dealing with pain at university

yaboiollie

just a forewarning, this covers some topics that may be upsetting to people with fragile mental health, so please don’t force yourself to read.

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to start this off, let me say that i will be studying fashion design at university. this means that around 30% of my time will be spent drawing, usually in large amounts of time, e.g. spending multiple days in a row drawing. i also have ehlers-danlos syndrome, which is the main cause of my pain.

in my last project at college, i overworked myself to the point of damaging my hands, i think. since then, they have been more painful more often than before, and it doesn’t take a lot for them to start hurting, and after they start hurting i can’t do much. pain medication (paracetamol or ibuprofen) doesn’t always do anything, and since i currently live with my parents, my mum constantly guilts me for taking it. she tells me it’s going to damage my liver if i take too much, so i try to just cope with the pain wherever i can. i will not be living with them at university, but as i mentioned, it doesn’t always work.

however, i’m not going to be able to just cope with it at uni.

drawing really sets off my pain. i was drawing earlier, on a pain-free day, and after about 5 minutes of drawing, the day was very much not pain-free anymore. 

i don’t know how i’m meant to spend the next four years at uni, let alone the rest of my life doing something that i struggle to do for five minutes?? i can’t start my clothing brand if i can’t draw my designs. i am rapidly losing the thing i have spent my whole life working on. not to be dark but there was a point in my life where drawing was all i had, where it was the only thing that i could do. how can i lose that? it’s the one constant that’s remained for my whole life, my greatest skill, my comfort activity. i don’t understand why i have to just be okay with losing such an integral part of my identity.

i have to just be okay with it because every time i try to talk to my mum about my pain, she instantly shuts me down. if i talk about it apparently it will be worse. you should see her face when i mention it. she doesn’t understand that telling me not to worry isn’t gonna make me not worry, it’s just gonna make me feel like i can’t talk to her about my worries.

growing up autistic, i never really talked to anyone except for my family and one or two friends. i never spoke in school. instead, i would sit and draw. i wouldn’t do my work, i’d draw. from when i was four, all the way to eighteen when i left college. when my mental health was at it’s lowest, i would draw. instead of talking to people, i would draw for them. i’ve started friendships by drawing people. i don’t know what to do. i feel a little bit like i’m losing myself. i don’t know what to do. i need you to understand that drawing has been my whole life. people didn’t know my name but they knew me as the art kid. drawing was my identity.

i think what i am asking is if there is any way to keep drawing. any advice, or adaptive tools, or non-medication pain relief, or anything. anything anyone can suggest would help. i don’t want to lose this part of myself, this thing i need.

Albus_Scope

Hey there @yaboiollie

I used to have issues with grip etc in my hands and I found several little rubbery grips that could slip over pens or pencils and these really helped me, alone with a keyboard arm rest, so it'd take the pressure off my wrists when I was drawing or writing. I totally understand not wanting to lose something you love so much, but there are ways! Have you spoken to your GP about pain relief? It may also be good to reach out to the university to have a chat about reasonable adjustments for you?

I'm guessing your mum thinks she's being supportive and strong by telling you not to worry, unfortunately this often is the worst thing they could say! Could you put your feelings down in writing, or a voice note? Some way of conveying just how important this is to you and how much you are worrying?

Cantilip

hi @yaboiollie can I just say your mum is right about paracetamol, people die from ODs, accidental or deliberate;m it is to be treated with respect - see the patient information leaflet in the box. Also it has been shown to maybe do nasty things to blood pressure.

Patients who have a long-term prescription for the painkiller, usually used for the treatment of chronic pain, should opt for the lowest effective dose for the shortest possible time, researchers say.

The University of Edinburgh study, published in the scientific journal Circulation, is the first large randomised clinical trial to address this question and complements earlier work in observational studies.

Paracetamol was often suggested as a safer alternative to another class of painkillers called non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), which are known to increase blood pressure and risk of heart disease.

We would recommend that clinicians start with a low dose of paracetamol, and increase the dose in stages, going no higher than needed to control pain. Given the substantial rises in blood pressure seen in some of our patients, there may be a benefit for clinicians to keep a closer eye on blood pressure in people with high blood pressure who newly start paracetamol for chronic pain.

Regular paracetamol use linked to raised blood pressure | The University of Edinburgh