All posts filed under: pain management

Inflammatory Foods and Chronic Pain, Part II

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Sorry for my lengthy absence; it’s been another one of those flares. Back to business as usual! I have discussed before how food can have a direct effect on what happens in the body. Use any cliched vehicle for this idea that you like — our bodies are temples, our bodies have engines that need pure fuel, our bodies don’t like toxins that gunk up the system. Basically, we are what we eat. Those suffering from chronic pain and illness already got the short stick, but 99 times out of 100, we are also told by doctors that we should follow some form of an “anti-inflammatory diet.” Now, I was tested for inflammation by a rheumatologist, and while it was higher than normal, it wasn’t stratospheric. That was how he ruled out arthritis (well, duh). So while my joints aren’t inflamed in a rheumatoid arthritis sort of way, I can definitely tell the days when my body as a whole is just… blegh. Like this morning, for instance! I spent last night pigging out. I’d had …

Pain News Network: the Emotional Insight App

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Here’s my latest column for the Pain News Network! Biofeedback is probably the closest thing to having actual superpowers. To quote the Mayo Clinic, it’s “a technique you can use to learn to control your body’s functions, such as your heart rate” by using electrical sensors to “receive information (feedback) about your body (bio).” In theory, this can help you learn to control things like muscle relaxation, which often helps to lessen pain. What if you want to go deeper than that, though? In my own experience as a chronic pain patient, I’ve come to realize that much of pain — or rather, the compounding of pain — is emotionally derived. It can be stress from work, an argument with a spouse, dreading a rent payment, or anything else that thrills against your nerves. How does one separate the emotional aspect of pain from the physical? How do you know when you’re being your own worst enemy? You look inward. Somehow my father stumbled across the Emotional Insight app and sent it my way. I was …

Learning About Chronic Pain Prevention With MOOCs

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Let’s get this started with a quote from the MOOC in question: “It’s very difficult to completely get rid of chronic pain if you don’t successful manage it in the first thirty days.” — Dr. James Fricton Well, no wonder I’m f**ked. I have never successfully completed a MOOC, or massive open online course, but of course this topic struck a chord: Preventing Chronic Pain: A Human Systems Approach, which is being offered through the University of Minnesota. The first week’s lesson was just released, so I am settling myself in for this 10-week course to see how this pain researcher and professor, Dr. James Fricton, can offer me new and unique ways to prevent my pain from getting worse. Imagine my surprise when I see that the suggested course reading is a mystery novel — that he wrote! As he explains in the introductory video, Dr. Fricton started writing a book because he wanted to explain these preventative concepts as he’d come to learn them; then he realized that there was more of a story to be …

Pain News Network: Rating the Pain Creams

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Here’s my most recent column for the Pain News Network!  I am a connoisseur of pain creams. My idea of Christmas is when my friend’s mom mailed me a box filled with unopened packages of Bengay (true story). Every morning I slather on a layer of something containing menthol in order to numb my back. Then my cat decides to attack me. Why? Because cats love menthol (also a true story). Anyway, I have tried many, many, many different topical anesthetics over the years. Here are my experiences with the common and unique brands: Bengay: The gold standard. Whenever I use this brand, I generally gravitate toward the pain relief massage gel. However, my friend’s mom sent me the regular Bengay. What, you thought I was kidding? Here’s a picture of my Bengay drawer. There’s no doubt about it: Bengay is good. However, even the massage gel only contains 2.5 percent menthol, which is the active ingredient that transports your skin to the Arctic. It also has camphor, like what’s used in Vick’s VapoRub, to reduce …

Do You Want to Get Better?

