“Where does it hurt?” and “Can you describe the pain?” seem simple enough questions, but to provide a succinct and objective response consistently evades me. The quiet, pensive, patient expressions on the faces of orthopaedic consultants makes me feel that maybe I haven’t said it right, perhaps have been misunderstood, probably that I haven’t described it sufficiently clearly, and I start to feel nervous, slightly desperate, and persevere by rambling on in an unhelpful or confusing manner.
Describing osteoarthritic symptoms and pain accurately is possibly as challenging as managing the condition itself, and trying to describe both the location and type of pain is quite tricky. The easiest type of pain to describe are the ‘full-blown arthritic burns’, as I will call them in this post (I do have another name for them, which is unsuitable for the public domain). These are nasty beasts which often come suddenly without warning, a tear-jerkingly awful but brief sharp burning sensation in a small and specific area, in my case, usually inside my knee cap or hip; the burning is often a response to specific weight-bearing actions, for example, a sudden high impact movement or using steps or stairs. On days when I’m especially unlucky, they come in clusters. Other types of pain include aches in varying degrees of intensity, but their location is always vague; the aches I experience are usually in the lower part of my legs and ankles, but they feel very deep inside my body far away from the skin, perhaps on the surface or even inside the bone. I find these aches the most psychologically disturbing of my symptoms, they usually last for hours and there is something very dark and creepy about them; they bring with them a real coldness which feels as if the life is very slowly draining out of that particular part of my body. Other common symptoms include an intense soreness or tenderness in specific areas of the body and problems with stiffness; the most difficult time for managing these is usually immediately on waking up, the physical difficulties of actually getting out of bed is often the most challenging and painful part of the day for many people with arthritic conditions.
So, here I am, back in Human Guinea Pig mode and ready to launch into my next ‘investigation’ on myself. Previously, I used a word-cloud programme to take a look at issues relating to osteoarthritis and mental health. Today, I am in the early stages of Investigation 2, testing out a possible way to explain my pain and where it occurs, so that I am fully armed with the necessary information for when I next attend my consultant appointment.
I’m a simple soul who likes pictures to convey potentially complex information. The intention here is to use a visual to record where pain occurs, with additional notes where necessary; I intend to record this for at least a week. My decision to do this is for my own clarity as much as that of my consultant because, rather embarrassingly, since our last meeting, the pain I am experiencing has actually moved, and continues to move to other parts of my body on a regular basis. The ‘plan of action’ discussed some months ago was to investigate further degenerative change and the possibility of nerve damage or trapped nerves, so the fact that the pain is moving about will either support this investigative route, or alternatively could blow it to smithereens and we’ll have to look at other possibilities.
I really like beautiful images, so although drawing a stick-man would suffice for this task, I opted for something far better. The Vitruvian Man. If there is one image in the history of art which really celebrates the perfection of the human form, this is it: the incredible mathematical and relative proportions brilliantly observed and recorded, the geometry, the symmetry, the perfection of design, the beautiful drawing quality itself, the inherent strength and power of the figure, it is gobsmacking stuff! Unfortunately, I will be defacing this image to record the location of my pain – something which I am a bit uncomfortable with (no pun intended) – but am hoping that perhaps the markings will reveal patterns of pain: perhaps some consistencies in the pain, repeated locations of certain types of pain, or maybe patterns relating to a nerve path?
Regardless of the outcome, Da Vinci’s contribution to this is very much appreciated and actually provided me with enough motivation to get this moving, as did Botticelli’s Venus. My consultant appointment is a couple of weeks away, and I am looking forward to presenting him with these and several other pages of legendary art figures – but I suspect that the irony may be lost on him…
Update:
I’ve been recording pain experienced in this way for 6 days now, and the visual below is the result. Hardly what could be described as empirical evidence, but I think it’s an interesting and worthwhile task. What strikes me most is the actual amount of pain I am experiencing at the moment, and by recording it using a static image has surprised me at how much of my body is affected by it. Having said that, what these images don’t record is the intensity or duration of the pain; the lower back pain recorded in every picture is extremely uncomfortable and is my constant companion – it never stops. However, the pain in my legs are cold aches which fade after several hours, and the burning pains are unpleasant but of short duration. I also experienced the excruciating pain of a trapped nerve twice during this period, and some of these images would suggest that at least some of the pain could be following a ‘nerve pathway’. The images are misleading in their implication that I experience all this pain at all times, and that is certainly not the case – the images record what I experienced within a 24 hour period, with some pain being less acute or more fleeting than others. My consultant appointment is fast-approaching and, based on these visuals, I am fully expecting the result of my recent MRI scan to reveal continuing arthritic degeneration alongside nerve damage.
Bare Bones 