hang in there Lisa. I also have no problems when it comes to pain. When I broke my foot I was placed on total couch - bed rest so that it would heal. But the DHS caseworker that I had at that time would not honor that. She expected me up and around and out doing every meeting and so on that she scheduled for me even if it included the fact that the closes bus stop to the meeting was a half hour walk from the meeting place and she knew I did not have the $40.00 a week to pay a taxi. So I did what I had to do -relied on my dissociative skills so that I would not feel the pain of walking on a broken foot. It wasn't until a doctor exrayed my foot a second time and varified that I had pushed the bones apart by three inches and wrote a prescription that I was to stay off my foot otherwise I would have to go through surgery and traction as an inpatient in the local hospital for the duration that it took for my foot to heal and then I submitted that not to the caseworker but to her supervisor letting him know what was going on. The next appointment a taxi met me at my door and took me to the door of the building of the meeting.

When I broke my foot I also checked with some psychiatrists and psychologists in the field of DID to find out if pain meds can help a person who is DID and going through the co conscious - integration process and I was told physical medications don't work only when the person is dissociating. if the person is remanining in control and mentally connected to the body then any and all pain medications will work.

When I tried a variety of pain medications- tylenol, tylenol extra strength, motrin, advil, tylenol with codiene, and muscle relaxers like skelaxin, celebrex, Soma, Flexeril - during the time that I had my broken foot I found that what the professionals told me was true - that as long as I was not mentally daydreaming myself away to float in my tunnel area or la la land the medications worked. So well in fact that I started to abuse those medications by taking them to achieve the floating relaxed feeling that I got when dissociated because I wanted that feeling but wanted to remain mentally connected to my body too.

I also found out that by going through the integration process I was actually in more pain then less because of my foot. Not only was I experiencing the pain of the past memory but also the present pain of the broken foot which was another reason I abused those medications - to get relief for after taking so much of the meds I was in bed sleeping off the medication so I was sleeping through the pain.

Please be careful how and when you use your DID skills. being DID has its pluses for example shutting out physical pain but doing so can also cause more damage. My foot now has a very large "bump" poking out on the side of my foot where the bones were pushed apart and new bone had to form to "bridge" the gap. I have to now wear an AFO brace in part because my foot will now break very easily, and it took me about a year after the foot healed to learn to walk on that foot with out crutches supporting most of my weight.

Since you are going through the integration process those stabs of pain if its anything like mine were are beyond pain and into excrusiating, please give some meds a try at least during the times when you have to remain aware to go through the co consciousness integration process. I promise it makes a lot of difference. you won't even get those brief stabs of pain and you will be able to use your energy for remembering and experiencing the repressed memories which is the co consciousness and integration process.

hang in there and take care.