What is it like to live with chronic pain?

By Sean McAllister

Chronic pain is typically classed as pain that lasts for over three months. But Zurich UK employee Rebecca Weare has suffered with it for far longer.

“I’ve had pain every minute of every day for the last 11 years,” says the 24-year-old Rebecca.

She has a constant a pain in the center of her stomach. At times it is bearable, but the pain can spike and become totally debilitating. Rebecca is in pain as we speak, but she has developed a high pain threshold and coping mechanisms that allow her, in her own words, “to get used to it.”

The pain began when Rebecca was 14. “I had gone to sleep not in pain. But I woke up with a stomachache that was bad enough to keep me out of school. I thought I had a bug or had eaten something and that it would go away in a few days.”

But it didn’t. For three months Rebecca was off school and was confined to either lying in bed or on the sofa. “The doctors prescribed me different drugs, none of which had any effect. I had ultrasounds, blood tests, endoscopies and was on food exclusion diets. My mum was desperate and took me to various alternative treatments like hypnotherapy and Reiki. But after a year, the doctors were like: ‘We don’t know what it is. There’s nothing physically wrong with you and there’s nothing showing up in the tests.’ Within months the doctors went from ‘we want to cure the pain’ to ‘we want you to live with the pain.’”

Rebecca eventually returned to school, but she found the constant pain exhausting. “I used to be sporty,” she says. “Hockey, trampolining, sailing, cross-country running. All that stopped because everything became a massive effort as my energies were being sucked away by the pain.”

The burden of chronic pain

Chronic pain is one of the most common reasons adults seek medical care. In the U.S., for example, about?one-in-five adults have chronic pain and 7.4 percent have high-impact chronic pain, described as pain that frequently limits life or work activities. In the U.S., chronic pain is a major cause of opioid dependence and poor mental health. It is also particularly common and problematic in older adults. But Rebecca is just 24 and looks like a healthy, young adult – proving that appearances can be deceptive.

Typically, the first step with chronic pain is to find and treat the cause. Chronic pain may have an obvious cause, such as arthritis or cancer. But when the cause cannot be pinpointed, then the most effective approach is a combination of medications, therapies and lifestyle changes.

Sadly, Rebecca has been unable to identify the cause of her pain. “It’s really frustrating,” she says. “After two years of weekly appointments with at least half a dozen different specialists I never got a diagnosis, a treatment plan or a name for my condition. I have just spent the last nine years dealing with it myself.”

The pain initially caused Rebecca’s mental health to deteriorate. “I was extremely anxious and on the verge of depression. I could have easily become suicidal, and I’m very fortunate that didn’t happen."

Read the full story here, and learn about the one treatment has helped Rebecca with her mental health and subsequently her stomach pain.