Living in hell-but you are still on earth!!

I am at the point now, when I start a post I usually go through a series of emotions. Who in the hell wants to read about PAIN? Sometimes when I try to write, I become angry when I look back at my life, I think back to the day of my accident. Sometimes I just sit and look a my computer screen. Finally I turn it off, lay my head down and cry. It is becoming increasing harder to write about pain when you are suffering so much. I don't know what drives me anymore.

I don't seem to ever be satisfied with what I have written about Chronic Pain. Often I will see a story on T.V., but its always about the addict and those terrible narcotics. I watched a story on Fox news a couple of days ago. It was about school kids and and the majority of kids said they gained access to their parents prescription drugs. Something is wrong with this story. Where in the hell did their parents get so many opioid and opiate type drugs, that they could just leave them lying around in their medicine cabinets.

When I hear unsubstantiated stories like this from the news media, I go into a rage.
They don't know or understand because for whatever reason this is the position of all of the news media. As for as that goes the general public have the same attitude.
If you take any of the powerful drugs, you are a drug addict. That is simply not true. Unfortunately, it has to strike close to home or to the person themselves before they really understand what a pain epidemic we have in this country. It takes only a split second to go from a happy active person to a vegatible that relies on this powerful pain medication to sustain life.

There is not a day of my life that I don't feel like taking my 40 Cal. automatic pistol that is loaded with hollow point rounds and sticking it in my mouth. The only thing that has stopped me is my faith in Christ, the love of my family and last I really don't want to die. Everyone has a breaking where they can't stand it any more. The suicide rate in this country is 5 times higher for people in chronic pain versus people who are not. So Please, to all of the politicians, DEA, and doctors out there. There are over 75 million of us are suffering this agonizing pain 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. All we want is a life, not to sit around getting adicted to drugs. We are citizens of this great country also and should be afforded the same right to life in peace as everyone else.

Politics and Pain

It has been a while since I posted, so I am going to start tonight, even though I am in so much pain I can hardly sit in my computer chair. My body is telling me to give up, that I am doing no good, then I will get a nice comment or e-mail and it then it gives me the courage to go on. There so many people just like me, either lying in bed with out the strength or courage to get up, while others are sitting in pain and and loneliness, staring at life passing them by, remembering plans and dreams they had for life or retirement. We aren't talking about a few thousand people, we are talking about 75 million people.

It is absolutely insane, what is going on in this and other Countries regarding Chronic Pain. In our country, the source for it is in the little photo to the left. They could also come together as it is non-partisan and do something to correct it.

Its that time again and I'm sure like me, you are tired of all of the phony promises. I don't know where they have been for the last 4 years, but it sure as "hell" hasn't been working for solutions for people living this ghastly life of Chronic pain. I can only speak for myself, but when it comes to trying to describe Chronic pain, I have no words to describe it to the point that I feel I have gotten my point across. When you have 75 million people suffering like I am, you have an epidemic on your hands. Even many of our wonderful military men and women who come home after being blown to hell by IED's or other ways are having the same problems, getting the powerful medication that it takes to knock out their pain.

This medicine is not illegal folks. It was approved by the FDA just for this purpose, yet all you hear is addiction, addiction. There no studies that I know of that shows a high level of addiction with people who live in chronic pain. I have researched this mess for to long. Most studies I have seen, have been around 2 to 3%, and for 75 million people that is nothing. Most people in chronic pain who are lucky enough to get someone to help them, hate taking the damn stuff because of the side effects. We are not lucking for a high, we are looking for a life. Most of the time we not only have to suffer from the pain, but we suffer the humiliation by a Dr. yelling at you about getting addicted. Most of them don't have enough education on it to know the correct words to use.

Its Chemical Dependency Doctor!!!! To be fair, all Doctors are not this way. We have many wonderful physicians who are educated and compassionate. They are just caught between a "rock and a hard place" with the justice dept. The Senators and Congressmen could put a stop to this insanity by putting control of the medical profession back where it is supposed to be, with the state medical boards. Then the DEA could get back to the job of stopping this massive amount of illegal drugs coming across the Mexican border. Yes there is an illegal drug problem in this country and I am all for going after them, but please not the doctors, and pain patients who can hardly make it through the day.

These politicians want your vote, so please do what I have done and continue to do. Write them, Call their offices. Its obvious from polling data that this country is fed up with politicians who forget who they represent. People are angry and their patience has grown thin, so no matter what state you live in, please jump in let them know that pain is a human issue, not a partisan issue.

