Suffering Stoically Is Not Noble Or Wise

Vanities, vanities.

Just when you think you’re most noble, you discover you’re merely a fool. So it was when I wrote recently of my experience with surgery and pain.

Stoically, I related my decision to tolerate pain and discontinue my pain medication lest I become addicted. Humbly, I noted the superior suffering of others, implying the greater grandeur of human spirit that accompanies greater pain.

With utter surprise, I received criticism of my faux reasoning. Along with hundreds of e-mails from fellow sufferers, I heard from nurses and other medical professionals who specialize in pain management.

I was wrong, they said. So wrong, in fact, that I’m revisiting the subject lest others repeat my mistakes. Chief among them was my quitting pain medication before I was ready.

Like most Americans, I have lived under the false impression that suffering is somehow noble in and of itself. Our culture is stoic. Why else, when a football player breaks his leg and walks off the field, does everyone clap? Please. Get that man a stretcher and some morphine.

To be sure, suffering enlightens. You see things in new ways and, as in my case, discover a depth of compassion that may not be possible otherwise.

On the other hand, too much suffering is bad for you. Mismanaged acute pain can become chronic pain.

My mentor in this matter is a nurse and assistant professor named Joan Wentz, with whom I spoke by phone after she contacted me by e-mail. Wentz teaches pain management courses at Jewish Hospital College of Nursing and Allied Health in St. Louis.

Her message to me and to all others in pain is simply this: You need not suffer; pain is not good (hear, hear); take your medicine. You will not become addicted.

I said in my original column that I stopped my pain medication because I feared addiction. Indeed, when I abruptly stopped taking Percocet, I suffered certain symptoms that caused me to believe I was becoming addicted.

Wrong.

My body had developed a degree of physical dependence, which is anticipated with certain drugs, but I was not addicted.

Only people who take pain pills in the absence of pain are at risk of addiction. Fewer than 1 percent of people who take pain medication for pain become addicted, according to Wentz. She cited a study of 10,000 burn patients, not one of whom became addicted to their medication.

Acknowledging pain, meanwhile, does not make you a wimp. Pain is real; pain is awful.

Many people, like me, don’t want to be a bother, don’t want to complain. Forget that word. Medical people like Wentz only use the phrase, “report pain.” And we don’t take narcotics - a bad word associated with criminals and abusers. We take opioids. Learn those words.

Wentz urges all patients to demand adequate pain management. Only you know how much pain you’re in. Tell your doctor how you feel. Make sure you’re receiving the proper pain medication. Keep trying medications until you find the one that works for you.

Pain management doesn’t necessarily mean pain elimination, Wentz says.

It more likely means noticeable but not bothersome pain. To understand how much pain you’re experiencing, doctors often ask patients to assign a numerical value between 1 and 10, with 10 being the worst. But that’s an unfair scale because it doesn’t give enough information, Wentz says.

Here’s how you gauge: If you sleep undisturbed for six to eight hours, that’s a zero. If you wake up after three to four hours, that’s a five. If you wake up every hour, that’s a 10.

Five weeks after surgery, I’m still hovering somewhere in the middle range. Which is to say, I’ve stopped my foolish ways and am back on the pain pills. I hope you are, too.