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I cannot say it has been easy to deal with, but it was easier to manage until I began to experience intense pain in the last five years.
At that time, my MS affected the trigeminal nerve.
This is referred to as 'the suicide illness,' because of unremitting intense pain.
It can be intensified by drinking water, eating or smiling.
The only solution has been a brain surgery, which I underwent four years ago.
Once that pain was relieved, more manageable pains emerged that had been hidden by the more intense pain.
I use myself as an example because I want to talk about the patient's role in dealing with intense pain.
When we say 'I am sick,' there does not seem to be any distance between you and your illness.
It is like you are attached to it or you embrace it.
It is hard to change anything you identify with; it is hard to wash the floor you are standing on.
The truth is, you are not your pain.
You are the consciousness that experiences the pain.
This may sound like a trivial difference, but when you identify with consciousness, you can separate yourself from the pain.
Even though there is intense pain, the experience of consciousness can feel like inner peace.
It is very helpful to experience pain from that depth because, with a superficial experience of pain, you have a hard time dealing with it.
A common question is 'how do you experience consciousness?' Consciousness is not something you can see or capture in thought.
It is what listens to your thoughts.
We give life to whatever we breathe into.
We normally breathe into our thoughts, which seems to give them life.
If we were able to breathe into silence, which is beyond the level of thinking and surrender there, we can experience an inner peace.
That is how I can separate myself from what I perceive.
I am not the pain: I am the consciousness that experiences the pain.
To create separation from the pain instead of embracing it, have a conscious breath between you and pain.
It is normal to have pain affect the way you breathe.
The Latin word for worry, which pain often causes, is 'choke.
' When you do not have a full breath, you have a shallow breath.
In a way, it is like someone choking you.
Separation allows you to be creative in how you deal with pain.
E.
g.
, I experience intense pain behind my left eye and go to a doctor to get a procedure called a sphenocath.
This is where they stick a device up my nose and spray something to freeze the area of the pain.
I often have a hard time swallowing and if I have saliva, it is easier to swallow.
I suck a lozenge/soft mint and chew it.
It gets soft and sticks between my teeth, allowing me to salivate a mint flavor.
This counteracts the terrible taste of the medication.
I am not recommending this as a treatment; I am presenting this as an example of a creative way of dealing with pain.
The above article does not take the pain away; it just is a better way of perceiving it.
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