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.

Genocide in America

I am sure after a title like that you are probably asking yourself, what in the hell is he talking about? I love this Country. I am a Viet Nam Veteran. I have never taken the freedoms we have in America for granted, but there are things going on that you almost never here about in the News Media. We have always had our share of things in the past, as a compassionate people, we are not proud of. Usually it is after the fact. Example: The internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, the so-called Insane asylums and things done to these poor people in the name of medicine in the 1940s-1960s. I once had the disgusting opportunity to tour one. Of course, who can forget the movie, "One flew over the Coo-Coo's nest". Actually, it wasn't far off the mark.

I'm sure you are saying O.K., so what has all of this got to do with genocide in present day America. If you knew what I know then you would understand when I say that we are in danger of becoming a "police state" and even now a certain group of people are already having their civil rights trampled on, profiled like comman criminals, accused of being drug addicts, having compassionate doctors raided, jailed and accused of running "pill mills", when in fact all they are guilty of in most cases, are keeping people like me alive.

There is a disease in this country right now that goes virtually ignored, untreated and stigmatized. That disease is Intractable Chronic Pain. I know, the usual reaction is hell, pain is not a disease. A little pain never killed anyone, besides I have been in pain before. If you are one of those people who feels that way, then my best friend, "Jesus Christ" said it best in the Book of Proverbs. "My People Perish for lack of knowledge".


I would say you are uneducated to what is going on at this very minute in this country and so would 72.5 Million other people who are in pain, with 30 million of those just like me, living in severe intractable chronic pain. I have another "news flash" for you. You could become like me in the blink of an eye. Doomed to a life of agony and unbearable pain for the rest of your life.

Once you breach the central nervous system, (spinal cord) in any way my friend, You are in for a life time of agony. It could be an auto accident, motorcycle, a simple fall, playing sports or in my case the results of a surgical procedure gone bad.

If you really want to know some of the things that are happening right now, click on this link http://painreliefnetwork.org/index.html .

I am dieing myself, from 25 years of unrelenting pain, 24 hrs a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. You get very little sleep and when you do fall asleep from sheer exhaustion, the pain will wake you up in an hour or two. As I write this blog it is 2:30 A.M. and I will probably go to sleep at 4:00-5:00 in the morning. I do this night after night and usually stop when the pain gets so bad I can no longer concentrate.


While it is true that the death certificate will never say that me or anyone in my situtation died of chronic pain, what usually happens is an organ failure, like a heart attack, stroke, etc. In the last 6 months, my blood pressure has gone from being perfect to extremely high. My doctor said it was from the stress of my body fighting pain. Thousands of people every year simply can fight no longer and take their own lives. My question is what is a person supposed to do when "they don't want to die", but they are in "to much pain to live" ?


So who is to blame for this "silent epidemic" as it is called? Truthfully their is plenty of blame to go around. There is a drug addiction problem in this country from people, most are not in pain, but usually take a number of different drugs at one time to get high, lack of education for not just the general public but doctors and the DEA also. For the present time in history, The GAO (govermental accounting office) issued a report that was highly critical of the DEA and their efforts to stem the flow of illegal narcotics. Then the Bush/Ashcroft/Gonzaliz so called "War on Drug dealers" which has turned out to be a "war on doctors and pain patients"


Of course the Senators and Congressmen who head up these powerful committees like nothing better than to get some cabinet head before them and chew their ass out to look good for the cameras. At the time Asa Hutchison was appointed DEA Czar and under pressure from Congress, started with a big media campaign, deliberately useing a new drug called Oxycontin that was and still is a drug approved by the FDA for the treatment of cancer and severe intractable chronic pain. So now instead of going after the bad guys, the drug smugglers, the short answer is they went after the soft targets. The poor chronic pain patient like myself who has no desire to take anything to get high. Instead we are the targets, and all we want is something to give us a few hours away from the painful, miserable, lonely existance we live. Something about this picture is terribly wrong. Its alright to let someone die just as long as you keep them from getting addicted.

