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Old 12-11-2018, 01:05 PM
 
Location: Free From The Oppressive State
30,195 posts, read 23,603,911 times
Reputation: 38531

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Catgirl64 View Post
For someone whose condition is painful, but far from terminal, and whose wish is not for death, but only for that pain to end? No. There has to be a better way, and we must make finding it a priority.

OP, your story broke my heart. Three times in my life, I have had pain so severe that I needed prescription meds to combat it. All were of brief duration, and I cannot imagine living with chronic pain without going mad.

I agree that addiction is a serious problem, and one that needs to be addressed, but I also agree with you: to withhold these meds, while doing nothing at all to develop a safe, effective, and non-addictive alternative is the height of cruelty.
I suffer from chronic pain after a car accident where my spine was knocked out by a half an inch at the neck. Do that to your spine, if feels amazing. The pain is non stop. It never. fricken. stops. It's also frustrating. Just trying to get to sleep is a chore because I have to have the pillows in a certain way so that my spine is aligned in a certain way - and once I find that position, (finally!), if I move, I have to restart that process all over again. For 19 years, I've been unable to just go to bed and go to sleep. It's: go to bed, make sure everything is set before the fight, fight with the pillows - folding and twisting them to support the neck and align the spine in just the right way...and that can take a very long time.

And even when everything is to the point that I can actually sleep, there's still pain, but it's not as bad because it feels like relieving pain...if that makes any sense to you. It usually feels like little electrical charges down my limbs, but while it's not neutral, it feels like pressure is being released - so painful, but "not as bad", and actually what I look for to be able to sleep. Yeah, that's pathetic, isn't it?

As I'm typing right now, I'm in pain. I'm "used to it" in that I can function and get my brain to concentrate on other things, but that doesn't mean I stop feeling it, and it doesn't mean I'm not aware of it...at all times. Every day. All day. Never ending. Never stopping. No relief. None. And there never will be any. Ever.

I understand to a certain extent what the OP was talking about. In some cases, even doing the smallest of things will bring me horrendous headaches and pain in my back, and to my limbs so bad that I can't even find the right position to sleep in. I just pop 1600mg of Ibuprofen and wait to pass out. It could be simple things like cleaning the house. Because I still have not learned to do one thing at a time, it's "do it all and don't stop until it's all done" work ethic I've had my entire life. It doesn't matter how many times I tell myself to pace myself, I do it all at once. But it's not like it's heavy duty. It's sweeping the floor, mopping the floor, wiping down everything in the bathroom, and doing laundry. (Everything else is done on a daily basis cleaning wise.) That's it. And it can lay me out for an entire day after that.

However, I don't have the type of pain the OP's wife has, and I can still get up, get out, walk around, and be independent, but I'm telling you, even on my scale there are days when it's maddening.
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Old 12-11-2018, 01:07 PM
 
17,507 posts, read 17,428,424 times
Reputation: 25495
Quote:
Originally Posted by Volobjectitarian View Post
Close to home for me because of the pain my sister was in prior to her death. Malignant phyllodes tumors in her chest wall, lower back and under her left arm made pretty much any movement agonizingly painful, including breathing. When I say "malignant" I mean 1 tumor became 7 and one actually burst through her skin, and when I say "agonizing" I mean she routinely had pain spikes that knocked her out cold. On the 1-10 scale, a regimen of oxy and morphine would let her live at around 6-7, and cannabis could get that down a notch, to like 5-6.

And every 4 weeks, she had to submit to some absurd "do you really need it" addiction interview before her prescriptions could be renewed. She'd go to the controlling pain management person, they'd treat her like a drug addict, she'd have the folks at MD Anderson explain her case and how agonizing her pain is based on how evil and aggressive her cancer was, and the pain management person would then "review her case" and reauthorize the prescriptions. Every 4 weeks for the last 11 months of her life. And for two of those visits to the bureaucracy, she had the refills delayed because the pain management person who handled her case was out of office, and a replacement had to seriously reexamine the entire case, talk to all the doctors, etc.

Ask me why I hate government busybodies with the white hot fury of 1,000 suns, and the answer starts with some low level HC bureaucrat requiring my sister to spend an entire day in waiting rooms, on phones, explaining the same story over and over again simply so she could alleviate some amount of agonizing pain she lived with 24/7/365. All because someone thousands of miles away decided the pain relievers she took constituted a crisis.
Wife has to go through these evaluations with her pain management doctor. I work rotating shifts at the hospital and so sometimes the pain is too great for her to drive herself to the appointment and she has to reschedule. I’ve offered to take time off work to bring her to the doctor but she turns down my offer, partly because she still wants to be self reliant.

As for medical marijuana, at this stage in her condition it can’t hurt to at least try. For the record, neither of us have ever used illegal drugs, have never smoked cigarettes, no do we drink alcohol. I recently had a minor medical procedure and was given a prescription of pain pill over 6 months ago and I never took a single one because I didn’t need them nor did my wife take any of them.
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Old 12-11-2018, 01:13 PM
 
Location: Austin
15,589 posts, read 10,318,617 times
Reputation: 19398
I don't suffer from chronic physical or emotional pain. who are we to decide what is manageable pain? It is supremely arrogant to assume we know what is right for someone else.

