All posts tagged: back pain

Pain News Network: Aroga Yoga

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Here’s my newest column for the Pain News Network! One of the most popular remedies that pain management doctors like to recommend for patients is yoga. Not only has yoga created a revolution in the fitness and apparel worlds, but it also is touted as a great way for chronic pain patients to exercise. This generally leaves us patients in a strange spiral of “I hurt too much to work out” and then feeling worse because we aren’t moving. Physical activity is necessary in whatever form we can manage. I have several instructional DVDs, but only a few of them are actually tailored to people with illness and pain. I decided to go hunting for the Big Kahuna. My search was not in vain: I discovered Kayla Kurin, creator of Aroga Yoga. “Aroga,” which I thought was just a great rhyme, actually means “healthy, well, or free from disease.” Ms. Kurin is a yoga teacher based in London who focuses exclusively on chronic pain and illness, as she uses it to manage her own chronic fatigue …

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 …

When is a Flare More Than a Flare?

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I’m writing this while wearing my neck TENS unit that also has electrodes snaking down to my shoulders. I have been in a pain flare for weeks. We are talking days upon days of pure, undiluted flare. I can’t remember the last time I felt this rocky for so long. My absence from this blog has been spent just trying to get through the work day without being crushed by my own body. I broke down and took the heavy medications I save for truly bad days, and they did nothing to relieve the pressure. All three levels of my spine are throbbing with different ailments: tension and shooting pain in my neck, head, and shoulders; pulsing rib pain around my trunk; and rickety bones setting off sciatic jolts in my hips and legs. Is it the heat? The constantly-changing weather? The humidity? Work stress? Sitting for too long? Inhaling while turning too quickly? Who the hell knows. What does it mean to flare? A flare is when your normal pain suddenly magnifies for whatever reason. Breakthrough pain occurs …

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 …

How to Handle Chronic Pain in the Summer

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If you’re like me, then you dread weather patterns and barometric pressure changes. You can feel the effects of a rainstorm swelling in your body, and maybe you pretend that you’re a superhero with poorly-controlled weather powers (again, if you’re like me). For more than a decade I have been able to predict rain with 99 percent accuracy. Humidity decimates me. The cold can find me in several sweaters and a non-ironic Snuggie. I have touched on this topic before, but now that we have experienced the hottest day of the year so far in Massachusetts and the humidity refuses to abate, I ask myself: Why on earth do I live here? Seasons are, generally speaking, difficult for those of us with chronic conditions. Our fragile bodies are unable to handle random, drastic weather changes. That’s why it confuses me when the elderly flock to Florida… like birds. It’s humid down there. Short rainstorms occur almost daily. The heat is intense. Whatever my reasons, I choose to stay here. So how do I deal with the seasonal onslaught of …

Welcome to the Chronic Pain Club

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It might have been a car accident. Maybe you overextended yourself during a gym class. It could have been a sneeze gone wrong. Perhaps it was caused by trying to put on a pair of pants. In the end, though, you might just be getting older. You wait for the pain to get better, but it doesn’t. Weeks turn into months, months turn into years. Doctors’ faces blur together. They try this, that, and the other thing — and it might help for a little bit, or not at all. Whatever the reason, you are now one of the 1.5 billion people worldwide who has joined the Chronic Pain Club. It is kind of a club. And at this point, in a strange way, I am thankful for my membership. I’m not being facetious. Obviously I would prefer not to be in pain, but hey, here we are! A couple years ago, I would have smacked myself for saying that I’m thankful for what this experience has taught me — I would have groaned to this bizarrely optimistic person that the pain is so bad, it’s …