The Toxic dump of the human body

I will admit this picture is very disturbing, I just wish that more spine surgeons would listen to a man who is a board certified Neurosurgeon, spine surgeon and he is also certified in forensics medicine. For years he has been trying to get the attention of his collegues about the fragile central nervous system that he refers to as the "toxic dump" of the human body. The photo is the end stage of adhesive Arocnoditis. This is inside the spinal cord at the lumbar area and as you can see all of the nerves are just melted againest the spinal wall. The information below is copyrighted material taken from his site, with his permission. He is my hero and if you want to get an education on the spine please visit his site at http://www.burtonreport.com/INDEX.htm

"Despite society's frequently professed concern with the sanctity of, and need for. the preservation of human life this attitude is not always evident when reality sets in. The melamine poisoning of pets by tainted foodstuffs has created a remarkable whirlwind of world attention which has resulted in a swiftly successful scientific investigatory response to find the culprits and make sure that this does not happen again.
Unfortunately, poisoned humans have not been as lucky as their pets. The press has also recently brought to our attention the fact that a syrupy poison (diethylene glycol, the prime ingredient in antifreeze) has been substituted for more expensive and safe ingredient glycerol in oral medicines, such as cough syrup throughout the world for over a decade.The effect of the oral administration of diethylene glycol produces kidney failure, paralysis, and in most cases death (please note the similarity of symptoms with pet deaths due to melamine). Massive diethylene glycol poisonings have now been documented in Haiti, Bangladesh, Argentina, Nigeria, India, Panama, and China.In underdeveloped countries most people who die don't come to a medical facility or have toxicological autopsy studies. While some may be tempted to take some solace in being in a more advanced society, they shouldn't. Please put on your seatbelts at this point in time.You will no doubt be surprised to learn that the same poison, diethylene glycol, has been injected into the spine of unsuspecting Americans and their European cousins since the 1940s as a ingredient of oil myelograms and continues to be injected today as an ingredient of steroid suspensions frequently being used to treat back pain.When diethylene glycol gets into subarachnoid space it produces a chemical meningitis. This typically leads to adhesive arachnoiditis, which is severe scarring of the spinal cord and nerve roots. The most common symptom is constant and agonizing pain which is remarkably disabling. Many patients with adhesive arachnoiditis have taken their own lives as the only means of escaping their agony because adhesive arachnoiditis is rarely a direct cause of death. The common use of diethylene glycol as a ingredient of steroid suspensions being blindly injected into the spine is a real, present, and serious public heath problem in the United States and Europe today. Remarkably there is no hue and cry evident. The sufferers are not infrequently told that the problem is "in their heads" when a high resolution MRI could provide the specific diagnosis.Where are the medical and scientific professionals needed to investigate these tragedies? They are not in evidence. The only recourse a patient has today is in the medical-legal (if the statute of limitations hasn't run out) arena. The problem with this venue for society is that the settlements are not publicly propagated and the rest of the unsuspecting potential victims remain essentially uninformed. There just may be a slim chance, at this point in time, that the suffering of our pets from the melamine disaster might just possibly shift the spotlight a bit to the also not-wonderful-world of diethylene glycol. "

Copyrighted material of Dr. Charles V. Burton

http://www.burtonreport.com/InfSpine/AdhesArach&PoisonedMedicine.htm

What is your Doctor really writing in your health record?

I often wonder how many Chronic Pain Patients lives have been destroyed because of a doctor putting, not what you are telling him, but what he perceives that you are saying, in your medical records. As a person who has lived in Chronic pain for 25 years, the last 5 years being absolute torture and has been down this road many times, I can tell you, it happens every day. It has happened to me and if you are living in Chronic Pain, I can just about promise you that it has happened to you. Do you have a copy of your medical records now. If not and especially if you have been to several different doctors seeking treatment as most of us have, I would strongly advise you to obtain and keep as many of your records as possible. You might want to prepare yourself to be shocked!!, as to what you may find in them.