Last edited by texan2yankee; 12-11-2018 at 01:40 PM..
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Old 12-11-2018, 01:15 PM
 
17,507 posts, read 17,428,424 times
Reputation: 25495
Quote:
Originally Posted by Three Wolves In Snow View Post
I suffer from chronic pain after a car accident where my spine was knocked out by a half an inch at the neck. Do that to your spine, if feels amazing. The pain is non stop. It never. fricken. stops. It's also frustrating. Just trying to get to sleep is a chore because I have to have the pillows in a certain way so that my spine is aligned in a certain way - and once I find that position, (finally!), if I move, I have to restart that process all over again. For 19 years, I've been unable to just go to bed and go to sleep. It's: go to bed, make sure everything is set before the fight, fight with the pillows - folding and twisting them to support the neck and align the spine in just the right way...and that can take a very long time.

And even when everything is to the point that I can actually sleep, there's still pain, but it's not as bad because it feels like relieving pain...if that makes any sense to you. It usually feels like little electrical charges down my limbs, but while it's not neutral, it feels like pressure is being released - so painful, but "not as bad", and actually what I look for to be able to sleep. Yeah, that's pathetic, isn't it?

As I'm typing right now, I'm in pain. I'm "used to it" in that I can function and get my brain to concentrate on other things, but that doesn't mean I stop feeling it, and it doesn't mean I'm not aware of it...at all times. Every day. All day. Never ending. Never stopping. No relief. None. And there never will be any. Ever.

I understand to a certain extent what the OP was talking about. In some cases, even doing the smallest of things will bring me horrendous headaches and pain in my back, and to my limbs so bad that I can't even find the right position to sleep in. I just pop 1600mg of Ibuprofen and wait to pass out. It could be simple things like cleaning the house. Because I still have not learned to do one thing at a time, it's "do it all and don't stop until it's all done" work ethic I've had my entire life. It doesn't matter how many times I tell myself to pace myself, I do it all at once. But it's not like it's heavy duty. It's sweeping the floor, mopping the floor, wiping down everything in the bathroom, and doing laundry. (Everything else is done on a daily basis cleaning wise.) That's it. And it can lay me out for an entire day after that.

However, I don't have the type of pain the OP's wife has, and I can still get up, get out, walk around, and be independent, but I'm telling you, even on my scale there are days when it's maddening.
Her arthritis is also developing in the neck. When she turns her head it sounds similar to gravel. What you described is why we spent the extra money for a Select Comfort mattress with separate pressure chambers. My side is 80 (very firm) and her side is 35 (very soft) she has three pillows, two for her head and neck and a knee pillow to keep her knees separated and hips aligned. If she lays with her shoulders flat on the bed, her right hip is raised up due to the curvature of the spine. If her hips are flat on the bed, her left shoulder is raised up off the bed. If she is in the wrong position too long while sleeping, she pays for it in pain and stiffness the next day. On those days when she gets out of bed she moves like her father before he died at the age of 86 and she’s only 50.
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Old 12-11-2018, 01:15 PM
 
Location: Here and now.
11,906 posts, read 5,550,926 times
Reputation: 12963
Quote:
Originally Posted by Three Wolves In Snow View Post
I suffer from chronic pain after a car accident where my spine was knocked out by a half an inch at the neck. Do that to your spine, if feels amazing. The pain is non stop. It never. fricken. stops. It's also frustrating. Just trying to get to sleep is a chore because I have to have the pillows in a certain way so that my spine is aligned in a certain way - and once I find that position, (finally!), if I move, I have to restart that process all over again. For 19 years, I've been unable to just go to bed and go to sleep. It's: go to bed, make sure everything is set before the fight, fight with the pillows - folding and twisting them to support the neck and align the spine in just the right way...and that can take a very long time.

And even when everything is to the point that I can actually sleep, there's still pain, but it's not as bad because it feels like relieving pain...if that makes any sense to you. It usually feels like little electrical charges down my limbs, but while it's not neutral, it feels like pressure is being released - so painful, but "not as bad", and actually what I look for to be able to sleep. Yeah, that's pathetic, isn't it?

As I'm typing right now, I'm in pain. I'm "used to it" in that I can function and get my brain to concentrate on other things, but that doesn't mean I stop feeling it, and it doesn't mean I'm not aware of it...at all times. Every day. All day. Never ending. Never stopping. No relief. None. And there never will be any. Ever.

I understand to a certain extent what the OP was talking about. In some cases, even doing the smallest of things will bring me horrendous headaches and pain in my back, and to my limbs so bad that I can't even find the right position to sleep in. I just pop 1600mg of Ibuprofen and wait to pass out. It could be simple things like cleaning the house. Because I still have not learned to do one thing at a time, it's "do it all and don't stop until it's all done" work ethic I've had my entire life. It doesn't matter how many times I tell myself to pace myself, I do it all at once. But it's not like it's heavy duty. It's sweeping the floor, mopping the floor, wiping down everything in the bathroom, and doing laundry. (Everything else is done on a daily basis cleaning wise.) That's it. And it can lay me out for an entire day after that.

