Help My Hurt

Chronic pain + poverty = sad quality of life

by Marijke Durning, RN on October 15th, 2008

Today is Blog Action Day - a day when bloggers from all over the world unite and blog about the same topic in order to raise awareness and hope that people will take action to help change the world for the better. How many blogs are taking part? According to the Blog Action home page, 9,374 sites are participating. Actions against poverty don’t have to be major or costly - the smallest gesture can sometimes make the largest impression.

How does poverty affect people who live with pain?

People who live with chronic pain and who live in poverty are hit with a double whammy. It can be hard enough to manage chronic pain if you have the appropriate resources - it’s much more difficult if you’re fighting to survive at the same time. And, it frequently happens that chronic pain causes poverty. Thus starts the vicious cycle that becomes almost too difficult to break.

Look at the developed countries, so many people are living from paycheck to paycheck. As long as nothing goes wrong, life goes on. But, if something does go wrong, the tightrope they walk can snap and they spiral down into poverty.

When someone has chronic pain, it can affect their ability to make a living. At first, they may miss work more often than they used to. They may be unable to perform the tasks that are required and eventually, they either quit or they lose their job. Finding a new job when you’re living with chronic pain isn’t easy. Whether you are taking such heavy duty medications that you may not be able to work effectively or you can’t work effectively because the pain is too intense, this takes a big toll  on what you can do. If you’re lucky enough to find a job, keeping it may be tougher than you imagined.

Not working, not bringing in an income has different effects. The most obvious is the inability to pay for treatments or medications. Even if the health care is affordable or “free,” you may not be able to afford the transportation to go to your appointments. As you don’t get the care you need, the pain gets worse.

Another issue that comes with not working is often depression. People who lived through their work, who identified themselves by the work they did, no longer have that part of their life. As they sit at home, they can become depressed and focus on their pain, making it worse. This can, in turn, turn away family and friends who are trying to help or who can’t understand what it’s like to live in constant pain.

That’s a glimpse of poverty in the developed countries - but if we look at the developing countries, the poorer “have not” countries, poverty and pain means even more suffering. Poverty causes more suffering than any person should ever experience because much pain is caused because of poverty. In more developed countries, people can be diagnosed with illnesses like cancer often while it’s still treatable. If the disease progresses, medications and treatments are available to help make life more comfortable in the final days. But, in poor countries, people don’t have the luxury of early diagnosis and often, by the time it’s been discovered that they have cancer or AIDS, or any other illness, it’s beyond treatable and the end is in sight. Without the money for pain medications, their life is cut painfully short - pun  not intended.

Relief of pain is not a privilege - it’s a right. No matter what your socioeconomic status, no matter what your country, you should be able to obtain relief from your pain through proper management.

Palliative care: “Every human being should be entitled to relief from pain”

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Blog Action Day 2008

Tags: chronic pain blog, pain blog, blog action day 2008, palliative care, pain and poverty, poverty

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POSTED IN: Chronic Pain