While a doctor's office should be a haven for the sick, that is no longer the case, especially for the person suffering from Chronic Pain. They still take your money, as they always have, and they will prescribe you anti-inflamatory, antidepressants, etc, but the minute you mention something stronger, for example, some type of opioid, you have just entered into an aggressive, non trusting relationship with your doctor. All of a sudden, you have become a drug addict, just looking for drugs. Never mind that you are in so much pain that you don't feel that you can go on any longer. Opioid phobia has just kicked in with your doctor and you have committed the unpardonable sin of asking for the only thing that will control your pain, especially if it is at the levels of mine.

Its not enough that people like you and me have to go through this demeaning process with the medical profession trying to find someone with the compassion and education to help us, we usually end up with junk and outright lies placed in our medical records that will haunt us the rest of our lives. Maybe that is one of the reasons that approximately 17,000 people suffering from Chronic Pain kill themselves every year.

Even though this happens everyday all over America, and even though it is a violation of Federal laws, State laws, its unconstitutional and certainly a violation of "human rights" it keeps happening. Why? Because in 1999 some accountant in the GAO reported that opioids especially

Oxycontin was being prescribed to much. Now what in the hell some accountant knows about what is to much to prescribe a person in Chronic Pain, I will never understand , but the committees and sub-committees in congress started holding hearings and hence President Bush and John Ashcroft started the "War on Drugs" with the help of the DEA.

Of course the doctors are now afraid to prescribe any type opioid for fear of the DEA. So what is going to happen to people like you and me? Nothing until we all get together and start demanding our rights. So do you want to be part of the solution or spend the rest of your life in pain. Personally, I hate doing this blog, because its talking about a subject that is my life, and I sit up late at night to write it and I am in pain. I spend a big portition of my life writing congress, working with advocacy groups and writing this blog. You may not be in pain now, but all it takes is an auto accident, a fall and you will find yourself in my world. So step up. We need you!!

Are you "Chemically dependent or "Addicted"?

Two of the most misunderstood terms in taking opiate or opiate-like drugs is Addiction vs. Chemical Dependency. Doctors, especially the News Media and even Chronic Pain patients themselves often misuse the terms. As a Chronic pain patient you have a duty to educate yourself on these things. Its not fair to you and it is certainly not fair to other Chronic Pain patients who are "fighting for our rights." So educate yourself!!

In writing this blog I want to be fair and present the other side. I just wish the "News Media" would do the same. If you take powerful Opiates or Opiods because you live with a level of Chronic Pain that is intolerable, sooner or later you will become chemically dependent on them. This is normal and if at some point you feel you no longer need them, slowely start reducing your dosage until you are completely off of the drug. I would suggest consulting with your Doctor and make sure he is aware of what you are doing. He will probably advise you at what rate you should reduce the medication. If you continue to take them after you no longer need to and make no effort to get off of the pain medications then you have become Addicted. At that point it is time to seek out an Addiction medicine specialist.

When opiates are prescribed by a physician for the treatment of pain and are taken in the prescribed dosage, they are safe and there is little chance of addiction. However, when opiates are abused and taken in excessive doses, addiction can result.

The brain itself produces endorphins that have an important role in the relief or modulation of pain. Sometimes, though, particularly when pain is severe, the brain does not produce enough endorphins to provide pain relief. Fortunately, opiates, such as morphine are very powerful pain relieving medications. When used properly under the care of a physician, opiates can relieve severe pain without causing addiction.

Feelings of pain are produced when specialized nerves are activated by trauma to some part of the body, either through injury or illness. These specialized nerves, which are located throughout the body, carry the pain message to the spinal cord. After reaching the spinal cord, the message is relayed to other neurons, some of which carry it to the brain. Opiates help to relieve pain by acting in both the spinal cord and brain. At the level of the spinal cord, opiates interfere with the transmission of the pain messages between neurons and therefore prevent them from reaching the brain. This blockade of pain messages protects a person from experiencing too much pain. This is known as analgesia.

