OT: Pain Clinic Experiences?

vj found this in rec.crafts.beads, from Kathy N-V :

]Even better, she called the Pain Clinic at a local hospital

oh, GOOD!!!!! of course, i don't know about the one where you are, but the doctors here seem to think people have a LOT of good results with the one they send people to locally.

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Keith ended up in at our local Pain Management Center. He has degenerative arthritis in his spine and has had disc removal surgery in his neck. The neck is fine now - the back isn't. Surgery isn't really an option for the one spot because it would entail having a rib removed to get to it.

The doctors there tried several different meds and finally ended up giving him interdiscal (sp?) injections of cortisone. It has helped although he's due for a booster. The last series of shots (4, I think) was done about 9 months ago. He said that although the shots hurt, it does help him so it's worth the short term pain for long term relief.

I hope you can get into a good plan to help you. I'm sending you good wishes. :-)

Gee, Kathy, I thought that had been mentioned before. And I thought surely you knew about that program, or I'd have been more specific sooner.

I personally have not done the Pain Clinic thing. It's a long term, in depth process. It's not primarily about finding more drugs. It takes as a given that you will have to live with a certain amount of pain, and it teaches you have to manage it. Remember you and Sooz and spoken of "pain debt"? Well that's part of it. Everything has a price. Being on low meds in the daytime means you'll be tired from the pain at night and might have to sleep drugged. So drug management is part of it too.

There are also ways to trick your body so it doesn't feel pain, like the Tens unit does. And there are mental tricks to keep feel less pain too.

Wish I could tell you more.

Actually, I think you will probably need this, not just "short of surgery", but also even with surgery, and with probable future surgery. This is definitely what you need to do.

Tina

On Thu, 22 Apr 2004 19:32:47 -0400, JL Paules wrote (in message ):

I think you weren't around here last year when I had a bunch of ruptured discs removed in my neck and the vertebrae fused. It wasn't a fun time. I have osteoporosis dissolving the bones, and much the same diagnosis as your husband. My affected discs go from the bottom of my ribs to my hips, and the nerve that's being irritated is causing me to drag my left leg when I walk.

Surgery isn't a good option for me because of a lot of reasons - mainly because I want to be around for my family.

Cortisone shots do hurt like crazy, but they can help a lot. Getting my lung doctor to sign off on that deal is going to be tough - I've been steroid dependent forever, and that's what's been causing a lot of my health problems. He's not going to like any suggestions of more steroids. But we'll see.

Thank you so much. I know that the pain isn't ever going to be gone, but if I can reduce it to a manageable level, I'll be much happier.

Kathy N-V

Absolutely! Good pain management clinics are a blessing...

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Kathy,

Like many of the fellow RCBers I'm in chronic pain most of the time. I've regressed a bit after this last set of shots. I was hoping they would last as long as the last batch, but they aren't.

My doctor wanted me to go to the nearest pain management clinic which is in Houston. He said they would teach me to live with the pain, manage it with meds (which really sucks), and to do bio-feedback. I already use a sort of self-hypnosis which really works wonders. I have no idea why, but I get 90% better when I try using it. I've been methadone free for almost 10 months and I'm like a normal person again. I would hate to have to go back on them. I'm so dang moody and mean when I take them. I had no idea how bad I was until I stopped taking them and DH said I was so sweet again. Huh?

I'm there with you in spirit. Maybe you'll come to Houston and we can check in together. LOL Honestly, I would enjoy having another bead buddy if I have to go.

Even better, she called the Pain Clinic at a local hospital>

oh shit.....

most of these are focused on convincing you that you are a wimp - and that power of positive thinking will make your pain go away - and that dependence on drugs for pain relief is a "bad thing"... and "it's all in your head" - well - that's what the one around here is all about anyway....

hope yours is not....

Cheryl last semester of lawschool! yipee! DRAGON BEADS Flameworked beads and glass

On Thu, 22 Apr 2004 20:29:21 -0400, Christina Peterson wrote (in message ):

Nope. I come from a long line of very stoic people, and even admitting to pain is frowned upon. If anyone in the family has been to a pain clinic, they sure haven't said so.

The pain clinic at the other hospital rejected me due to my other health problems. They didn't want the liability, and I didn't think it necessary to go buck wild trying to find a program that would take me. Being turned down kinda soured me on the whole idea. Oh yeah, the respiritory therapy place turned me down as well. Because my COPD is not from smoking, they can't offer me a lot by getting me to quit smoking. (that mades no sense, so: I have COPD, have never smoked even one cigarette in my life, and the main point of this pulmonary program is to help COPD people learn to quit smoking and regain physical strength. The quitting smoking offers the bulk of the benefit in this program, and since I have never smoked, they don't want me.)