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Do you want to get better? It’s a simple question, but many patients find it almost impossible to answer. It is part of the reason why a great number of doctors are hesitant to prescribe medication that patients need. They don’t want to enable irresponsible behavior. They are worried about what psychiatrists call “secondary gains.” And what are secondary gains? Well, it’s not fun being a chronic pain patient. All of us know that. But you know what? You deserve to stay home from work. You feel disgusting, like a nuclear wasteland. Why should you have to go to work? In fact, why should you be required to have a job at all when you feel like death all the time? If anyone deserves disability payments, it’s you. And you know what else? Sometimes you really need an excuse to get out of social obligations. “Oh, sorry, I’m not feeling well. Maybe next time.” Except “next time” turns into ice cream and binge-watching Netflix. The worst part is that you might not even realize you’re doing it. So much of pain is …

Pain News Network: The Quell Pain Relief Device

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Pasted below is the content of my first column as a regular contributor for the Pain News Network! When presented with the Quell pain relief device, people make one of two assumptions about me: 1.) I injured my knee, or 2.) I am a paroled felon wearing a very forgiving Velcro GPS. As I said in my recent guest column, I have made it my mission to test as many pain relief products and therapies as possible. Some of them might be familiar to you; others will be of the “new and bizarre” variety. Whatever they are, I will be your Friendly Neighborhood Guinea Pig and review them for your convenience. I only draw the line at “Made for TV” products that are out to swindle the desperate consumer. Pain patients are certainly desperate. We have a constant refrain humming through our bodies that plays a different tune for each person. Doctors are the musicians taught to hear those tunes — but how can they possibly learn all the music? How can they hear your …

Thoughts on the Quell Pain Relief Device

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I have now been using the Quell pain relief device for 15 days. Here are my initial thoughts: I definitely notice when I am not wearing it. Last week I was on the beach in Cape Cod with the in-laws for an afternoon, so I didn’t put it on for fear of ugly tan lines. I crashed as soon as I got back to the hotel. My pain quieted within 20 minutes when I started wearing the Quell again. While it can be tolerated on a 24-hour basis, I have been wearing the Quell only during the daytime. My pain is better when I’m flat on my back (once I take some tizanidine, anyway). I attempted to wear it one night and found the vibration, even in nighttime mode, too distracting. On the plus side, Husband could not feel the vibration on his side of the bed, so it won’t disturb any partners. For not wearing it 24-hours a day, the electrodes wear down at a rapid rate. After five days bits of the gel came off and stuck to my …

Piss Off, Pain Management Clinics

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“You have exhausted all of your options.” That is what I was told yesterday when I was denied as a new patient at Massachusetts General Hospital. Western medicine has officially given me the heave-ho. Because I have a “long-standing relationship with another pain management clinic,” unless I am being referred for a specific procedure that my current doctors do not have, I am not allowed to become a patient elsewhere. It’s so strange to reach the end of the road. It’s one thing to be told that the doctors are running out of ideas; it’s another thing entirely to have someone tell you that there is literally no other procedure in existence. All the treatments they are willing to try have been attempted. Science and research have not caught up yet. This is as good as it’s going to get. What they’re willing to try. That’s the operative phrase here. Despite my decade of experience in the medical system, despite never exhibiting pill-seeking behavior, my pain management doctors refused to prescribe any kind of opioid safety net. If …

The Quell Pain Relief Device: Living Up to Its Label?

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My long-awaited Quell pain relief device has finally arrived! As soon as I saw the FedEx truck rumble by, I heaved myself out of my chair and hurried to the front door, hoping to see that plain, unassuming box sitting on the front step. There it was, as I’d dreamed for months. I basically ripped it open with my teeth. I backed the Quell IndieGogo the moment I discovered it during the winter; it had already tripled its $100,000 goal. At this point my fairly useless pain clinic says I have exhausted most of my options in terms of what they can provide, unless I want to try an IV lidocaine/ketamine mix. I had the IV lidocaine infusion two weeks ago, and the aftermath was nothing short of a pain-riddled disaster. I’m grasping at straws here. Quell makes grand promises in its sleek promotional video. As PSFK said: TENS systems aren’t new in the market but Quell’s prescription-free, user-friendly and discrete approach is special. The Quell, no matter where the body pain is, could be left strapped at the calf where …