NHS

Last weekend, I had a Rituximab infusion aimed at keeping my vasculitis in remission. Then on Tuesday I started with pain in my lower jar and noticed that part of one of my wisdom teeth had broken away. I got an emergency Dentist appointment on Wednesday and had to have the tooth extracted.

Before the extraction and since, I’ve had pain in my lower jaw and face. There’s nothing quite like tooth pain is there? This actually reminds me what I’ve written about pain, in FINDING YOUR HAPPINESS:

Your Pain

Part of being alive is experiencing pain. There are different types of pain. Pain can be physical, mental or emotional. Any type of pain reduces your quality of life and will make you less happy.

You should address any pain promptly, to prevent it from getting worse and to promote healing.

Physical Pain
Physical pain is often managed, rather than cured or healed. Pain management can involve medications, exercises and sometimes surgery. Physical pain can be acute (coming on suddenly and is short term) or chronic (long term).

Acute physical pain is a sign that something is wrong inside your body. Chronic pain is caused by diseases and disorders inside your body. If you’re in physical pain, I highly recommend that you see your GP.

Your GP will complete an assessment, tests/investigations to work out the cause of the pain and work with you to develop a treatment plan.

A good example of physical pain is a broken leg. Imagine you fall and break your leg. You are in pain and seek medical attention. You have an x-ray that confirms the broken bone. You have surgery to repair it.
After surgery you have a period of immobilisation to allow the bone to heal and then have physiotherapy to regain muscle strength.

Within 3-6 months you are back to doing everything you used to do before the injury. Walking, running and dancing. Your leg is healed. You are healed.

Mental Pain
We don’t know enough about mental pain. Sometimes mental pain is managed, sometimes it is healed.

Mental pain is caused by mental illnesses. Sometimes mental illnesses run in families, suggesting that the cause could be genetic. Sometimes mental illnesses are caused by life events.

There are many different types of mental illnesses, some are acute and some are chronic. Examples of mental illnesses include anxiety, depression, bipolar and schizophrenia.

It can be difficult for a doctor to diagnose mental illnesses due to similar symptoms. Even Psychiatrists (doctors that specialise in mental health) have difficulty diagnosing mental illnesses.

Diagnosis of mental illnesses can take a significant amount of time. There’s no blood test or scans that can be completed to confirm whether an individual has mental illnesses or not, let alone which specific mental illness they have.

I would highly recommend that you see your GP if you are experiencing mental pain.

If you’re experiencing mental pain, don’t wait for a diagnosis. Start to manage your symptoms immediately, to the best of your ability.

In some cases people can fully recover from mental pain/illnesses. Whereas in other cases it is about long term management of symptoms.

Recovery from mental pain/illnesses doesn’t have set timescales. It usually takes months to years, depending on the individual and the circumstances. But every year many people do recover from mental pain/illnesses.

Emotional Pain
A conversation about emotional pain in western healthcare is not currently happening, but it needs to.

Symptoms of Pain
With all types of pain you will have a combination of physical, mental and emotional symptoms. Let me give you an example of this from my own life.

I once had severe stomach pains. They’d come and go, but were incredibly painful when present. I went to see my GP and had a range of tests/investigations. Everything came back normal.

However physically, my body always felt tight. Sometimes my chest felt tight, like it was difficult to breathe. At these times, my heart beat fast and I sweated excessively.

Eventually my GP diagnosed me with anxiety, a mental illness. I was prescribed medication and referred for therapy. It took several years, but I came to realise that my anxiety was often caused by my emotional state. Fear seemed to frequently trigger my anxiety.

I realised that in order to effectively treat my anxiety, I needed to address the fear. So that’s what I did.

Whatever symptoms of pain you have it is essential that you work out what it is and address the cause(s).

(From: FINDING YOUR HAPPINESS by Antony Simpson, 2026, pages 55-57.)

I’m currently on antibiotics and prescription painkillers. So I will be taking it easy this weekend.

Blog soon,

Antony