When to remind the reader of things that would not be immediately apparent

[Montero]

It needs to come into the decision making.
If sore feet, you'd be thinking "I really fancy going to look at that shop up the hill, but blinking heck my feet hurt. Is it worth it? Is there a bus coming I can jump on?"

So should I use my powers?
Do I need to use my powers or is there a work-around?
How much will it hurt?
Have I recovered from last time?
And using them on reflex followed by "Oh **** I didn't want to do that"

And on the positive side "Oh ************ that so hurts, but gosh it was (almost) worth it".

And if other people are encouraging the character to use powers, thinking "It's all right for you spouting that positive b***cks but I'm the one who'll be in pain for the rest of the day."

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

It is quite possible to ignore chronic pain, when your mind is engaged and the pain is at a comparatively low level. In other words, unless the pain is quite intense, she won't be aware of it all day, every day, though her body knows it is there all along. It is when her mind is at rest or when the pain flares up past its usual level that she can't ignore it any longer and she knows that a) she hurts, and b) that the low level pain she wasn't paying attention to has exhausted her nevertheless.

 

[Author Robbie]

The rule I follow in my own writing is that anything I particularly want readers to remember should be mentioned at least three times and in three different ways. Three times is usually enough to stick with them, but of course it does depend on the story and how much background information readers have to absorb.

In the case of chronic pain (which is something I suffer from myself), since at its worst it might limit or impact the actions of the character, or their mood or interactions with others,) it could come up quite naturally a time or two in the working of the plot.

Reminding the reader three times is good, but three DIFFERENT ways is genus… good tip!

 

[Montero]

Regarding chronic pain - potentially a little different from long term pain.
I had bad plantar fasciitis for several years and in the worst six months found that if I walked slowly, with short steps it didn't stretch my feet and didn't set it off. So I did a lot of advance planning, leaving longer times to walk from the station to work (and back), limiting lunchtime outings, putting up with "wits" from work who cantered past making cheery jokes about slowness and unfitness..... Very careful purchase of shoes and so on. I definitely didn't manage to tune out the pain, or at least not when I'd just annoyed my feet. I avoid painkillers as much as possible, and only took them at night so I could go to sleep.

 

[WSDuffy]

Later, using the ability depletes her intracellular sodium pool, essential causing dehydration. But that's neither here nor there

I actually think this is a really good opportunity to use as foreshadowing, and to incorporate the pain issues more naturally into the text. If she had chronic pain that she didn't understand, she might be trying various coping behaviors to avoid it. Would she intentionally dehydrate herself because there is less pain when she's thirsty? Are there behaviors which, unknown to her, would otherwise limit the electrical activity. Watching the character behave in idiosyncratic ways will recall the pain without having to mention it repeatedly, and can be daisy chained to a single earlier description in the story.