
[When the idea of a Courage Award was introduced on the boards it was proposed as an award to go to "members who are showing great strength & courage during a very difficult time". The FIRST person to pop into my mind was ICLori. This woman has been through so many trials with IC - over and over, but she is like a bobber on a fishing line, dunks under and pops right back up! Again and again no matter what life throws at her she moves forward. The super extra special thing about her is that she continues ALWAYS to post a million times more often in support of others than about what she is facing. If I could give her 20 Courage Awards I would. You deserve it, Lori.

Dr. B. and I were talking today in our session about why the diagnosis of "chronic pain with psychological factors" bothers me. It's true that I have chronic pain due to IC, and it's true that this pain, when untreated, causes me psychological distress. This would be true of any person with this disease.
Today I ran across an article talking about how undertreated chronic pain (cancer pain, etc.) is in our society, and the barriers to getting effective treatment - in other words, why we undertreat and ignore and stigmatize chronic pain.
The article posed the question - if chronic pain is a physical thing, with real measurable physical changes in the body and in the nervous system - then why do we treat it as a characterological disease?
I think the article really hit the nail on the head as to why I am uncomfortable with this diagnosis. I have to wonder, why is chronic pain considered a psychological diagnosis at all? I have been reassured over and over again that my therapist and my urogyn both believe I do have IC, and they do believe I am experiencing the pain from the disease.
My therapist believes that with psychological treatment, I will experience less pain, but I am doubtful of that. My belief at this point is that my pain is completely physical in origin, and that the stress I am feeling from the pain would be felt by any person in untreated pain.
We do both agree that my pain needs to be managed with medication, however, so at least we agree on that. We are all on the same sheet of music there. So that's a relief. And I found out today, too, that my psychiatrist is not going to be managing my pain - rather, she is going to be sending me to someone else. I don't know who. I am a little bit anxious about this, as I fear a bad result from pain management, as I have read many others have had bad results, and I myself had a bad experience once. I am trying to be hopeful, but to be honest, I am feeling more anxiety about this than hope.
On a positive note, my husband has agreed to go with me, to be my advocate, and to help me find another doctor outside the network should this doctor fail to adequately address my pain. He's also willing to go back to the urogyn and petition for adequate pain relief there.
Anyway, I just realized today what bugs me exactly about all of this - what bugs me is that our society does not seem to think of us as having a terrible disease that causes ongoing pain. Our society instead sees us as having a psychological disorder, or a character flaw.
Discussion?
Blessings,
Lori
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