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I think, for what it's worth, that the opinions of others must take a low priority to effective pain relief.
Yes, but it's hard for her to feel this way. It does help, though, that I stand beside her and encourage her to do what she needs. Once of the drugs she was on caused major depression and for a long time she wouldn't take the anti-drepression medication to counteract it because she didn't want to use a drug to make her "feel right". I finally got her to see that the depression was as detrimental to her life as the pain was, and now she is very confident in taking the medication for depression.

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If your friends think your wife is complaining too much about pain, perhaps you should find another friend, one who hurts a lot and can sympathise
Actually, I misspoke (typed?). She FEELS like our friends think she complains too much. The truth is (as far as I know) that they are very sympathetic toward her pain. This perception is where the real struggle lies.

It's these struggles that the doctors really fail to help you deal with. Fortunatly, Angel and I have had good people (including official counseling) to guide us and deal with these issues in a healthy manner. I imange there are many people who don't seek such guidence.

In regards to the rest of your post, there are people who abuse drugs and there are people who need them. We are soo attuned to the former, unfortunatly, that many times the latter end up suffering needlessly.

And your comment about being able to measure and evaluate pain is spot on. Not everyone's "10" is the same.
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-Jeff
Rome did not create a great empire by having meetings; they did it by killing all those who opposed them.