I was eleven years old when I was diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis, an incurable inflammatory bowel disease that causes long-lasting inflammation in the form of ulcers in the large intestine. Having grown up thinking my pain was normal, and learning that there was something wrong with me was both a relief and terrifying. I was met with the realization that I cannot live my life as I had been, as well as the realization that I was now given the tools to make that life easier. At least that was the idea.
One of the first things I remember doing upon hearing the words “Ulcerative Colitis”, was going onto the internet and gleaning everything I could about how one can cope with such a disease, and it took no more than five minutes until I realized, no one copes in the same way. This is something I’ve found to be synonymous amongst most chronic diseases, in that one person suffering from an illness will handle it differently than another with the same affliction, whether it be in the medication taken, foods eaten, exercise done or simple life choices. Of course, there are general rules of thumb one can follow, but it ultimately lies within the individual to discover what works for them.
The first few months after my diagnosis were a dream. I was given medication, and although I hated taking three capsules, three times a day, my body felt renewed. I felt physically better than ever before, with far less frequent trips to the bathroom, but it was not long before in my newfound “normalcy”, more problems would arise. My feeling good would lead me to feel like every other kid, which would lead to me eating Doritos and drinking soda, and less than four months later and I was flaring again, rushing to the bathroom far too many times a day and in constant pain. At just eleven years old, I was put on prednisone, a corticosteroid to get a handle on my worsening symptoms. I thought my baseline medication made me feel normal, but these steroids truly showed me how weak my disease had made me. My mother informs me now how sad it made her when I told her, “This must be what it feels to be normal”.
It took me years after that to discover what foods I can and cannot eat, what environments benefit my body, and which appear to drain it. I am now twenty-three years old and I can firmly say that in the twelve years since I’ve been diagnosed, I have learned how to successfully cope with my disease. This is not at all to say I never get sick, or my disease never gets the better of me. These things are, unfortunately, inevitable, however, it is to say that when these things do happen, I am well equipped to handle it in an efficient manner. This takes many different forms, the most obvious being an extremely controlled diet in times of duress (It is A LOT easier to control one’s diet as an adult than as a child; kids want to be kids), as well as other forms like CBD and exercise. What no one would have told me, and why I am ultimately writing this paper, is the help brought through playing video games.
Gaming as a Distraction
I grew up playing video games, starting with PC point and click games such as Freddie Fish, or Smelly Mystery, eventually moving on to more advanced games with the evolution of gaming consoles. As the original Xbox was released, my older brother and I would play countless games together, like the numerous Lego titles, Star Wars: Battlefront and our favorite, the Halo series. I still play video games to this day and have formed a major at UMass Amherst of Video Game Narrative design to one day write storylines and dialogue for video games. Encouraging me to go into the field, beyond my love of gaming, was an epiphany I had in my senior year high school psychology class when I learned about the gate control theory of pain. This asserts that non-painful input closes the nerve "gates" to painful input, which prevents pain sensation from traveling to the central nervous system. I saw this written on the whiteboard and thought, “Could video games be that ‘non-painful’ input to close the nerve gates to the pain I suffer from my Ulcerative Colitis?” It then dawned on me that I have never needed to urgently use the bathroom when I am gaming. I have never suffered from severe abdominal pain when I am gaming. How could I have never made this connection before! Returning home that afternoon I ran a quick google and found a journal titled “Electronic Gaming as Pain Distraction”. It details whether active distraction (Electronic Gaming) reduces participants’ pain more than a passive distraction (watching tv) during a cold pressor task. In the experiment, 60 participants submerged their hands in cold water for as long as they could. They did this with no distraction, and then with active (gaming) and then with passive (television) distraction, in random order. “Participants had a significantly higher pain tolerance and reported less pain with the active (gaming) distraction compared with passive or no distraction. Participants reported being more absorbed and were significantly more willing to do the task again when they had an active distraction compared with both passive distraction and no distraction. They also had more enjoyment, less anxiety, and a greater reduction in pain with active distraction than with passive distraction. There was no effect of suggestion” (PMC). What I could not help but see was that video games are shown here as being a distraction from the pain. Why then, did I actually not feel pain when gaming? My experience went beyond video games as a source of distraction, but almost as a source of anesthesia.
Gaming as an Anesthetic
I was happy to find out that there have been studies involving gaming as more than a mere means of distraction, actually showing that playing games help reduce pain in the human body. “According to a study from the American Pain Society, a multidisciplinary community of scientists and clinicians who work to reduce pain-related suffering, video games, and more specifically those that incorporate 3D virtual reality, could help reduce physical pain” (CNET). For example, Betsy Twohig-Barrett, the president of Cancer Wellness connections, supplies, among other diversionary activities, ipads to hospitals, so patients in chemotherapy can play games. “Charles Friedman of the Pain Relief Centers explained that when playing 3D games in a virtual reality, the brain busies itself using other senses, like vision and touch, and releases endorphins, a chemical that generally makes us feel good. At the same time, the virtual experience helps produce a numbing response in brain regions associated with pain” (CNET). Essentially, there are biochemical changes that happen in our brains when fully immersed in a game that allows us a respite from chronic pain. While gaming has certainly been perceived to have more negative effects on the human body than positive, it is my hope that with studies like these, and the online connection felt during the Coronavirus Pandemic, that video games are looked at as more than simple entertainment moving forward.
The Beauty in Difficulty
Looking back on my years, I have had a hard time living without difficulty caused by my disease, and for the first seven years since my diagnosis, it made me so angry. “Why do I have to have this disease?”, “If I am going to be diseased, why could I not at least be taller?”,...I would ask myself these questions for no other reason than to make life difficult for myself. With age and fatigue towards self-depreciation, I realized, I have enough making my life difficult with my Ulcerative Colitis alone. I do not need anything else weighing me down, and with this, I have become a resoundingly more positive person. I now strictly play video games on the hardest difficulty because life is not easy and it never has been. I want to play said game on the hardest difficulty, and prove to myself that even though it can be grueling, it can be fun. That it will be fun. I want to prove to myself that not only can it be rewarding, it will be rewarding. When playing on the hardest difficulty, I want to prove to myself, as in my life, that not only can it be done, but that I will do it.
Sources
Jameson, Eleanor et al. “Electronic gaming as pain distraction.” Pain research & management vol. 16,1 (2011): 27-32. doi:10.1155/2011/856014
Mendell, Lorne M. “Constructing and deconstructing the gate theory of pain.” Pain vol. 155,2 (2014): 210-6. doi:10.1016/j.pain.2013.12.010
Cancer Patients Among Others to Play Video Games During Treatment [Video file]. (n.d.). Retrieved June 17, 2020, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHD8TyyRyt4
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