How can one receive a signal from one's brain?
Man receives constant pain signals from his brain
31–40 of 60 posts
Re: Man receives constant pain signals from his brain
#32Since July 2012 I suffer something similar (not as bad as the guy in the article thankfully); named "fibromyalgia", I get along with a couple of drugs, one called Duloxetine and the other one is Modafinil (that last one is for insomnia but one of the symptoms of my disease is being sleepy/tired all the time). I'm a strange case because I'm a 25 years old male but most people with the same illness are middle age women…
One of the most intensely frustrating things to me about doctors is the way they treat anyone explaining something not immediately diagnosable as though the patients are pathological liars or hypochondriacs.
I don't care if there are a few people who fake conditions to get pain medicines. That's no excuse for ignoring people with real problems. If someone is coming to you who hasn't been to a doctor in five years, they're probably not an opioid addict that is doctor hopping. Even in the rare case it really is entirely psychosomatic, that's still something that should attempt to be isolated and addressed.
I've had upper chest pains that feel like a 20lb weight is sitting on my chest for the past several months. They come and go, usually staying for a few hours at a time. Doesn't matter whether I am lying down, sitting or standing. Doesn't matter what I've eaten, where I've been, etc. The exact spot always seems to move around, sometimes it's two spots on each side of my chest at once. Tried changing everything I reasonably could to no effect.
Can't get any doctors to acknowledge there's an issue. I'm just really hopeful that whatever it is goes away, and isn't something serious like blocked arteries or some form of cancer. I can't even imagine being in as much pain as you and Justin and having doctors dismiss me as a liar. I'd absolutely lose it.
Re: Man receives constant pain signals from his brain
#33I used to think that something like this wasn't possible. I always assumed that if you were in constant pain or something you would somehow grow used to it over time in the same way that being subjected to cold temperatures raises the bodies resistance to cold temperatures. Another example would be drugs and chemical receptors in the brain. Correct me if I'm wrong but shouldn't it be the same as with drugs, the more…
I suffer from chronic pain (pain 24/7, or at least when awake, varying degrees from bad to terrible terrible pain) and have done for 10 years now. To answer your question: no. I do know that my tolerance for pain is significantly higher than most people. I still feel the constant pain from when I wake up to when I fall asleep. Its a horrible thing. It affects my mind when I am trying to write code just like it would…
> Ignoring it takes an incredible amount of mental discipline.
This is such an understatement. I don't have 24/7 pain but I have nerve pain that is not very responsive to anything. I can live with the little twinges but if my legs feel like they're on fire, I can barely focus on personal tasks (eating, sleeping, showering, getting out of bed in the first place...) let alone any work. I cannot even begin to imagine what I'd do if it was significantly worse.
I live my life the best I can, but I find myself getting more and more angry, leading to more pain, leading to more anger... there is not even an experimental treatment for my problem, which I'd happily go for. It's only pretty much taking whatever I can tolerate to take the edge off the worst pain for a few hours at best (where it's meds like anticonvulsants and TCAs, not as much opioid use), or something with a side effect that helps - getting really high so I stop caring, or making me really sleepy so I can rest. Add CBT for anger and whatever non-drug options are out there, and it's just workable until this fixes itself eventually, hopefully.
Re: Man receives constant pain signals from his brain
#34I used to think that something like this wasn't possible. I always assumed that if you were in constant pain or something you would somehow grow used to it over time in the same way that being subjected to cold temperatures raises the bodies resistance to cold temperatures. Another example would be drugs and chemical receptors in the brain. Correct me if I'm wrong but shouldn't it be the same as with drugs, the more…
I suffer from chronic pain (pain 24/7, or at least when awake, varying degrees from bad to terrible terrible pain) and have done for 10 years now. To answer your question: no. I do know that my tolerance for pain is significantly higher than most people. I still feel the constant pain from when I wake up to when I fall asleep. Its a horrible thing. It affects my mind when I am trying to write code just like it would…
As someone with chronic pain, nope, I don't think one builds up a tolerance to it. Instead, I think I'm lucky in that the severity waxes and wanes. Below some threshold it recedes from being pervasive, going into the background and I have to go consciously looking for it to see if I'm still feeling it.
Exceed that threshold and it's always there, front and centre, just pain. At that point, as throwaway91214 says, I consciously try to ignore it.
When it exceed the next threshold, life pretty much stops for awhile until it recedes again. Those are the sleepless nights and long, minimal days.
