Chronic pain illnesses

[SarahCourtney]

Hey ladies,

As some of you may know by my other thread, I have Lupus and Fibromyalgia.

Now, my Lupus isn't too bad at the moment but my Fibro has certainly played up for the last month and I know it's only going to get worse.

I have two questions for anyone else who suffers with chronic pain with any illness.

1) how did you find your pain during your pregnancy compared to your normal pain?

2) labour. Lol how did you find labour? My theory on why so many women talk about labour so traumatically is because they have never properly experienced intense pain for a prolonged period of time before they go in to labour. Does these mean people with chronic pain conditions are actually slightly better equips to deal with labour?
how did your past labours go? Did you cope quite well because you know how to deal with long episodes of agony or did you find it unbearable because you had labour pains as well as your usual chronic pain or even a particularly bad flare of the pain to deal with too?

Interested in people's responses.
Thanks ladies

 

[fao]

I think if you are used to pain, then your threshold for coping with pain is much higher. Labour is then totally copeable with minimal pain relief, esp if you can keep medical intervention to a minimum and aim for natural birth and mobile labour, working with your body not against it. That is my experience over 3 births.
My sister who has never been really ill in her life, goes to pieces when she gets a cold, stays in bed for a week expecting to be treated like an invalid. I on the other hand manage to look after my entire family and go to work, while having full blown flu!
What doesn't kill us makes us stronger, eh! You will manage better than you think, after all your body is well equipped to deal with pain. But do try and build your stamina with exercise during pregnancy, as labour is very tiring, and you can cope better if you are not exhausted too quickly.

 

[SarahCourtney]

Thank you so much fao
Really reassuring. I figured as much! Just didn't want to assume I'd cope better with labour than other people might because I figure it really could go either way! Lol

 

[fao]

You are welcome. Labour is not that bad at all! We are built for it.

I wonder if there are any support groups in your area that you could ask your midwife about? Or even a pregnancy yoga class or Pilates or Shiatsu massage. Something to help you stretch, feel well, build strength and stamina, meditate, relax, and manage pain? Might be worth a look. I read somewhere that fear of pain actually makes us tense up and feel more pain. Confidence, relaxing and positive attitude are a great recipe for good labour. Someone here recommended a hypnobirthing book, if that floats your boat.

Make sure you also talk about pain relief with your midwife or consultant and how your conditions are affected/affect your pregnancy.

 

[BunnyN]

I have Fibromyalgia and chronic back problems. I was quite worried about my health and pregnancy but it wasn't too bad except for really awful morning sickness until about 15 weeks. I was very surprised my back problems actually got better during pregnancy, which I put down to the pregnancy hormones helping to relax things. It got to be quite hard work towards the end, but nothing I couldn't handle. I really enjoyed the end of my pregnancy and being the size of a house. I did have to take it a little easy but you get used to coping with chronic problems and you know what you can do and when you need to rest. I have been worse, at times when I wasn't pregnant.

As for labour it was not as bad as I expected. It was very long, 38hrs in total. I think my body knew I needed to take it slow as my contractions were not very strong or regular. I was in a lot of pain but it wasn't the worst pain I've ever been in for two reasons: 1)It was not the most intense pain I've ever been in and even better, 2)it stops between contractions so I knew it wasn't going to last long which made it quite easy to cope with for me and I just took it one contraction at a time. There are a bunch of hormones rushing around your body which makes labour quite exhilarating as well which is quite different than chronic pain. There was only one period of about an hour (around the time of transition) that was harder because I had intense pressure on my lower back that didn't go away. As soon as I started pushing I felt a big relief from my back pain. It was still painful of course but felt more like hard physical work than pain. I found the exhaustion of a long labour harder than the pain I think. I took paracetamol to help me cope with the exhaustion and chronic pain and it worked really well for me. I didn't have any other drugs for the labour pains. On the whole labour was a great experience, chronic pain is not!

I think every labour is different and some people have a much harder time of it than others so it's hard to compare but I do think being used to pain helped me cope. Staying active was very important for me to cope with the pain. The few contractions I had laying on my back were so much worse, I would have found a whole labour of contractions like that way harder to cope with so I pity the women who end up on their backs for the whole labour, I might have found labour quite different if that was me.

 

[Saxelby88]

Hi Sarah.

I am going to keep my eye on this thread as I too have fibromyalgia. I have been wondering how I will cope with the pregnancy itself and also labour. I am not yet pregnant, and only in month 2 of trying, so hoping my fibro will behave. Currently not feeling too bad considering I am not medicated at the moment. I think all the BD is helping

Good luck xxx

 

[donnah]

Hi,

I have chronic pancreatitis and I am currently 12 weeks pregnant. Since being pregnant the number of attacks I have had have increased (3 in the last 5 weeks). I am currently off work following my most recent attack last week, having started the job only 3 weeks ago they are not impressed which is making everything more stressful I usualy have morphine when I have an attack, now I can only take paracetamol which doesn't touch the pain. I saw the obstetrician yesterday and he has said I can also take codeine if I need to and tramadol if I really need to - I think I will try to avoid tramadol to be honest. What pain relief do others take?

Thanks

 

[SarahCourtney]

Hi,

I have chronic pancreatitis and I am currently 12 weeks pregnant. Since being pregnant the number of attacks I have had have increased (3 in the last 5 weeks). I am currently off work following my most recent attack last week, having started the job only 3 weeks ago they are not impressed which is making everything more stressful I usualy have morphine when I have an attack, now I can only take paracetamol which doesn't touch the pain. I saw the obstetrician yesterday and he has said I can also take codeine if I need to and tramadol if I really need to - I think I will try to avoid tramadol to be honest. What pain relief do others take?

Thanks

I take CoDydramol if i HAVE to when I get my migraines (otherwise they get so bad I can't eat and that's not good for baby). I also take Diazepam when my spasm pain gets really bad but, again, that's last resort stuff even though my consultant has said I can take them as needed.

 

[ema-lou24]

Hi I suffer cronic back pain.
My lower discs no longer exist so it just grinding I also have sciatics along with a couple slipped discs.
Im only 7weeks gone and after a long phone call with my GP and pain clinic consultant they are happy for me to stay on dihydracodiene, oxynorm and duluxitine as well as my lidocain patches.
When im roughly 7months they will bring me in and review things and see what route to take. But I know I have to come off pretty much everything at least 2 weeks before LO born.

Cant say im too keen for that but I know its best for baby. I hate havig to take tablets I fear im harming my baby. Ive also been informed im on top of list for acupuncture, is this safe in pregnancy? X

 

[SarahCourtney]

Acupuncture isn't only safe during pregnancy but meant to be very good for you! The pins go in a matter of millimetres and won't hurt baby or anything like that. Never had it in pregnancy but had it a few years ago for my back pain and it was amazing!