The Extra Costs Of Living With Chronic Pain Conditions

Today's personal post from nicoleeloise.wordpress.com (see link below) may actually strike a cord with many people living with any chronic pain disease (in our case, neuropathy). In these times when social security support is being cut across the world and people are being forced to beyond within their means, people living with chronic pain are faced with countless extra costs which are not covered by their insurance, or compensated by governmental support. In the main, it's small things that we need to improve our daily lives with a chronic illness; ranging from supplements and extra therapies, to walking sticks, dietary changes, travel costs and the rest. Many are no longer working thanks to their conditions and are therefore on minimum wages anyway but nevertheless need things that the rest of the population don't need to think about. This article looks at the issue from a personal standpoint but will be recognisable to many others in similar situations. It's an issue that will never hit the headlines but those financial extras can be the difference between coping with chronic pain conditions and being stressed out finding the means to pay for them.

Why Being Ill is So Expensive
October 22, 2018 Nicole Eloise

This post idea came from a conversation with my Mum. Every week, there are things other than prescriptions that I have to buy in order to make my life slightly more comfortable, and when asking her to pick me up some more heat patches I realised just how unfair it is that it costs so much damn money to be ill! It’s not like us with chronic illnesses asked to be like this, but not only are we stuck with the pain and other symptoms, but we have to spend stupid amounts of money all of the time for little things to help us live an even slightly functioning life. I hope that this post is relatable for chronically ill people, and also informative for others!



You need to buy so many things to try to make you more comfortable and ease your pain

This is what I was touching on in my introduction. There are so many things that I spend my money on to make my life easier: heat patches, over the counter medications, skin and body care because of my acne and eczema, my pre payment NHS card for medications. Of course, things cost money and that is just life, but the best heat patches I have found are almost £6 for a pack of four which in my opinion is just ridiculous. Recently, my back started playing up really badly and I had to have a new orthopaedic mattress. Mattresses are expensive! You don’t expect for you and your family to have to spend money on stuff like this when you’re young, and it’s a bit of a kick in the teeth when you have to spend most of the small amount of money you receive on things relating to your pain.

You often can’t work at all or full time

Most of you will know that I had to leave work altogether in June because I just became too unwell. Really, I had been too unwell for a long time before that, but I am not one to give up easily. When I was 16 and until I was 21, I used to work full time- double full time some weeks when I was a manager at a fast food restaurant. This obviously meant that I had a fair bit of disposable income. Benefits are shit. I don’t even mean that I can’t afford luxuries, because sometimes you have to forgo those, but I personally can barely afford to survive. In fact, if I didn’t live with my parents, I point blank wouldn’t be able to afford it. Being ill can cause you to have nothing, and that’s pretty depressing. No matter how much you claim life isn’t about money or material things, it doesn’t change the fact that they make things a hell of a lot easier.

You often have to choose convenience over affordability

When you have limited mobility and chronic pain, you often can’t choose where you’re going to buy products you need from which place is cheapest. For me, I usually pick the place which requires the least walking and energy to get too. Luckily, town isn’t that far away from my house (even though it’s too far for me to walk there and back more than once every week and a half at the very most) but there are some affordable stores I haven’t even seen in months because I don’t want to risk not being able to get home from them. This often means I end up spending more money than I would if I were well, which sucks.

Treatment for symptoms- eczema, acne, headaches etc

You get some lovely symptoms with chronic illnesses! Some of my favourites are nausea, acne, severe eczema, brain fog, Raynauds (awful circulation issue) and headaches. So then you have to start buying products to help with those! I religiously moisturise every single day to try and keep my eczema away, but I can see it starting to come back like it always does. If I use the right products, I’ll be able to make it go away, but the amount of money I spend on products for this is unreal. It’s the same thing with my acne. It was never this bad until I became more ill, and now I have to have long skincare routines- those products also cost a fair bit of money. It’s just not as simple as taking your prescribed meds for your primary condition, as there are so many other things that come with it.

You are often more susceptible to other illnesses, like colds and flu

My illnesses, Myalgic Encephalomyelitis and Fibromyalgia, are not auto-immune diseases like my Dad’s Rheumatoid Arthritis is, but because I am constantly run down I still catch everything. Something I have really struggled with over the last year and a half is shingles. This is such a vile illness- I currently have it and not only are the affected areas so painful, but the actual illness makes you feel like you have the flu. Laryngitis seems to appear over and over again now too. Of course, if you are still managing to work, these illnesses mean you have to take more time off which means you’re losing out on money, but even for us who don’t, having to buy things to ease the symptoms of these kind of ‘normal people illnesses’ can get very expensive.

https://nicoleeloise.wordpress.com/2018/10/22/why-being-ill-is-so-expensive/