Faking it!

“Those with chronic illnesses are not faking being sick; they are faking being well.”

This statement is possibly the perfect description of my life living with a chronic and invisible illness.

It was made by Toniele Williams in an article she wrote for SBS, about her experience with chronic pain and fatigue.

Here is the article https://www.sbs.com.au/news/insight/twenty-two-and-living-with-arthritis-turning-on-the-tap-is-pain

I identified with what the writer was saying, for me the fatigue can be so bad I sleep for two days straight. But when I am up and about, I fake being ok because I dont want my pain to be my identity. I am still in pain and exhausted. Its just I have learnt not to let it show.

I thought this was worth sharing. I hope you are all well and pain free. Xx

Color The World Orange: ADELAIDE: Nov 6, 2017

November 6th 2017 was the 3rd COLOUR THE WORLD ORANGE day across the globe, Adelaide celebrated by lighting Adelaide Oval, the Torrens Footbridge, the Riverbank Precinct and  the Rundle Lantern in orange for the first time. According to the CTWO website Adelaide joined “Forty-nine buildings, bridges and landmarks in four countries, including Niagara Falls and the fountains in Trafalgar Square in London”

Adelaide Oval and Torrens Footbridge lit in Orange for the first time.

As well as the lighting up of iconic Adelaide landmarks, Adelaide also hosted the first information event of its kind in Australia with the aim of creating awareness within the medical and research fields. The event was titled…

CRPS Mechanisms & Management:

What’s in fashion now? 

Dr Valleria Bellan

Prof Lorimer Moseley

This event was a great opportunity for Members of the medical field to learn what it is like for those of us with CRPS and this was recognised by the organisers. Members of the CRPS South Australia Facebook group were invited to participate in the night by giving a 5 minute talk on what it is like to live with CPRS. I was happy to be one of the five who took on this challenge (It was a big challenge for me). Although only four of us were able to be there in the end, (that’s CRPS for you) we all explored different areas of living with the condition, but there were a lot of similarities.

Of course there were also talks by the Professionals. Prof Lorimer Moseley spoke of the new findings in CRPS research, Dr Velleria Bellan who was the instigator of the event(thank you) spoke of her research in Untangling visual and proprioceptive contributions to hand localisation over time. Also Dr Meredith Craigie spoke of her experience of being both a parent of a child with CRPS and also practising in pain medication and treating CRPS patients such as myself.

Overall the night was a huge success with over 200 people from both research and medical fields, Students and also other sufferers from the CRPS South Australia group. Possibly the best bit of the night was the food and wine supplied and also a GELATO CART!!! Yep that’s right, the event was supplied with a Gelato Cart with all orange colored gelato. YUM!!

A big thank you to the organisers and sponsors of this fantastic event and I look forwards to next years event.

 

 

 

IN THE MEDIA: Chronic Pain, 7.30 South Australia

“It is a common condition, patients suffer from it, doctors treat it but Medicare doesn’t acknowledge it. It’s chronic pain. But what causes it and why do traditional drugs seem to have little effect?”

This is the introduction to a news story that was shown on our state edition of the Current Affairs program 7.40. Its really exciting that this show has done a few stories on Chronic Pain already this year and although not exactly about CRPS, It still relates back to the treatments and the health system that I and many other Australians rely on.

I posted about the first story here. Australia’s Pain Epidemic

This story by Mike Sexton and shown on 7.30 South Australia, on Fri, 21 Feb, 2014.  Duration: 6min 13sec. It starts as stated above and then leads into some horrifying, yet unsurprising statistics that Medicare (Australia) has found that up to 5% of patients in Gp’s clinics are seeking relief from Chronic Pain. It again mentioned that most Australian’s suffering from Chronic Pain wait 2-3 years for a placement in a pain treatment facility. This leads to Gp’s prescribing more and more opioid pain Medications and leads to dependency. Clearly there is a cycle here that must be broken.  I’m hoping that the Website will post a manuscript to this story as it has done in the past so that I can post it.

One exciting thing bit of information that I learnt from the story is of a local research project happening right here in South Australia at the Bionomics Facilities in Hindmarsh, is a focus on Ion channels and their role in Chronic Pain. The story went on to report of an investment of 170 million dollars (Aust)  being made into this study by Merck & Co. That is pretty exciting really. I went onto the Bionomics Website and found the following:

“Bionomics has entered into a collaboration with Merck & Co. to develop a novel oral treatment for chronic pain. Chronic pain is a severely debilitating condition with a large unmet medical need. Current analgesic medications which include anti-epileptics, anti-arrhythmics, opioids, NSAID’s and anti-depressants, are either ineffective, associated with a range of dose limiting side effects or have the potential for abuse and addiction. Our novel treatment which is expected to deliver greater efficacy and safety than existing pain medications is directed towards an undisclosed target that has been strongly linked to chronic pain in humans.”

www.bionomics.com.au/research-development/pipeline/cns-central-nervous-system

Well Im off to investigate further and see what else I can learn about this trial and even if I can participate in any way. 🙂