Opiates also act in the brain to help relieve pain, but the way in which they accomplish this is different than in the spinal cord.

There are several areas in the brain that are involved in interpreting pain messages and in subjective responses to pain. These brain regions are what allow a person to know he or she is experiencing pain and that it is unpleasant. Opiates also act in these brain regions, but they don't block the pain messages themselves. Rather, they change the subjective experience of the pain. This is why a person receiving morphine for pain may say that they still feel the pain but that it doesn't bother them anymore.

Although endorphins are not always adequate to relieve pain, they are very important for survival. If an animal or person is injured and needs to escape a harmful situation, it would be difficult to do so while experiencing severe pain. However, endorphins that are released immediately following an injury can provide enough pain relief to allow escape from a harmful situation. Later, when it is safe, the endorphin levels decrease and intense pain may be felt. This also is important for survival. If the endorphins continued to blunt the pain, it would be easy to ignore an injury and then not seek medical care.

There are several types of opiate receptors, including the delta, mu, and kappa receptors. Each of these three receptors is involved in controlling different brain functions. For example, opiates and endorphins are able to block pain signals by binding to the mu receptor site. The powerful new technology of cloning has enabled scientists to copy the genes that make each of these receptors. This in turn is allowing researchers to conduct laboratory studies to better understand how opiates act in the brain and, more specifically, how opiates interact with each opiate receptor to produce their effects. I just hope it is soon, because personally I hate taking opiods or any medication for that matter. I, like most people in chronic pain just want a life.

Spine surgery and all of the new "devices"

Every MONTH it seems like another new DEVICE OR PROCEDURE for Spine Surgery is approved. There are new and less invasive ways to fuse different levels of the spine, especially the lumbar and cervical discs. There are new tools, devices and procedures. The only problem is after all the surgery and the pain of fusions most patients are no better off and in most cases worse than before. How do I know? I have been there done that, I have researched it for 20 years and I receive comments and e-mails of people just like me, a living mass of pain.

Since I believe that man was created by a higher power, if he had meant for the spine to be rigid, he would have made it that way.

Now enter the Charite' artificial disc which was first developed in Berlin, Germany almost 20 years ago with dismal results. Depuy Industries owned by Johnson and Johnson purchased the company that owned the disc and of course got it pushed through the FDA with a short clinical trial, spine surgeons started implanting the device in the USA, in the L4-L5 area of back patients.
____________________________________________________________
"Seven months later, on May 13, 2005, the Street.com, reported that Dr Charles Rosen, an associate clinical professor of spine surgery at the University of California at Irvine, was calling for an immediate recall of the Charite, pointing out fundamental flaws in J&J's study design.

He told the Street that J&J compared the Charite to BAK cages in spinal fusions, a failed procedure that had not been performed in years. According to Dr Rosen, the comparison is "the worst possible operation to compare these things to."

J&J responded by saying the BAK was the standard treatment for degenerative disc disease at the time of the study.

According to the Street, Dr Rosen said J&J ignored the first patients who underwent the surgery, and that exclusion of such a significant portion of the sample size can seriously compromise the quality of statistical data.

Dr Rosen, who is also the founder of the UCI Spine Center, told the Orange County Register on April 12, 2006, that the Charite can cause more pain than it cures.

Forty-five year old, Dane Titsworth, from a hospital bed at UCI Medical Center, recovering from his fourth back surgery, told the Register, that the pain he experienced with the Charite he had implanted in May 2005, was like driving a big rig over your legs.

After the Charite surgery, Mr Titsworth said the pain became unbearable and cost him his job with State Farm Insurance, and nearly his marriage.

Dr Rosen fused the part of his spine where another surgeon had implanted the disc.

The Charite does not absorb shock like a healthy disc or mimic natural motion, Dr Rosen told USA Today on July 25, 2006, and a dislocation or fracture of the disc can also cause problems, he said.

