the case. That, or I'm just a big wuss whining about nothing at all?
My friend once told me about a documentary he saw about a man who suffered from some sort of chronic pain condition who had become involved in the whole BDSM lifestyle. He apparently associated pain with love due to his early childhood. I can't recall the name of this documentary (neither can my friend) but I have begun to wonder about pain addiction.
This whole post has come off the rails and should be a thread of its own but I'm on a roll...
Do you think we can become addicted to the pain? I say this because I find myself doing things subconsciously to cause myself pain. When I'm watching a movie or something, I have found that I will poke and prod myself in nerve points which gives me a considerable amount of pain and suffering and yet, even once I become conscious of this activity, I keep doing it? And it is somehow comforting as if I need to maintain a certain level of pain? At night, I often claw at myself and wake up bleeding.
I wonder if any of this makes sense to anyone? Surely I cannot be the only person doing this.
Is it possible that the mind's way of coping with this relentless assault is to become addicted to the pain? This isn't something I have discussed with my doctors since most of these ideas just coalesced into conscious thoughts as I wrote this post...it has got me thinking though.
Trying to keep it all together,
Chris