If you think finding a pain clinic is hard, try finding an obstetrician who will take a seriously ill, pregnant patient. I think I had to sign about eight million disclaimers before they'd let me i the door. I couldn't even go to a nearby hospital - the one I had to use had both a pulmonary ICU and a whatever heavy duty neonatal unit, Just in Case. Thank God that we didn't need any of that stuff.

Maybe I should send Bob to the pain clinic! He's the one who has such a hard time understanding pain debt. If it were up to him, I'd be on heavy duty pain drugs and wrapped up in warm blankies 24/7. He doesn't understand that there are things that are worth the pain to me. He wants to spare me all pain, but that isn't going to happen.

I always said that my dear MIL would have taken Dilaudid for a hangnail. I've married into one pain phobic family. Hopefully, my stoicism and his dramatics will merge, and DD will be a normal person. :-)

I hope that means fewer drugs, not more. I get a shopping bagful every month as it is. Bleh. The brace part would suck rocks, but if I only had to wear it at night, I'd comply. Did you know that the last time I went into the hospital they wanted me to use a walker at home, and asked me if I wanted one of those horrible motorized scooter things! NFW.

Actually, I'll report back once I have gone, so we can know what to expect if it happens to anyone else here.

Thanks, Tina. I appreciate all you've told me. I've done the meditation thing to distance myself from the pain since I was a kid. (I learned how so I wouldn't make my asthma attacks worse for panicking.) I've never tried a TENS unit, though. I hope that a combination of physical therapy and pain clinic will push off any surgery for a long, long time.

Kathy N-V

Correct. This is not for a painful situation. It's for that minority of people who must live in pain. This is not the typical hospital "Pain Clinic" that seems to specialize in pain meds.

As a matter of fact, I believe they do also like to have your significant others come in to help them help you manage the pain.

Meanwhile, be good to yourself.

Tina

I found that the hospital Pain Clinic here is very happy to drugs. However, they don't tell you anything else to do for pain. Physical therapy and nutrition and maybe yoga, for example, would be talked about in a real pain clinic but are not addressed in most hospitals.

Tina

On Thu, 22 Apr 2004 21:39:36 -0400, Cheryl wrote (in message ):

Hey, if they do that, it'll be the last time I darken their doorstep. And fortunately, it's only a 1/2 mile from my home.

Kathy N-V

I can't agree with you more. Thankfully I have one of the best pain physicians in the country. I'm very fortunate that he is willing to try new things for pain, such as the botox. I was his third patient to receive the shots and I am thankful he gave me the opportunity.

Pain clinics are like people no 2 are the same. Having worked in a couple the best thing to do is talk to someone who has been there as a patient. Remember all patients and all injuries/diseases are also different. The same disease is different in different people just as the same meds affect people in different ways. Self hypnosis is an excellent technique for some people, biofeedback the same, extremely gradual exercise tolerance increase works. A common technique is to use meds to enable you to be active and then taper the meds down as your activity tapers up. Usually they do not tell you when the dose is changed so that your own expectations do not skew the results. Sort of like the placebo effect. Over generalization of any one experience or anyone's experiences to everyone is very misleading and can cause people to miss out on a real opportunity for help. In statistics a sample of one is totally meaningless no matter how you manipulate the numbers. I am not saying there are not bad pain clinics or bad pain doctors out there. Do your research, spend some time there seeing for your self what they do. Talk to patients in the waiting room. Ask your doc if he/she really knows anything about the clinic or just knows it exists. You wouldn't buy a $20,000 car without some research, formal or informal, don't risk the rest of your life because someone else did not like what they experienced somewhere else. You can always say no after you check it out and you have lost nothing and gained some knowledge.

I know nothing about this except that I had calcium califications massaged away by a massage therapist (polarity therapist or kinesiologist, she does both). Instead of surgery. It hurt like hell, but the bone spur went away.

Becki "In between the moon and you, the angels have a better view of the crumbling difference between wrong and right." -- Counting Crows

I have been seeing a pain specialist for over a year. He relies strictly on drugs. He listens to what I say about my pain. He believes me even tho none of the tests I've taken (tons of tests) show anything wrong. I'm on so many drugs, I have to take another drug for narcolepsy in the daytime so that I can function. I've been on them so long now, that I don't even feel anything from them. But the pain is lessened to the point that I no longer wish I was dead because I can't stand the pain. I can find pleasure in life again. That's why anti-depressants were such a waste of time for me. They did nothing for the pain. Barbara Dream Master

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Cheryl last semester of lawschool! yipee! DRAGON BEADS Flameworked beads and glass