Fibromyalgia-Chronic Pain and how it effects the brain

Even though My chronic pain does not come from fibromyalgia, there are millions of people suffering from it, and my heart goes out to them. It is hard to believe that some doctors still doubt its existence, but that is ignorance on their part of as for as I am concerned. There are to many great researchers that have come forward with evidence of the debilitating and deadly disease, to have anything but compassion for those people who suffer from it. I have a sister-in-law who suffers from it. I have watched her go from a vibrant young woman who ran several miles every day with a set of weights in each hand, to an over weight person who rarely gets out of bed anymore. We correspond by e-mail and she can relate to me and my condition better than my wife, because like me, her life is one constant nightmare of pain.

"Researchers at the University of Michigan Health System have found a key linkage between pain and a specific brain molecule, a discovery that lends new insight into fibromyalgia, an often-baffling chronic pain condition. In patients with fibromyalgia, researchers found, pain decreased when levels of the brain molecule called glutamate went down. The results of this study, which appears in the journal Arthritis and Rheumatism, could be useful to researchers looking for new drugs that treat fibromyalgia, the authors say. "If these findings are replicated, investigators performing clinical treatment trials in fibromyalgia could potentially use glutamate as a 'surrogate' marker of disease response," says lead author Richard E. Harris, Ph.D., research assistant professor in the Division of Rheumatology at the U-M Medical School's Department of Internal Medicine and a researcher at the U-M Chronic Pain and Fatigue Research Center.

The molecule glutamate is a neurotransmitter, which means it conveys information between neurons in the nervous system. When glutamate is released from one neuron, it diffuses across the space between cells, and then binds to receptors on the next neuron in line and causes the cell to become excited, or to be more active. This molecule was suspected to play a role in fibromyalgia because previous studies had shown that some brain regions in fibromyalgia patients appear to be highly excited. One such region is the insula. In functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies, researchers at U-M had previously shown that the insula displays augmented activity in fibromyalgia, which means neurons in these patients are more active in this part of the brain.

The U-M team hypothesized, Harris notes, that more activity among these neurons might be related to the level of glutamate in this region. To gauge the linkage between pain and glutamate, the researchers used a non-invasive brain imaging techinique called proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (H-MRS). H-MRS was performed once before and once following a four-week course of acupuncture or "sham" acupuncture. Researchers used either acupuncture or sham acupuncture to reduce pain symptoms. The sham procedure involved using a sharp device to prick the skin in order to mimic real acupuncture sensations.

Following the four weeks of treatment, both clinical and experimental pain reported were reduced significantly. More importantly the reduction in both pain outcomes was linked with reductions in glutamate levels in the insula: patients with greater reductions in pain showed greater reductions in glutamate. This suggests that glutamate may play a role in this disease and that it could potentially be used as a biomarker of disease severity. Because of the small number of participants in this study, further research should be conducted to verify the role of glutamate in fibromyalgia, Harris says. "

Everything in quotes is research information from the University of Michigan.

http://www.med.umich.edu/painresearch/patients/fibromyalgia.htm

Not in America

It has been a while since I have posted anything. Lately I have just opened it up and looked at all of the posts I have made night after night and then just close the blog again. Frankly I am tired of being in pain, tired of sitting up until 4:00P.M. in the morning because I am in to much pain to sleep. You will have to forgive me tonight because I certainly don't feel like writing about pain. I keep asking myself over and over, how could this be happening in this country, a country that so many men and women have fought and died for to protect our freedoms.

I myself am a veteran of one of those wars. There have been instances in war where several men and aircraft have been sacrificed just to save one life. Why? Because that is America. That is the country I love and was willing to die for. So why do so many people have to suffer like I do. We have large medical facilities and every day it seems like more new research is discovering some new disease, medication or a better way to take the ones that have been proven to work.
Practically any morning you can turn on the news and find hundreds of volunteers out searching for a lost child, or 2-3 fire rescue engines trying to rescue a puppy. Why do we do this? Because we are a compassionate people. That is the America I know and love.

America has a dirty little secret that most people don't understand and that includes the medical profession for the most part. The ones who do, don't want any part of taking care of people like me because we are to much trouble, or to much regulatory scurnity to bother with it. I always wandered, how can a doctor let someone leave his office, take his money, yet do nothing to help that person. The most delicate part of the human body, the central nervous system, is also the most abused part of the body. Once you have some type of disease, or have an injury that breaches the CNS you are in a for a lifetime of living hell. My own injury was caused by a orthopaedic surgeon using a new procedure, that he had, one days training on.


Chronic Pain has stolen my live for the last 25 years. Not only do I have to live that way but I have to live the humilation of trying to find a Doctor to help me. All over America people just like me by the millions are lying in pain or perhaps sitting up like me because they are in to much pain to sleep. It doesn't have to be that way for the 70 million plus people who live the nightmare of pain that just want go away, that stays with you night and day. No it doesn't have to be that way at all.

