What’s the one luxury you can’t live without?

This is one luxury I afford myself around once a year but in all honesty, I buy a new one whenever my current one breaks or if I’m smart looks like it’s going to break. I try to buy one in the summer if I can afford it, especially if it’s been a while since I bought my last one. I do this simply because they buy in the summer, as not many people would buy one in the summer therefore they are usually cheaper.

That said as the primary purpose of an electric blanket for me is pain relief, I’m not sure if you can actually call it a luxury for me. That is I suppose unless you want to refer to not being in pain as a luxury, which may be something some people who experience chronic pain might do. That said personally I do not see not being pain as a luxury, for me pain is a state of being.

This might not make a lot of sense to those who do not experience pain daily. I specifically say daily here because the pain that I experience is daily, as opposed to some chronic pain that is daily but also constant. My experience of chronic pain is aggravated whenever I move for the most part which is only twice a day when I get in and out of my wheelchair. That said this does not take into consideration bad pain days, during which I am in a higher level of constant pain, perhaps something akin to a 6 or 7 on the pain scale. Though this is not my experience of pain most days.

Thinking about it I realized that I am in some level of constant pain, perhaps somewhen between a 1 and a 3 on the pain scale. As I am so used to it it almost doesn’t register until it increases when I start moving. I often refer to this as background pain. The reason I have to think about this pain to register it is because I’m so used to it. This pain is just my normal.

I want to take a moment here to remind anyone reading this that pain is a relative experience. For this reason, there are many different pain scales used in order to understand the pain person is experienced. Two of the most common ones I’ve seen are pictured below. The first picture is a more serious what may be considered ‘standard’ pain scale. A pain scale like this is usually used to determine whether pain is serious or not, or if something needs to be done to relieve pain. The second picture is a pain scale that is quite obviously considered more of a joke pain scale. I have sometimes referred to as a chronic pain pain scale, in recognition of the fact that people that experience chronic pain experience pain in a specifically different way than people who do not experience chronic pain. That said there are better chronic pain scales to use then this one, which is clearly meant to be funny as well as somewhat informative.

While these examples as well as some more examples of pain scales can be found here. It is important to remember that experiences of pain can be so unique that’s an individual may want to create their own pain scale, specifically in the experience chronic pain. This is something that the article linked does touch on. However please remember that this article has not been verified and is purely for informative purposes of different scales. There are definitely better sources that you could use in order to guide your own journey to finding a pain scale that works for you

When I say for me pain is a state of being, I say this because I experience a great deal of confusion with how I relate to my body on the rare experiences when I do not experience any pain. I recall a time in hospital when I was given an epidural for pain management, and therefore and very limited feeling if any at all in my legs. This was in all honesty a very confusing time for me because I’m used to my legs hurting even a little bit all of the time. I was worried something was seriously wrong.

So my electric blanket is how I deal with this pain, because the vast majority of my background pain is muscular and in my experience therefore helped by heat. My eletric blanket is incredible helpful in this situation. I’m even known to use my electric blanket intermittently for pain control on extremely hot days.

So what do you think would you call something that is often a luxury to the majority, a luxury when it is not used in a luxurious way?