What is the worst pain imaginable? Neurogenic pain of course…
What is the worst non-neurogenic pain? – acute headache of course…
Now combine the two in a condition where it is guaranteed you will be
- told you are a liar, faker, and drug addict
- victimized by doctors, insurers, and anyone in the healthcare field
- Have insurers either cut you off or downgrade your coverage with the explicit message that your life really isn’t worth very much and there is nothing you can do about it – you are being exploited and that the way it is…
- Find that not much is found and that medications don’t seen to work at all.
- Have yourself hounded by narcotic controllers (Addiction experts one is forced to see through your doctor or insurer, the provincial doctor licensing body and so forth) as being on painkillers unnecessarily and worse, with the attitude the opioids will only make you worse – again leaving you with the message that you are not worth very much to anyone.
- Finding your life such that, the hope you had, dissolves away; as you live sleepless nights and find your life slipping away – job, family, friends, any hobbies and interests, just gone
- Finding that, with the pain and the persecution, along with the growing poverty, that suicide looks better and better.
Over the years of my practice, I have seen three cases of this disease and find myself horrified and ashamed to be a part of a medical system that can do that to some people.
Can anyone guess the condition? stay tuned – I hope to have this written up soon
Fibromyalgia, from chronic pain or other stress, that shrinks the brain.
Leading to brain fog, verbal processing errors, short term memory loss, and all-over pain and neuropathy (Chronic pain shrinks the left pre-frontal cortex.)
That sounds like me! I have had progressively worse chronic pain since 1984 (following an accident in 1983.)
In 1994 I had to start standing all day at work because of low back pain and sciatica when sitting. My memory and cognition were still good then (qualified for mensa, MBA from top-5 school, etc.) until 1998. Then my insomnia (3-4 nights a week) and chronic pain caught uip with me and fried my brain. Brain fog, memory loss, neuropathy, all over pain, etc.
I have had neck pain, shoulder pain, and low back pain that interfered with my sleep for years (all with a mechanical base – DDD in low back, stenosis at 5 levels in right neck, tear in shoulder from that accident.) I used to be a semi-professional cyclist, triathlete, and XC skier. In the 1980’s I wporked out up to 6 hours a day.
Now I have 18 of 18 tender points for fibro. I have been off of work for 3 years, slowing getting a little better. I had/have dizziness, cold sensitivity, allergies, asthma, neuropathy in arms and legs, etc.
The only thing that **really** helps me keep going is meditation. No cure – I have been meditating since this started in 1982. Plus pain meds.
Since 2004 or so a walk around the block is a challange. I had a doctor from 2001-2007 who did not “believe” in fibro. He kept telling me that exercise was the cure. Right……
I got squeezed out at work 3 years ago without disability. I was only working part time since 2000 because of pain. Easy target ….
Cheers! Hang in there. A couple of studies:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/02/080205171755.htm
Chronic Pain Harms The Brain
‘If you are a chronic pain patient, you have pain 24 hours a day, seven days a week, every minute of your life,” Chialvo said. “That permanent perception of pain in your brain makes these areas in your brain continuously active. This continuous dysfunction in the equilibrium of the brain can change the wiring forever and could hurt the brain.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4031825.stm
“The patients with chronic pain caused by damage to the nervous system showed shrinks in the brain by as much as 11% – equivalent to the amount of gray matter that is lost in 10-20 years of normal aging……”
The decrease in volume, in the prefrontal cortex and the thalamus of the brain, was related to the duration of pain…..
What the researchers now need to find out is whether this loss is permanent or whether it can be reversed with treatment.
From another article:
“Apkarian also found that the longer a person has been suffering from chronic pain, the more activity in the prefrontal cortex. He was able to predict the years of their suffering from the MRI.
“It’s cumulative memory,” he explained. “I can predict with 90 percent accuracy how many years they have been living in that pain without even asking them the question.”
http://www.med.umich.edu/painresearch/pro/fibromyalgia.htm
The symptoms most often associated with fibromyalgia include:
Pain
Tenderness
Fatigue
Weakness
Sleep disturbance
Attention and memory difficulties
Allergy-like sensitivity to drugs or medications
Sensitivity to loud noises
Intolerance to heat or cold
Restless legs and/or cramps
Depression
Regional or organ-specific symptoms and syndromes, such as tension/migraine headache, temporomandibular joint disorder, irritable bowel syndrome, interstitial cystitis, and many other conditions are related to fibromyalgia and fall under the umbrella of Chronic Multisymptom Illnesses. …. (next page)
A past or present history of chronic pain in other areas of the body (e.g., the neck or back, noncardiac chest pain, headaches, TMJ, pelvic pain, etc.) makes it more likely that the individual has a condition in this spectrum.
Aside from the pain, a number of seemingly non-related symptoms may develop and persist, such as problems with attention or memory, large, unexplainable weight changes, intolerance to heat or cold, weakness, and the most common complaint, fatigue.
Seemingly “allergic” symptoms also are common in fibromyalgia patients. They may show a high degree of adverse reactions or sensitivity to drugs, chemicals and other environmental stimuli such as bright lights or loud noises. These frequent hypersensitivities to various environmental stimuli suggest that in some individuals there is a generalized disturbance in sensory processing, not just of painful stimuli.
These patients also are more prone to non-allergic rhinitis (inflammation of the nasal mucous membrane), sinus and nasal congestion, and lower respiratory symptoms, all of which also may be attributable to neural mechanisms or actions of the nervous system.
Distortions in hearing, vision and vestibular (ear canal) symptoms (for example, dizziness) are often reported. Patients with these conditions often experience a reduced threshold to painful noise, low-frequency sensorinueral hearing loss, ocular dysmotility (e.g., difficulty focusing), nystagmus (a rapid, involuntary motion of the eyeball) and sicca symptoms (dry eyes and mouth).
Not even in the top 5.
The bends, well severe case. Living with extreme vertebrae and cons diseases such as severe spinal stenosis and kyphosis specifically in the neck and shoulders, and having numerous breaks and shattered bones and verbatim that lead to degenerative disc disease so bad several discs in a row are completely gone, have disintegrated. Especially in young victims who always worked through the pain, or played sports through it, not knowing the seriousness or knowing how severe breaks were. Out of those two, the bends is def in the top 3, the second in top 5-10 depending on case, especially in young adults, 20, etc. that will basically be bed ridden for life now after such obviously physical natured style that brought these injuries and surgeries that just make the pain worse. But being filleted, is in the top as well.
not cons, cns**
There are 2 types of debilitating pain that come to mind. Trigeminal Neuralgia and Cluster Headaches. I have cluster headaches. Horrifyingly painful and almost completely unstoppable with painkillers. Another horrific pain condition that Springs to mind is CRPS Type 1 and Type 2. All conditions I’ve listed here are neuropathic pain disorders without any sort of known triggers with the exception of CRPS Type 2, which is known to be caused by severe trauma to the effected area.
4 years I Notice worst body pain with no relieved what shall I do
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When people are that bad, I usually start them on ketamine shots given twice weekly as per anodyne Texas protocol:
http://www.anodyneheadachepain.com/Research/APS4.pdf
– admin
I had a stroke at 30 and a calcified brain aneurysm and uncontrollable epilepsy, i suffer from trigeal nueralgia and head pain that feels like ive been hit with a bat. Im on anti seizure meds and my neurologist pain Dr has me on oxycodone 30 4x a day and 60 of oxycontin 3x i try to take as needed i find that works for me