Chronic pain and working

[ceejay]

Any input on how people deal with chronic pain and work

After three years of ever iincreasing pain it is hard to stay \
focused at work When things flareup I have had to take time
and also for medical appts I am on FMLA

Any comments on how up front one should be with your employer


It gets rough when you get up at 3 and 4 in the morning after the pain meds wear off

[Cirobi]

I think it all depends on your employer. I remember feeling extremely sheepish to admit how much pain I was in when my back decided to throw a fit 2 years ago. I had been dealing with chronic pain for years, but it was never so constant and so severe as when it finally gave up on me. I was also never one to outright admit I was in pain, so that was an added bonus in discussion with my upper level managers.

I was flat out honest with them from the beginning of it all. Thankfully I am an extremely lucky person in that the folks I work for in my department are very understanding of what is needed in order to properly heal from any injury or illness.

At the beginning of it all, I mostly just put on a brave face about the pain but a lot of my coworkers could see it wearing me down as I got closer to surgery. When I had a surgery date scheduled, I went straight to the VP of my department since he's is local to the office from which I work. He immediately got the Regional Director on the phone for my region and we discussed what we'd do for coverage while I was out, the procedure, the estimated recovery times and everything I knew at that point. I kept an open dialogue with them and my other colleagues as my surgery date approached and things went pretty smoothly. I was fortunate to get a lot of flexibility with my PT schedule and post-op appointments as well which helped me feel less pressured to push myself too hard upon my return. If I was too sore, I could freely defer to coworkers and still do from time to time. Even this far post-op I still have people questioning whether or not I should do something or inquiring as to how my back feels.

So, I would say the best thing to do is be completely and bluntly up front about what's going on with your spine and what the projected path to resolution is going to be. If your employer response better to a business proposal style presentation of such issues, then you can bluntly state the problem, the resolution and why giving you the flexibility to recover properly will help them in the future. I think that without me doing a business proposal stile presentation of my back problems, that's precisely how my upper level managers looked at it and why they gave me that needed flexibility.

I hope your employer sees it this way too, for the sake of your own health and recovery.

~Sara