It's understandable when anger becomes your primary mood when you’re experiencing pain, but too much anger can pose a real problem when it comes to finding relief. A board-certified anesthesiologist and pain specialist explains:
When you’re living with ongoing pain, there can be a lot of very good reasons for being upset, frustrated, and downright pissed off. Your pain may be the result of events that were outside of your control, or maybe even somebody else’s fault – like slipping on a wet floor or getting rear-ended while stopped at a red light. And it’s easy to get frustrated with doctors, chiropractors, or physical therapists when their treatments or recommendations don’t help.
Because there is so much to get mad about, anger can become your primary mood when you’re experiencing pain. But too much anger can pose a real problem when it comes to finding relief.that anger can be associated with higher intensities of pain, and that applies to a number of different chronic pain syndromes, like fibromyalgia, back pain, and headaches. Anger also seems to be tied to a decrease in physical performance and increased disability from work.
But, even if you’re able to admit that your anger is making your situation worse, letting go of it can be difficult. You may feel that by giving up your anger you’re giving in to the pain, or losing your defense mechanism for telling the pain, “This isn’t ok!” Anger can even feel like a source of energy that “fuels” your fight to get through the day or a protective shield to avoid feeling more vulnerable and susceptible to getting even more hurt.
Sometimes the first step to processing anger is to gain awareness. To help you assess the impact that anger might be having on you, consider having an open discussion with those close to you and with your doctors to get a sense of what they observe about your behavior and mood. If your anger is impacting other people’s ability to best support you, you probably want to know that.
If you continue to feel overwhelmed by anger, consider getting outside help to learn better coping strategies. Remember, better anger management can mean better pain management.
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