How much pain can you tolerate?

Apparently, the answer to that question surprises the people who ask it.

For reasons of relevance, I am talking about physical pain, not the agony of lost love, or the daily annoyances we all live with, or the overall crosses we bear. I am talking about the "shoot, that hurts" kind of pain we all endure.

I have just come out of the hospital after spending a few days trying to find out why I passed out while at work. After a bunch of tests and exams, I was told I passed out (as best they can tell) due to dehydration and stress from pain.

So I guess you can tolerate things better with a lot of drinking.

My own pain comes from a herniated disk in my neck, coming from a dive out the restaurant drive-thru window to save a ten-dollar bill that had blown away. I will go into that episode later on. But since that time, I have had to develop a tolerance to pain levels that I have not had to develop previously. I am not looking for a "poor pitiful you" reaction - knowing most of the blog followers, I would never get that anyway - but I have discovered that dealing with pain becomes a daily, even hourly exercise in just how much a person will put themselves through.

I was given medication to deal with the pain. But that medicine makes me sleepy, and I cannot work and take part in the rest of my life staggering around drowsy. I take it when I have time to tolerate the side effects, which is not very often. The doctor did change the prescription to something for arthritis, which has helped. But even with that, I cannot say I am pain-free.

So my pain does not go away, but it is adjusted to a level I can live with - usually. When asked "How ya doin'?," I am not honest when I say "Great." Usually, I am in a little pain. But you do not answer the casual question "How ya doin'?" with a long list of aches and pains, so you say "Great" and move on.

But you are not great. Some days, in fact, are better than others.

Medical folks have a scale they use, that measures a patients pain from a scale of 1 to 10, with one being perfectly fine and 10 being the worst pain you ever experienced. That would be good to use in casual conversation - "How ya doin'?" "About a three, thanks."

My sisters - three of the four - came to town to visit us while I was laid up. I noticed how difficult it was for one of them to get around, particularly when she stood up or went up stairs. She takes injections to ease the pain she has, and although it was not time for her to get another one, she is obviously feeling more pain than she would consider tolerable. But she goes ahead and tolerates it.

I felt badly for her state of pain, but she said she was fine and went on with her life. I guess that is what most of us do - we draw a line of final tolerance with the daily discomfort of our lives, then grunt and grit our teeth on those occasions when pain breaks that threshold.

If the pain breaks through that level more often, a little medical expertise is needed.

So dealing with pain is a matter of tolerance. Problem is, that experience is challenging to make others understand. My pain may make others wince, but would get still others to wonder what all the fuss is about.

It is, like most things in life, relative.

In the meantime, I'm about a two. I can deal with that.