In March 2006, Dr Rosen says, eight more patients like Mr Titsworth contacted him, who have more pain in their back with the Charite than without it.

In May 2006, Medicare decided to stop paying for the device in patients over 60, noting that the $30,000 to $50,000 surgery had not been sufficiently tested for long-term affects.

Blue Cross and Blue Shield also determined that more research was needed over a longer period of time, although insurance plans in each state determine coverage decisions individually, according to USA Today.

On October 20, 2005, the Bagolie Friedman law firm announced the formation of the "International Charite Artificial Disc Practice Group," based on a belief that numerous people in the US and abroad, "suffer Charite artificial disc failure," and that "Johnson and Johnson is responsible for manufacturing a medical device they knew or should have known was unreasonably dangerous in an attempt to capture some of the lucrative multi billion dollar back surgery market."

"We will be reviewing potential cases from the United States, Australia and Europe," said Mr Bagolie.

On June 5, 2006, the Street.com reported that Chicago-based attorney, Pete Flowers, has more than 200 clients who have complications from the Charite and who are seeking reparations from DePuy Spine.

Twenty-eight lawsuits have been filed, Mr Flowers told the Street, and he expects an additional 40 to 50 more to be filed this month. Dane Titsworth is a client of the firm.

Mr Flowers' clients claim the Charite is defective and that J&J improperly marketed the device and did not adequately warn of the disc's dangers.

"Most of these people are between 25 and 45 years old," he told the Street.com. "A lot of them have lost their jobs, their spouses, their families, their houses -- everything."

Since the disc was approved in the US, more than 5,000 people have received the implant, says DePuy Spine's Bill Christianson, vice president of regulatory affairs, according to USA Today on July 25, 2006."

Lawsuits Multiply

Veterinarians receive 3 times more training on pain than doctors and nurses

This is a Canadian survey, but I believe it and it is probably worse in the USA. I also recently learned from a reliable survey that "old people" are the most undertreated for pain, followed by "children", then "women". "Men in the 30 to 45 year old range get the best pain treatment".

"Toronto - A recent survey for the Canadian Pain Society found students in veterinary medicine received an average of 98 hours on pain education, while medical students spent about 16 hours studying the subject.

Among the vets in training polled in the University of Toronto survey, the least amount of specific pain education received was 27 hours, whereas some medical and nursing students admitted they'd received no training on pain at all.

Nursing students spent an average of 31 hours on the subject of pain.

"All the veterinary colleges had way more hours than medicine, nursing, dentistry (and) pharmacy," said lead researcher of the study, Judy Watt-Watson.

She told 680News a stubborn stigma around chronic pain is playing a role. "There are chronic diseases related to pain that we can't take an X-ray of," she said.

One in four Canadians have suffered from chronic pain, according to researchers, who suggest training on the subject should be mandatory, not elective, in more medical schools across the country.

The society said this lack of training is leaving Canadian health care professions inadequately equipped to treat pain-related problems".

Source:Taiwo Lewis
.680 News


I receive a lot of e-mail from people all over the world, especially Canada, New Zealand, UK, and of course here in the USA and it really doesn't matter where, its the same horror stories and the same stigma no matter what the country. It is also a damn disgrace.

I will leave my first bit of education for the medical profession. Here is the stigma. "I am afraid you will become addicted". That statement in itself is wrong. You don't become addicted. Addiction is a behavioral problem, part of it even hereditary, where by people get medication for the high, the euphoric feeling and most have no chronic pain problems.

Chemical dependency is the correct word and is a natural occurrence when people have to take powerful medication for a pro-longed period of time. All you do is start slowly reducing the amount of medication you are taking until you are off of it. As a matter of fact "addiction" and "chemical dependency" take place in two totally different areas of the brain.

How do I know? Because I have gotten off of powerful opiods myself, seven or eight times. If I felt like I needed help getting off of them, I would tell my Doctor and ask him to help me. Why, because like the majority of people in chronic pain, I am not a damn drug addict.