(I use the notion of thresholds for simplicity, it's perhaps closer to an exponential scale).
I've had mine for about eleven years. Such is life.
Re: Man receives constant pain signals from his brain
#35My Father has suffered with full body RSD/CRPS like the patient in this article. Even the slightest breeze can cause him excruciating pain. He has a morphine pump in his abdomen that provides a constant drip of dilaudid on his spine, its the only thing that lets him manage his pain. There is some hope. Last year some scientists in Italy discovered a break through treatment that has had good success...though only test…
With all due respect, I have a question. Where does the pain come 'from'? Like, if we hurt ourselves, the pain comes from _that_ place. When it hurts, does it hurt _from_ a place or just a general feeling of pain over the whole body?
Re: Man receives constant pain signals from his brain
#36I suggest the possiblity that this is a manifestation of TMS. Check out John Sarno's The Mindbody Prescription.
Your suggestion is uninformed; and John Sarno's advice is pure quackery. Please don't speculate like this on severe medical conditions.
Re: Man receives constant pain signals from his brain
#37Since July 2012 I suffer something similar (not as bad as the guy in the article thankfully); named "fibromyalgia", I get along with a couple of drugs, one called Duloxetine and the other one is Modafinil (that last one is for insomnia but one of the symptoms of my disease is being sleepy/tired all the time). I'm a strange case because I'm a 25 years old male but most people with the same illness are middle age women…
I'm in the same boat (though I've been in said boat for a while), and while it certainly could be worse (as per the OP), it's not much fun either! Glad you've found a couple of things that are at least mildly helpful.
Re: Man receives constant pain signals from his brain
#38As a foreigner, how does the insurance industry deal with illnesses like this? Bedridden for 9 years, with loads of heavy sedatives a day + whatever else there might be of tests and whatnot... From the article, it seems the family is entirely alone with this (apart from some potential community support).
The answer is: don't get sick in the U.S. Breaking Bad is accurate in terms of what happens when you're sick in this country. (I don't know of any who became meth kingpins, but people doing stupid stuff due to medical-cost desperation is common.) Health insurance won't cover everything. It won't cover most things it's supposed to cover. Its purpose is to collect premiums when you are young and healthy but when you ar…
It's comparable to living in a third-world country. In the eyes of someone from a country with universal healthcare it beggars belief that people actually want to live in the US. It just looks like you're all boiling like frogs with no real understanding that your situation is abnormal even by the standards of many developing countries.
Re: Man receives constant pain signals from his brain
#39My Father has suffered with full body RSD/CRPS like the patient in this article. Even the slightest breeze can cause him excruciating pain. He has a morphine pump in his abdomen that provides a constant drip of dilaudid on his spine, its the only thing that lets him manage his pain. There is some hope. Last year some scientists in Italy discovered a break through treatment that has had good success...though only test…
With all due respect, I have a question. Where does the pain come 'from'? Like, if we hurt ourselves, the pain comes from _that_ place. When it hurts, does it hurt _from_ a place or just a general feeling of pain over the whole body?
It started in a limb (right forearm where he had trauma from a routine surgery). For many people with RSD/CRPS it doesn't spread. Interestingly people used to go as far as amputating the painful limb but phantom pain remained. For a small percentage of people, it spreads over the entire body. They call this Full Body RSD. My father has this so his pain is everywhere but most often it is in his extremities. At it's lowest pain levels he says it feels like the worse sunburn he ever had. At his most painful moments he describes it like being stabbed with knives.
This TEDx talk by Dr. Krane (he works with children with RSD/CRPS) describes the disorder and where the pain comes about half-way through http://www.ted.com/talks/elliot_krane_the_mystery_of_chronic...
Re: Man receives constant pain signals from his brain
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
I ask this with all respect for the suffering your father goes through but I am genuinely curious... Has he tried THC in any form (smoke a joint, pill extract)? I have heard of great pain relief from other diseases, and wonder if there would be any relief provided by medicinal marijuana?
My Dad also has had CRPS for the last 10 years now, and treats it with THC currently. Initially, they weren't able to diagnose it due to the odd cause. Like the article said, mostly this disease is caused by extreme trauma. My father's case was when he cut himself and had to receive a Tetanus shot. About 5 hours after the shot, he was back an the hospital with an arm swelled to twice the size and it's been downhill s…
Thank you for sharing this.
After 10 years of being heavily medicated to handle the pain, my father too is rarely thinking clearly and has a very poor short term memory.