Living with Chronic Pain

    Before my 18th birthday, I had seen 3 therapists, 4 psychologists, and 9 doctors. I had 3 procedures and tried more medicines than I can remember.

    I can recall the exact day my chronic pain began. It was November 2nd, 2016, and I thought I was having a heart attack. I remember almost passing out in my bed, waiting for an eternity in the emergency room, and all of my tests coming back with no answers. In the end, it was a simple blood test that shined some light on what was going on inside of my body. The test showed that I had an abnormally high level of C-reactive protein, which meant I was fighting inflammation somewhere internally. When this test result came in, my doctors finally gave me a diagnosis of costochondritis. 

    Costochondritis is essentially chest pain with no apparent cause. It usually occurs in children and teenagers and most grow out of it within a few weeks, but there are the unlucky few whose pain stays. My costochondritis diagnosis lasted for three years. I had just turned 15 when my inflammation went away, but I was still experiencing the pain. Even though my body was physically better, my brain was not on the same page. It kept sending out pain signals because after three years it had gotten so used to doing so. Because there is no longer a physical cause, the pain has now linked itself to my mood and anxiety. When I’m stressed or anxious or depressed, the pain gets worse, which isn’t good when my genetics make it so I can’t make enough serotonin, the chemical that is in charge of depression. My brain had become my own worst enemy.

    Finding out that the inflammation was gone was heartbreaking. For three years, I had lived on anti-inflammatory medicines and diets, and I had been told that when the inflammation went away, so would the pain. There are no words to express how broken and depressed I felt when that was no longer the case. I got angry at myself and the world. I refused any new medicines or treatments because I had wasted so much of my life bouncing from doctor to doctor, just trying to feel normal again. 

    Eventually, I started trying new medicines again, but these were aimed towards improving my mental state. My doctors thought that if I could get my anxiety and depression - the two things that worsened the pain the most - under control then maybe my pain would get more manageable or even disappear entirely. It took 8 months to find the right medicine and then COVID-19 hit. 

The pandemic hasn’t changed much for me. My pain had already kept me housebound, the only difference was that now my friends were stuck in their homes too. They finally got to see a sliver of what the previous four years had been like for me. It might seem weird, but I was happy they had to stay home because it meant they weren’t out having fun without me like in previous years. 

Last summer, I tried a new procedure. Its goal was to burn the nerves in my ribs that were transmitting the pain signals and force my brain to reboot. It was temporarily successful, but eventually, the nerves healed and the pain was back, but at a lower intensity. I still have the pain, but there are fewer intolerable days. I still can’t wear a bra regularly, and I need to take more time for myself to make sure my anxiety doesn’t reach extreme levels since it could trigger a pain flare-up, but I’m doing better. 

I wish I could say there was some magical cure that made my chronic pain disappear, but there wasn’t and there still isn’t. I still struggle with it and some days are worse than others. But managing my depression and anxiety has helped tremendously, and learning to not overwork myself and get too stressed has been key. In the last year, my battle with my pain has moved to the neurological side of things. The pain is no longer caused by my body, but by my brain. I’ve had to learn to take care of my brain to keep my pain in control. It’s been a long and slow journey, but I’m just taking it day by day, and maybe someday, I will have a pain-free life again.

Links for people who want to learn more about inflammation and costochondritis:
https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/encyclopedia/content.aspx?contenttypeid=167&contentid=c_reactive_protein_serum#:~:text=The%20C%2Dreactive%20protein%20(CRP,of%20CRP%20in%20your%20blood.
https://www.webmd.com/arthritis/about-inflammation
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/costochondritis/symptoms-causes/syc-20371175
https://www.healthline.com/health/costochondritis

I hope you all enjoyed reading this article!
Sydney

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Sydney