However, I don't have the type of pain the OP's wife has, and I can still get up, get out, walk around, and be independent, but I'm telling you, even on my scale there are days when it's maddening.
The fact that you need 1600mg of Ibuprofen to knock it out gives me an idea of how bad it is. The most I have ever taken is 800, and the pain that prompted that was pretty damn awful. I wouldn't want to rely on it long-term, as too much Ibuprofen makes me queasy.

Damn, I am sorry you are going through this.
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Old 12-11-2018, 01:16 PM
 
Location: Here and now.
11,906 posts, read 5,550,926 times
Reputation: 12963
Quote:
Originally Posted by texan2yankee View Post
I don't suffer from chronic physical or emotional pain. I would never condemn a person who chooses suicide because of pain. who are we to decide what is manageable or acceptable pain? It is supremely arrogant to do so.
Who has done that? If you mean me, the only thing I condemned is the notion that we should ignore the problem of chronic pain to the point that someone feels there is no other way out.
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Old 12-11-2018, 01:25 PM
 
13,819 posts, read 5,538,666 times
Reputation: 8509
Quote:
Originally Posted by Catgirl64 View Post
You and I often find ourselves on opposing sides, regarding politics, but I agree wholeheartedly with you about this: zero tolerance policies are, overall, ridiculous, and easy way out for people who don't want to actually go to the trouble of treating people and situations individually. This is the same mindset that gets little kids suspended for pointing a finger and saying "bang, and teenage girls expelled for carrying dangerous drugs like Midol in their purses.
When we find ourselves on opposing sides, check what the sides actually are, and 99.9% of the time, my side will be the one championing the individual's freedom from the meddling nonsense of busybodies.

In all things, busybodies make things worse, and they almost always meddle under the zero tolerance paradigm. It's why I hate collectivism/statism so much. Nothing but forcing everyone to adhere to the whims and whimsy of busybodies.

You're absolutely right on your points, though. Zero tolerance, jerkweed busybodies are exactly why a kid gets suspended for pointing a finger and saying bang, or why Midol is considered a controlled substance, or why playing/singing "Baby It's Cold Outside" is now a hate crime. Busybodies are like a black hole that instead of absorbing light, they absorb common sense and individual liberty. They are a void zone where logical thought, rational dialogue and sober solutions are impossible.
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Old 12-11-2018, 01:36 PM
 
Location: Kansas City, MISSOURI
20,774 posts, read 9,398,410 times
Reputation: 15512
OK, this might seem a bit bizarre, and for the worse conditions I doubt it'll do any good, but its worth a try. It's a kind of sound therapy. I first discovered this website to treat some tinnitus I have but I find this kind of noise relaxes me incredibly.

Put on some headphones and click on the following link. Once it starts up, turn up the volume as loud as you can tolerate.
https://mynoise.net/NoiseMachines/im...00000013889900

Try it for at least 15 minutes. It's probably not good for your ears, but if you don't do it all that often they recover.
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Old 12-11-2018, 03:09 PM
 
22,619 posts, read 24,451,643 times
Reputation: 20267
A lot of the suicides probably have more to do with the addiction and emotional/physical
distress of being cut-off, as opposed to the actual pain.
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Old 12-11-2018, 03:51 PM
 
20,955 posts, read 8,607,689 times
Reputation: 14050
Quote:
Originally Posted by tickyul View Post
A lot of the suicides probably have more to do with the addiction and emotional/physical distress of being cut-off, as opposed to the actual pain.
A lot of pain (or the actual way a person feels it) has to do with the rest of their life, not just the pain. Even decades ago, I noticed that my back pain was more evident when I was "down". There have been numerous articles written about it. It's fairly simple chemistry, the "pleasure and love" chemicals and hormones that our bodies make naturally are pain relievers. Oxytocin, Dopamine and a number of others are always in play...or lack of.

The famous studies of Okinawa touch on this:
"Okinawans have less cancer, heart disease and dementia than Americans, and women there live longer than any women on the planet.

Perhaps their greatest secret is a strong dedication to friends and family. They maintain a powerful social network called a “moai,” a lifelong circle of friends that supports people well into old age. Okinawans also have a strong sense of purpose in life, a driving force that the Japanese call “ikigai.”

It's interesting that the USA uses vastly more painkillers than any other modern society - and yet they aren't doing much good (in terms of the happiness index or longer life).

Issues such as pain and pain management and suicide are a whole bunch deeper than each of our individual opinions and experiences.

One has to wonder why we in the US use 40X as many opiates as Japan...and yet live shorter lives and spent 3X as much per person for health care?
https://qz.com/1198965/the-surprisin...und-the-world/

I think the problem here is more than skin deep! It seems impossible that Americans have 40 times as much base physical pain as other countries.

And yet, even at 40X the rate, we are here complaining that it's not enough?
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