An invisible evil that disturbs all life. Since 2018, Audrey has been in constant severe pain. A day to day so heavy and difficult that this 42-year-old beautician and mother of two children had to abandon her professional activity.
His illnesses, three in total, are visually imperceptible and make life impossible for the president of the French-speaking association to overcome pain (AFVD): cluster headache, Arnold and trigeminal neuralgia.
Today, Audrey can no longer move without the presence of her caregiver. He suffers, like more than 23 million French people, from what we call “chronic pain”.
A pain that others do not see
For Audrey, a simple train ride, even a short one, can have important consequences for her health. “It’s really fatigue, memory loss, problems with attention, concentration and not being able to find the words,” he confesses to BFMTV.
“I’m fine for 4 to 5 days, I think, of cortisone and very bad pain.”
As on each of her trips, Audrey is accompanied by a caregiver. His pain prevents him from even driving. And to stop the problem, the forty-year-old had to be implanted with an “occipital neurostimulator.” “I have wires implanted in my head. I have a wire that goes through my neck and I have a box with a battery right above my chest,” he explains.
“Living with pain every day is difficult. Pain really destroys a life,” he breathes.
“An obstacle course”
To have her pain recognized, Audrey says she took a path full of obstacles, a “real obstacle course.” “Pain centers are inaccessible, you have to wait a year to get an appointment.”
According to the Pain Barometer of the Analgesia Foundation, chaired by the psychiatrist and pharmacologist Nicolas Authier and which fights for better pain management, 87% of those affected choose to self-medicate. In short, they decide to face the pain alone.
“60% of patients suffering from chronic pain are followed only by their family doctor. But this is sometimes not enough, since, in fact, the treatment (…) of chronic pain requires a multiprofessional approach,” adds the doctor to BFMTV.
Source: BFM TV
