Is taking painkillers a way of lessening the physical suffering that God sends a person?

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In my concrete case: I’m a migraine sufferer. I frequently get debilitating headaches that make my day more difficult, although I can usually get through it.

I know God lets me get these headaches as a way of introducing some suffering in my comfortable life. I’ve told Him that I offer Him all of the suffering I get from my headaches both as a reparation for my past sinning and for the conversion of souls.

Now, my doubt is the following: if I take a painkiller I will reduce the amount of physical suffering that God is sending me. When I do so, I still feel tired, and get some mild pain. But I’m clearly suffering less than if I didn’t take it. If I’m suffering less, I’m offering less. Is that right? I usually wait for taking a painkiller until I can’t continue through my day. Most of days, I make it, although it requires some effort.

But this doubt also comes frequently to mind whenever I’m on the verge of taking it… or not doing so.

Can anyone give me an answer?

Thank you very much, and keep me in your prayers, since I’m in the middle of an attack now and must work hard during next days on a quite serious issue.
 
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There’s nothing wrong with taking legitimate medication to alleviate your pain.

-Fr ACEGC,
M.S. Bioethics
 
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Lessening your suffering is not wrong. God provides the means for the medications, too. But what suffering we do receive and cannot mitigate we offer up to God.
 
I can’t answer your theological question…I’ll leave that to others…

I can say that if you are having a bad migraine, waiting to take a pill…if you do…is not using it to it’s best effective ability. It’s much harder to reduce peak pain that to take it a bit before that point and avoid it. I’m on pain management therapy. My specialist always emphasizes to take it earlier rather than later…it’s just more effective that way.

I’m sorry you suffer migraines…I’ve witnessed how awful they are! ❤️
 
kikiki32 said:
I know God lets me get these headaches as a way of introducing some suffering in my comfortable life.
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I’m sorry, but no God does not give you migraines. God does not visit diseases, disabilities, or other tragedies upon us.
kikiki32 said:
I’ve told Him that I offer Him all of the suffering I get from my headaches both as a reparation for my past sinning and for the conversion of souls.
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It’s good to give meaning to suffering in every day life, and offer it up. But don’t have a skewed view of this that the church does not teach regarding suffering. We are not obliged to go looking for it, we are not obliged to endure without assistance, we are not obliged to forgo treatment.
kikiki32 said:
If I’m suffering less, I’m offering less. Is that right?
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No. The treasury of merit is infinite God‘s ability to apply grace is infinite.
kikiki32 said:
I usually wait for taking a painkiller until I can’t continue through my day. Most of days, I make it, although it requires some effort.
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Please stop doing that, consult your physician and follow their advice regarding treatment protocols. Do not withhold treatment from yourself out of a misguided notion that it’s pleasing to God.
kikiki32 said:
Can anyone give me an answer?
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Perhaps some spiritual direction with your pastor is in order
 
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Thank you everyone.

@1ke Thank you. But, could you elaborate a little bit on the first part of the answer you wrote? I didn’t say God gave me headaches, but that He lets them happen. And I assume the reason may be what I stated. But I could be wrong, of course. I don’t go searching for silly suffering either. But I just have a theological doubt here that arises from a concrete situation in my life, and want to learn about it.
 
Dear St Padre Pio built a hospital for the ‘relief of suffering’…
and he was the master of offering up suffering united with Christ.

Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza (English: "Home for Relief of Suffering ") is a private scientific research hospital in San Giovanni Rotondo, Italy, founded by Saint Pio of Pietrelcina, and administered by Vatican City. … Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza has two major activity wings.

Location: San Giovanni Rotondo, Italy
 
That’s worth a bit of thinking. I had no idea about that. Thank you.
 
FWIW, I remember watching an episode of Mother Angelica’s show on EWTN when she started talking about suffering (I think it was suffering). Anyway, she talked about how she got headaches, and that she would take something for them.
 
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kikiki32 said:
but that He lets them happen
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Well he lets everything happen.
kikiki32 said:
And I assume the reason may be what I stated. But I could be wrong, of course.
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The reason is biological. While God isn’t going to miraculously intervene in these sorts of things typically, he also isn’t specifically willing them.

So, I am not sure what you are meaning by “letting it happen” or that there is a specific reason God “wants” you to have headaches.
 
It should be obvious that taking medication is not only ok to do but something God wants us to do with medical or physical pain that can be treated. Perhaps you suffer from scrupulocity. But think of it this way, by even questioning this you are passing judgement on any person who uses medicine to take away pain. Please use logic to help you with these questions.
 
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Alleviating pain is not something God is against. His word gives us advice on how to use wine for medical use. (1 Timothy 5:23)
 
Why isn’t Genesis 3:16 an exception to this? God specifically says “ … in pain shall you bring forth your children.” It has been my understanding that anesthesia in childbirth violates this Biblical admonition. Statement seems pretty clear, never sure why the Church doesn’t teach this. I’m not saying that pain relief or medical anesthesia as such is a moral problem - just questionable in this one specific situation.
 
God gave us minds and intellect, and science and medicine, to help heal our bodies.

I have constant, chronic pain from a genetic condition. One year I decided to give up everything, from prescriptions to aspirin, for Lent, so I could suffer more for penance, etc. When I went to talk to my SD and he was shocked at how I could barely move or take a deep breath, I told him of my self imposed penance, he told me in no uncertain terms that this was to end right there.
 
Do you also question the legitimacy of visiting a doctor? Or becoming a doctor?
 
People are in all different places in their spiritual journeys, and some people’s “religious sense” is more developed than others’. There is also a difference in abilities to endure pain. There is nothing wrong with taking medication to alleviate suffering, if you wish to, but by the same token, you are free to accept pain and not seek to alleviate it, if that is your choice, to be able to offering sufferings to God for His greater glory, as penance for one’s past sins to expiate them, or as suffrage for poor sinners both living and dead.

Being able to supernaturalize suffering and illness is one of the great treasures of the Catholic Faith. As far as I am aware, Protestantism would find this a totally alien concept. (Someone please correct me if I’m wrong.) Can’t speak for Orthodoxy.

https://www.amazon.com/Squander-Illness-Frs-Rumble-Carty/dp/0895550512

Kind of pricey, but perhaps you could get it used.
 
Let’s see, what did God say to Adam and Eve when they were driven away from the Garden of Eden.

He said to the man that by the sweat of your brow shall you earn a living.

So is a man sinning when he gets a sedentary desk job to support his family? Should he settle for subsistence farming because that’s what God commanded?

No

Same thing for women getting painkillers during childbirth. Thanks to modern medicine and modern farming techniques and machines, neither of these “commands” are now being observed.

I put the word commands in quotes because they are not commands at all but consequences. The consequences of the Fall is struggle to feed oneself and pain in childbirth.

God is merely telling the first humans of the consequences of the terrible choice they made.
 
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What on earth do you do if you need a tooth pulled? Or you burn your hand? Or break a leg?
 
“Offering it up” is done alongside active problem solving. It doesn’t replace it.
 
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