Entropy: Living with Pain

Our society has become so complacent that the mere idea of discomfort can cause a panic. By the basic laws of physics and entropy, you start degrading as soon as your first cell is formed. Therefore, your pain began the instant your life began, and will not end until your own physical end occurs. Depressing? Welcome to reality. Life is a cyclic process degrading with entropy. More diseases are developing from old strains, more mutations and imperfections are occurring within each generation, and entropy is running rampant within every system and subsystem on this planet

Some would argue that supercooled superconductors have no entropy, but I would disagree. Superconductors have zero resistance along the line, but not all electrons in the flow participate in superconductivity so there is inherent entropy through those particular constituents. As the temperature of a superconductor decreases, more and more of the electrons transition to a state without entropy. At absolute zero, where T=0Kelvin, there is no entropy whatsoever. This phenomenon, however, further described on page 147 of Entropy And Its Physical Meaning  by J. S. Dugdale, is difficult and considered by some to be impossible due to the difficulties in reaching absolute zero, 0K.

The Kelvin scale is based on the idea that 0K signifies a state where a particle has an average energy of zero, while any higher value signifies a higher average energy. Scientists supposedly achieved negative temperature values on the Kelvin scale- previously considered to be impossible- in early 2013 through use of a quantum gas but were soon questioned. To this day scientists are going back and forth on the issue. As more testing is being done and I don’t know a whole lot about it, I’ll just say that IF the negative Kelvin scale is really going to be a thing, then it will have massive ramifications for dark matter theory as relating to black holes (queue star trek music).

Either way, it’s either impossible or impractically difficult to create a superconductor (at this day and age) that has no entropy. Therefore, I think it’s safe to say that a superconductor’s state of entropy can remain in the middle of a physics and philosophical tug of war.

Getting back on track, the world is going to hell in a hand basket, quite literally. Meanwhile, with the development of our current mainstream lifestyle, the popular lifestyle is one that puts affluence and comfort on a pedestal. Historically speaking, it is only in the past few generations that this philosophy has become as culturally invasive as it is currently. Perhaps 100 years ago, the literature did not display the same neediness for attention, gratification, and luxury as is readily available in more current publications. Aldo Leopold, a late 19^th to early 20^th century environmentalist and philosopher said “the modern dogma is comfort at any cost.” This begs the question: “what is that “cost?”’

Today we have thousands of different medications available to the average, well-off person with or without prescriptions. Of these, prescription pain medication alone may fall into one of the following categories:

·        Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDS)

·        Corticosteroids

·        Acetaminophen

·        Opiods (Narcotic Analgesics)

·        Muscle Relaxants

·        Anti-Anxiety Drugs

·        Antidepressants

·        Anticonvulsant Drugs

This list (more in depth information here) does not include all prescription pain management drug categories, nor does it account for any nonprescription pain medications such as Acetaminophen, Ibuprofen, and Naproxen. All of this goes to say that we have the means and desire to be without pain.

What could this mean? Our bodies are breaking down. We have medications that can make all that pain just magically go away… but should we?

When I was in high school, I had a horrible swim coach. Long story short, I went from being told that I could go to the Olympics to being a slow, bored swimmer with no hope of getting a scholarship. After moving to Alabama and getting a new, better coach, I felt the clock counting down to graduation. I wanted… no… NEEDED a scholarship to swim in college! I swam with paddles on my arms for the duration of every 2 hour practice for 4 months straight to build up my strength, ran a few miles a week, started doing light weights (with no prior training so it was just basic curls and triceps extension type things), and did a core workout for 30-45 minutes every night before bed. I was ripped, I was strong, and I was ready to start competing again.

I crushed my shoulder. There was so much muscle in my arms from over-training that it exacerbated a preexisting condition, Thoracic Outlet Syndrome. My shoulder bones collapsed into one another as they could not support the sheer weight of the muscle mass in the thoracic region. After months of punching the side of the pool as I tried to swim and just could not move my arm, blacking out from accidentally moving my arm and waking up crying in a heap on the floor, and not being able to find a pulse in either of my arms I was told that I would need surgery. Long story shorter, I have a third of the original muscle in my right side and the doctor put me on Lyrica because there was irreparable nerve damage done during the surgery.

About the same time that I got diagnosed with lupus and fibromyalgia, the subsequent joint swelling became so bad that I could not walk in the mornings. I would intentionally set my alarm for 20 minutes before I actually had to get up so that I could gradually get up without blacking out from pain. My rheumatologist put me on a relatively low dosage of a cytotoxic chemotherapy drug to help with the severe swelling and I was once again able to walk. I was only 20 years old and taking chemotherapy with no perceivable end in sight, not a joyful thought at all.

You might be wondering why this is such a big deal. A little pain medication and chemo and I’m suddenly able to tie my own shoes and walk in the mornings, right? Wrong. Medications cloud your head, make you gain weight, and control your life. I was still expected to perform as though nothing was wrong (if it’s an invisible disease it doesn’t exist, amiright).

After consulting a doctor and nutritionist, I began an extremely restrictive anti-inflammatory diet approximately 9 months ago. I began weightlifting almost a year and a half ago. Due to these things, I noticed that my ability to walk and move without pain increased dramatically and the chronic pain from the lupus and fibromyalgia eased as well. As such, I told my doctor that I wanted off of the chemo and pain medications. Today I am 2 months free from chemo and almost a week free from the Lyrica.  

What’s my point with all of this? I’m in more pain now than I was before refusing to be on the chemo and Lyrica any longer. It’s less comfortable to walk or move my shoulder. This being said, I’m free from the constraints of those horrible things. Since starting to come off of the chemo, I’ve dropped 30 lbs in 3 months. My eyes are no longer dull and lifeless, but are starting to brighten. I’m no longer 10 seconds behind in a conversation, I’m able to keep up in class, and I am starting to feel less like a complete moron. I took control of my situation and accepted that, despite my personal entropy, LIVING my life was worth more to me than being comfortable.

It isn’t easy to wake up early and go running and weight lifting every day. It isn’t easy to prepare every meal from scratch. It isn’t easy to go to other people’s houses or restaurants and not be able to eat a single thing there. What is easy though, for the first time in years, is my smile.

Entropy is everywhere, inescapable, and there are ways to dull that pain. But sometimes, the pain is what makes life worth living. It’s constant. But it’s also a constant reminder of what I’ve overcome.