September is Pain Awareness Month, a “time when various organizations work to raise public awareness of issues in the area of pain and pain management.” 

Have you ever seen that 1-10 pain scale? The one doctors show you, with a range of facial expressions? 

I don’t like that scale. And I don’t like being asked to rate my pain. 

I remember a visit to a pain management doctor. During the intake, the nurse asked me to rate my pain, right then in that moment. I refused. 

I’m usually a very compliant patient, obedient and direction-following.

But, let’s face it. After 10 years of living with my autoimmune disease, I’ve gotten really good at pushing through the pain. I have to. As a result, my pain scale most likely doesn’t look the same as yours. What I now consider a 6, my husband would probably classify as a 10. 

Here’s what I can tell you about my pain. It fluctuates. And not just day-to-day. Sometimes hour-to-hour, even minute-to-minute.

In the interest of pain awareness, I thought I’d share just a bit of what my pain is like.

–   Sometimes, my left calf is tight. That tight feeling you get before, during, and after a muscle cramp. Except my tightness lingers. For hours.

–  Sometimes I don’t have pain. I have a general heaviness. My now twelve-year-old son and I used to play “squish” when he was younger. It was a wrestling-type game that happened either on the floor or on my bed. We’d tickle, but generally he would end up “squishing” me – pinning me with his body. That’s how I feel. Like I’m walking around, cooking dinner, watering my plants, and I have an invisible child strapped across my legs, weighing me down.

–  Sometimes I have a throbbing pain. You know that pain you get when you’ve bumped into the sharp corner of a table? You can’t see a bruise, but the area is sore and sensitive and just hurts.

–  Sometimes I just hurt. Like I’ve been pricked with needles (and I have been, so I know what it feels like). My calf is sensitive, and I have to roll up my pants so the fabric doesn’t touch my skin.

–  Sometimes the pain is rocking-back-and-forth, pulling-at-my-hair kind of pain. Sometimes it just randomly hits. Sometimes I know it’s coming. My calf muscle may begin twitching. On certain occasions, I can even see it moving. It makes me think of when I was pregnant, and my husband and I would joyously watch my stomach move when our son would turn or stretch. There is nothing joyous about this though.

–  Sometimes my leg feels twisted somehow. As if someone took my muscle and twisted it, the way you wring out a washcloth. And simple things, like bending to pull something off the bottom shelf of the fridge, or bending down to pick up the mail off the floor, or standing on my toes to reach the colander from the shelf in the kitchen, aren’t so simple for me to do.

And I could go on. 

I don’t want pity. Don’t feel sorry for me. 

Feel compassion and kindness and patience for everyone you encounter. Because you never really know someone else’s pain.