You see the drugs that will stop that kind of pain, are the same ones sought after by drug addicts. I know there is a drug problem in this country. Drug abuse goes back to the early Roman Empire. I as a person who now lives in Chronic Pain simply cannot relate to anyone who would want to take these powerful drugs just for fun. I know one thing. With almost 1/4 of the population living like this and several thousand killing themselves ever year, because it just becomes to painful to live, it is time for the politicians to get involved and make some legislation clear enough that people who are dying, get the treatment they need and at the same time not tie the hands of the DEA from getting the real drug abusers. I don't blame the DEA. I blame the Congress and Senate, first of all for not taking it seriously as a problem, and not writeing clear and concise laws so the law enforcement community and the medical community know will know what to do. Wake up Washington, D.C. This is America not some third world country. We believe in saving lives here, not taking them.



I wander if they have ever given a thought to the fact that anyone, even them could go from being perfectly healthy to a vegtable like me in the blink of an eye. I know because that is the way it happened to me.

How can you write a blog about Chronic Pain when you are in so much pain?

I was recently asked this question by my Psychiatrist. "How can you write about chronic pain when you are in so much pain yourself". Honestly, it is getting harder to keep this blog updated. In the beginning it was my hope of getting the attention of the medical profession and the politicians. The most rewarding thing is to get comments and I also receive a lot of e-mail from people in pain. I am an advocate for chronic pain through such wonderful organizations as The American Pain Foundation. Chronic pain is one of the most stigmatized diseases in the world, just like Mental Illness used to be and still is to a degree, but not as bad as in the past.

It is only in the past decade that mental illness and psychiatrists have been getting the credit they deserve. In the past people suffering from any form of mental illness were characterized as "being crazy", "retarded", "messed up in the head, sickos". In 2006 an independent study showed that 11% of women and 5% of men take antidepressants. This situation is far from perfect but thanks to scientists and research, we are finally starting to understand the complexities of the human brain and the central nervous system.

Depression and anxiety problems or panic attacks which is a form of mental illness is a problem that Chronic Pain sufferers have to deal with also, especially if you have lived with chronic pain like me, for years. The Psychiatrist I mentioned above, I believe "with all my heart", was placed in my life by GOD. I have been seeing him for 16 years. I have been in Chronic Pain for 25 years. He has treated me for depression and panic attacks for 16 years. He has watched me go from a person with constant pain levels of 3-4 to constant 10 pain levels. He has also watched me battle with back surgeries that only made the pain worse. He has watched me battle the so-called pain management specialists who only want to do their spinal injections at $2500.00 per shot then send you back to your primary care Dr. for pain medication.

Out of anger at what I have been through and compassion for the way I was having to live he made this statement to me. He said, I really have no desire to get into pain management, but I am going to start treating you for your pain. He knows that the medication he prescribes is not sufficient for my pain level but it helps. That was 5 years ago and he still prescribes all of my medication. Not only is he a good psychiatrist but he is a very knowledgeable Medical Doctor. I have nothing but gratification for him and in my life he is one of about three in the medical profession I can say that about.

Chronic Pain is a disease and finally research is starting to reveal the complexities of it. It will not be in my life time that the "he is only wanting drugs because he is an addict" stigma will be lifted. In the meantime myself and about 60-70 million others will continue to "suffer in silence".

A very bad Day!!

I am sure that most people who live with the levels of Chronic Pain that I do will tell you that one of the worst things about it is the Loneliness. It eats you alive because all of a sudden people don't have time for you and Yes "THAT INCLUDES YOUR OWN FAMILY". Even writing about pain when I am in so much pain at times is almost unbearable

Most of the time I do a pretty good job of keeping things in perspective but today wasn't one of them. My ex-wife, the mother of my two sons is dying of lung Cancer. My youngest son has always run from reality when it comes to things like that. He called me last night to tell me that she was back in the hospital and then got upset with me because he said he didn't like the way I reacted. When I asked him to explain what he meant he couldn't.

I had called him two or three times previous this week and of course I got the same answer that I have gotten for years. Dad, I am busy right now. I will call you right back. He didn't of course but I have grown use to it because he never does. Neither of my children call me any more to ask me how I am doing, if they can do anything for me, however they will call if they need something from me. Strange? Not really.

People can relate to cancer, heart problems, strokes, lung problems and I could go on. Just the word Pain, or Chronic Pain just doesn't seem to register in the human mind as being anything serious. Hell, what can you expect when most of the medical profession feels the same.

