It Felt Like Acid Going Down My Shoulder

When Judy Foreman began experiencing extremeneck pain, doctors told her it was all in her head. After months of seeking treatment, the health reporter realized that her story wasn’t unique. Countless others were going through the same thing.

Foreman has since researched and written a book called A Nation in Pain, which chronicles the average American'sjourney through chronic pain. Judy Foreman is a nationally syndicated medical journalist and was a staff writer at The Boston Globe for 23 years.

Everyday Health interviewed Foreman about her new book and her views onpain management. Here are her responses.

Everyday Health: What made you decide to write a book about chronic pain?

Judy Foreman:In 2008, this horrific neck pain came on – seemingly out of the blue. I had the pain for eight months. There was no precipitating event. The only thing I could figure was that I had bad posture from hunching over my laptop.

It felt like acid going down my shoulder. I also had a lot of spasms, and they hurt, too. I’ve been through childbirth, and that hurts, but you know it’s going to be over. Chronic pain is totally different.

Like every other pain patient, I went from doctor to doctor and was essentially told that my pain was all in my head. It finally turned out that I had a condition calledspondylolisthesis. I also have arthritis in my neck and bone spurs – little jagged pieces of bone that can hit your nerves.

It was horrendous. Even minor touch felt like excruciating pain. If you stroke your arm with a feather it feels like a blow torch. I went to a physical therapist, and she just touched my neck to start therapy, and I burst into tears. It was agonizing.

I was writing my column for the Boston Globe, and I wrote about having to go to a bunch of different doctors and the troubles I had with the medical system, and I got a huge response. People called up and poured their hearts out. It was unmistakable that I’d stumbled upon a big thing. I thought, 'Maybe there’s a book in this.'

EH: What is it like living with chronic pain?

JF:Chronic pain destroys your life. It takes over your life.

At the time I was doing a radio talk show, a live call-in show, and I had to wear these fancy headphones. They couldn’t have weighed more than 8 ounces, and the extra weight was excruciating. Getting through that show was horrible.

Going out to eat was hard because often the chair in the restaurant was too low relative to the table. Going to the movies was agony. I couldn’t type for more than hour. I couldn’t even put on toenail polish.

EH: In your book you write, "Ethically, the failure to manage pain better is tantamount to torture." That’s a strong statement. What do you mean?

JF:People who overdose on painkillersseem to get a ton of headlines and all the publicity when people in pain get almost none – even though the people in pain have two times the suicide risk of people without pain. It’s a hidden epidemic.

Failure to treat pain gets at a lot of cultural issues. Doctors don’t really know much about pain. In four years of med school, the median number of hours medical students learn about pain is nine. That means they know almost nothing about pain. It’s a real predicament because pain is the main reason people go to doctors.

EH: Why is painkiller abuse such a big problem in the United States?

JD:It’s not as big a problem aschronic pain itself. We vilifyopioidsand painkillers, but we’ve got the picture lopsided. It’s easier to write a story about famous people dying from heroin than to find the people quietly suffering and wishing they wouldn’t wake up in the morning because of their pain. The press has been focusing on a small piece of a much larger puzzle.

With 100 million Americans living with chronic pain – real, disabling pain – to me that’s the real story.

EH: What should Americans be doing differently when it comes to pain?

JD:We should teach pain education in medical school, a lot of pain education. We should make it a priority in medical schools for future doctors. We should put questions about the basic neurology of pain into the medical exams students have to take to get out of medical school.

There’s a lot patients can do. You have to be really persistent. You have to find a doctor who believes your pain. That’s first and foremost. If you’re going to a doctor whose telling you it’s all in your head, you have to leave that doctor.

There are also a bunch of things people can do to accommodate their pain. Meditation can be very helpful. It doesn’t make the pain go away, but it can help you cope with it better, which is important.

However, the best thing people can do is exercise. Exercise is the closest thing we have to a magic bullet for chronic pain. Get out, move, don’t be afraid of moving! It’s being sedentary and getting out of shape that can make the pain worse.

EH: What can we do to make a difference in the life of someone with chronic pain?

JD:The most important thing you can do if someone you love is in pain is to believe them. Do not say it’s all in their head. Help them by giving them a lot of moral support. It’s the first step.