{"id":24,"date":"2020-01-05T07:37:11","date_gmt":"2020-01-05T14:37:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/painvalley.com\/?p=24"},"modified":"2020-03-04T20:51:55","modified_gmt":"2020-03-05T03:51:55","slug":"touched-out-syndrome-touch-and-chronic-pain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/painvalley.com\/?p=24","title":{"rendered":"Touched Out Syndrome- Touch and Chronic Pain"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Sar\u00e0<\/a> <\/small>I am writing this post from the waiting room of yet another doctor’s appointment. \u00a0With the car accident I had a few months ago that caused severe whiplash in addition to the fact that I only have a few months of insurance to get everything I may <\/i>need done checked out, I am literally “TOUCHED OUT.”<\/p>\n

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\u201cTouched Out Syndrome\u201d was coined in relation to mothers and their children, particularly during the breastfeeding phase and it is not a medically recognized syndrome (see resource below), but the \u201csyndrome\u201d struck me as quite relevant to those living with chronic pain. As a CHRONIC PATIENT, I find myself on the exam table quite often, especially these days.\u00a0 That means I have technicians, nurses, doctors, and heck sometimes I feel even the receptionist and the billing person want to poke at me or make me take off some article of clothing.\u00a0 I do not protest. I make sure to dress appropriately to try to make it easier for the doctors and I never complain (even when some doctors seem to enjoy doing the [touch] \u201cdoes this hurt?\u201d \u201cYes.\u201d [touch \u00a0harder] \u201cI already said it hurts you sadistic bas$^%d\u201d test. But the truth is that after a while, having so many stranger\u2019s hands on you all the time, takes away the intimacy of human touch.<\/p>\n

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Additionally, in a medical setting, you are essentially a lab rat.\u00a0 You are not really a human to them once you are (semi)naked and on the table.\u00a0 Some doctors are nicer than others in performing their exams.\u00a0 I have some doctors that are very kind and ask first, or say, \u201cCan you lift this or lower this or that, I am going to\u2026\u201d and then gently<\/i> examine me.\u00a0 To the contrary I have had my fair share of specialists, especially orthopedists (sorry orthopods), that just reach into an article of clothing and examine away without regard to privacy or pain. When you go through years of being in a hospital gown you start to lose your humility and pride.\u00a0 It is not a good feeling.\u00a0 Whereas I used to be very embarrassed to even have to take off my T-shirt and put a gown, now I am used to gowning up, but I still get that sickening feeling in my stomach, like I am just a cadaver to some of these doctors.<\/p>\n

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Touched Out Syndrome is a result of all the doctor\u2019s appointments. I also do physical therapy, which involves massages, muscle release, chiropractic adjustments and a lot of, you guessed it, touching.\u00a0 After the fusion surgery (that sounds like a restaurant), I was also going for weekly massages, back when finances did not mean counting pennies for gas.\u00a0 While I enjoyed them (to a point, they were therapeutic and helpful but painful), that too was one more person\u2019s hands on me.<\/p>\n

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At one point I was going three times a week to physical therapy, once a week to massage therapy, once a week to the doctor\u2026and after a while I truly did not want to be touched anymore, not even by my then-husband.\u00a0 This is just one more problem that chronic pain can cause in life and especially in marriage.\u00a0 Touch becomes associated with pain and doctors.\u00a0 Touch becomes a clinical sensation, a means of diagnosis.\u00a0 Yes, touch can also be very healing, but when you are being touched all the time and you are still in pain, the association tends to be less with healing and more towards pain.\u00a0 I have spoken to others who live with chronic pain and they have said that, especially following surgeries or when they are in acute pain or a flare, intimacy tends to dwindle for exactly this reason- simply put, they are touched out.\u00a0 After all, if you spend your day being touched and probed by clinicians, causing you pain, do you really want your partner\u2019s hand on you at night?<\/p>\n

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Hopefully your pain is not always acute.\u00a0 Mine was much more \u201cchronic\u201d for a while and I was stable.\u00a0 Currently I am in an acute phase and I am going for a lot of tests, exams, etc. and I am definitely very touched out, but as things die down, the hope is that touch can once again go from being associated with pain to being associated with healing.<\/p>\n

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Have you ever experienced this?<\/p>\n

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Resources:<\/b><\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.mummiesnummies.com\/2011\/08\/do-you-suffer-from-touched-out-syndrome.html<\/a><\/p>\n

Photo courtesy of\u00a0Rita M.<\/a>\u00a0via\u00a0Compfigh<\/a>t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am writing this post from the waiting room of yet another doctor’s appointment. \u00a0With the car accident I had a few months ago that caused severe whiplash in addition to the fact that I only have a few months of insurance to get everything I may need done checked out, I am literally “TOUCHED […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[4],"class_list":["post-24","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pain-care","tag-dbtag"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/painvalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/painvalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/painvalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/painvalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/painvalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/painvalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":151,"href":"https:\/\/painvalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24\/revisions\/151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/painvalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/painvalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/painvalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}