Sometimes I want to just stop writing even stop trying to even think about it. It is hard to believe with so many millions of people in this country in pain that it continues to be ignored especially by the state and federal law makers. I thought in this country you were presumed innocent until proven guilty, yet the majority of people that have had surgery after after surgery and still live in unbearable pain are stigmatized as just drug addicts. This is absolutely pathetic. Even many of the fighting men and women who have sustained severe damage are running into the same problems. This my friends is a disgraceful shame.

Why do I even bother writing a blog about pain?

Photo of me 8 months before my injury. The real damage was done by the surgical procedure that followed.
I have asked myself that question a lot lately. After all, no one wants to read about pain. Most people have the perception that bad things only happen to other people. Actually I guess I felt that way myself at one time. Its just human nature to not want to talk about painful or unpleasant things. Like so many other people who live in Chronic Pain, I ask myself more and more every day, Why even GO ON. Why not just put a stop to all of the pain, the sleepless nights.

Even taking pain medication gets very old and I will never be able to understand why anyone would want to take strong opiates that don't need them, because they all have side effects. Personally I think that people who take opioids just for the feeling are unhappy with themselves, with life. The news media makes it harder for people like me to get help because of their biased reporting. I'm not that way, I get high off life, and this beautiful country that GOD has blessed me with. That is one of the reasons that I cannot bring myself to take my own life. I am a man of God and I don't believe that is my call to make.

Someone once ask Rev. Billy Graham if there was a God, why did he allow little children to suffer and die young? Actually it was on the "Larry King Live Show". Rev. Graham looked at Larry King and replied I DON'T KNOW. He went on to say, "If we knew all of the mysteries of God then there would be no reason to worship him. He is absolutely right.

Do I believe there is a God? With every fiber in my body. Why hasn't he healed me? I don't know because I have prayed for him to do that. The best thing I have going for me is when I walk outside about 4:00 A.M. in the morning, which is about the time I go to sleep and look up at the beautiful universe I know his "Holy Spirit" is with me. That and my family is what has kept me going, along with the hope that if I write long enough, the medical profession and the politicians will do something to help me and the 60 million people in this country of all age groups who suffer as I do. It is time for both of them to put an end to the unfair stigmatization of Chronic Pain sufferers being drug addicts. It is a lie and I challenge any of them to show proof of it. They want do that for one reason. THEY CAN'T.

Doctors have opiodphobia

Where do you turn when you walk out of a physicians office after he has just told you that he cannot prescribe anything for your pain because he is afraid you will become addicted? Your pain level is so high that you are wandering if you can make it through the day, yet this so-called medical professional is more worried about addiction than your pain. Something is terribly wrong with this picture. This is what the "chronic pain individual" faces every single day of their life. Opiodphobia!! that is what I call it. It doesn't matter if you have no record of any kind of addiction. It is just like being found guilty before having a trial. If you are a "chronic pain "sufferer you are stigmatized.

I recently changed primary care physicians and started calling around to find a new one. The very first one I called, as I was describing my problems to her and mentioned chronic pain, this was the exact reply. Well I will tell you right now, we don't prescribe "narcotics". This statement only shows the lack of education the medical industry really has on controlling chronic pain. First of all they are not narcotics. This is a law enforcement term. The medical name for these drugs are opiods, opiates or "Schedual II controlled substances approved by the FDA for treatment of severe chronic pain and cancer patients. You don't become addicted. Addiction is a behavorial problem in people, and some of it is even hereditary. People who take street drugs to get high and sometimes people who take drugs for pain and continue after they no longer need them. That is addiction. The correct term is "chemical dependency" which is a normal occurance in anyone who has to take this type of drug. To get off of them when you no longer have to have them, tell your Dr. and he will start slowly lowering your dosage until you are completely rid of them. How do I know all of this. Four back surgeries and multiple intravenous injections, all of which have only made my problems worse and 25 years of sitting up all night reading every piece of medical publication I could find on the internet, watching surgery webcasts, and listening to the surgeons who are not afraid to tell the truth. The person who lives in chronic pain lives the most lonely, painful life in the world.

The medical failures that people with a life of pain have to live with

I can't describe the level of frustration I feel when I am stuck with a life of pain, especially when I ask, for example, a nurse about a procedure I had that was approved in late 1983, has left me with a life of agony and they have never heard of it. The reason of course is very simple. They don't teach them about it in nursing schools. Most doctors know, but they want talk about it. Even in my present condition, I am still faceing fusions at L4-L5 and L5-S1 and now I also have nerve root impingement at 3 cervical discs. I can hardly wear a shirt because of the burning sensation in my upper back. My pain level has gone from a 4-5 on a 10 scale, which I had for 20 years, to a constant 9-10 level. My spine surgeon has never even diagnosed my cervical area, even though I had a MRI for it about 8 months ago. While he was looking at my lumbar MRI when I ask about the cervical area, he said he couldn't talk about, I would have to make another appointment for that. Sometimes I really want to just give up. Where in the hell is the compassion!! If I were a Dr. myself (which I am not), there is no way in hell I could let a patient walk out of my office with the levels of pain that I have without helping them. But they do every day across this country to other people just like me. Just go to some of the pain forums.
Their excuse is, I am afraid you will become addicted. "Addicted my ass", I am worried about how to live one more day and this so-called Dr. is worried about me becoming addicted. I have said this before and I will say it again. I know there are good physicians. I have one, my psychiatrist of 15 years and I thank God for him. As for as the rest, at least in my life, I have nothing good to say.

Why does the medical Industry never talk about their failures?

It seems that every time you read a news article and even watch T.V. for that matter, some drug or medical procedure is being hyped. This is where something like chymopapain gets its start. In the press. Then come the big corporate medical lobbies spreading big money around to government agencies, congress and the physicians. Then all of a sudden some drug, device, or procedure gets approved.

But what about the drugs, procedures, etc. that don't turn out so well, you never here about them or at least the patient doesn't. Try getting a surgeon to day to talk about chymopapain, or some of the other harmful substances used in myelography, discography and even still the so-called epidural injections, like Thorotrast, Lipodil, Pantopaque and Myodil, which were all contrast materials used for the above mentioned tests. Well they quietly "fell from disuse", leaving some dead and most "damn cripples" like me and 50 million others and climbing. People doomed to a life of suffering "horrific chronic pain" that nobody wants to treat. Am I angry? Anger don't even describe the way I feel about the injustice and undertreatment of people like me.

"Falling Into Disuse"

I would first like to start with what started my downward spiral into the "hellish life of chronic pain". On November 10th 1983 a procedure was approved by the FDA in the United States called the Chymopapain injection or Chemonucleolysis as it was also referred to. By the way this was also the active ingredient in "Adolfs meat tenderizer". Even though I am not a physician, I have spent the last 18 years of my life researching this and ever kind of surgical procedure that has been performed in the last 50 years. I also have been the one on the receiveing end of the scalpel and numerous injections for the last 23 years. Even though Chymopapain was first used in Canada starting in the 1970's, Only a small number of Canadian orthopedists and neurosurgeons practiced Chemonuleoysis and they were expert at it. It was one of the most media hyped procedures in USA medical history according to Dr. Charles Burton a well known Neurosurgeon with a list of accomplishments that most surgeons only dream of having and someone I deeply respect for his continued stance on this and other practices. As soon as it was approved in the USA, approximately 7,000 American surgeons rushed to Canada and after a 1 day training course pronounced themselves fully qualified to perform these procedures at local hospitals. At first the hospitals objected to the short training period but eventually gave in to what I feel is a rediculous practice. Dr. Burton is probably the leading expert on this and many other kinds of surgeries. I urge you to read his report at http://www.burtonreport.com/. There is a popular term used in medical circles that the patient never hears about and that is to "fall into disuse". By allowing these drugs, procedures and medical devices to quitely fall into use, people like you and me never know the reasons why or the potential problems that one may face in the future from having one of these procedures. Even though the Chymopapain injections were performed from the early to late 1980's, today when I mention it to doctors they look at me like I am crazy. Most nurses and pain management centers say they have never heard of the procedure. So where in the hell does that leave not only me, but thousands of other people who lined up to get this new much hyped medical miracle. Very simple, the medical community made millions of dollars from it and also created a bunch of "chronic pain patients", but they don't want to talk about it now. This was my first medical procedure and one that I would live to regret. More on this later. I am in to much pain to continue, tonight.

The hopeless world of chronic pain

You hardly ever here the words "chronic pain" mentioned especially in the medical field. It is called the "silent epidemic" because so many people suffer in silence. Chronic pain differs from Acute pain because normally acute pain is associated with an injury, a fall, broken arm, etc. Usually you get a lot of attention especially from your family because you were in pain for a while but now you are better. Not so with chronic pain. It never gets better. It is with you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It never stops, its always there, unrelenting. Pretty soon even your family stops calling. It can be for a number of reasons. They feel helpless, don't know what to do to help, they get tired of seeing you the same way every time they come around. They don't understand why you don't get better.

I am one of those people. I have lived this way for 23 years and don't think it can't happen to you. Chronic pain knows no age, nationality, or race. Much of it is caused by the very profession that we look to for help. The medical profession!!