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Why I left my tech job to work on chronic pain

sailhealth.substack.com

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Re: Why I left my tech job to work on chronic pain

#81

Post by zdragnar »

anticensor wrote: post #64
kianN wrote: post #58

“As pain becomes chronic, it is increasingly associated with activity in the affective and motivational systems tied to avoidance and less closely tied to systems encoding nociceptive input” [1] I’ve been on the slippery slope of chronic pain. Minor post surgery issues caused me to change my routine and avoid certain activities which only exacerbated the issues, which led to more avoidance. Eventually I couldn’t walk…

Pain is a legitimate diagnosis, though.

Pain is a symptom. There's a strong psychological component to pain avoidance which can lead to behaviors that make it worse. Physical therapy isn't going to feel good, but it plays an important role in lots of recovery scenarios, and I think should be more often prescribed after surgeries.

I deal with fibromyalgia pain. When I first developed it, I pretty much avoided doing anything, and really that was the opposite of what I should have done. There's no "recovery" and really no avoiding it; all I ended up doing was letting my physical condition weaken to the point that even normal activities were painful, so I was hurting for two reasons.

Treating the underlying cause of the symptom, and training to avoid behaviors that exacerbate the symptom is the real key.

Re: Why I left my tech job to work on chronic pain

#82

Post by ck2 »

Low‐Dose Naltrexone aka LDN

not a cure and barely a treatment but it's one of the only tools in the toolbox

Modulates endorphin receptors (by blocking them for a little while)

Not only causes the body to produce more endorphins to reduce pain but is actually proven in studies to make the ion channels work better if dysfunctional

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Low-Dose+Naltrexone

https://reddit.com/r/LowDoseNaltrexone

Re: Why I left my tech job to work on chronic pain

#83

Post by aspbee555 »

jdbsbsndn wrote: post #80
aspbee555 wrote: post #34

I felt like I was dying at 35 years old, my body was completely betraying me, exhausted, constant pain, no life as absolutely no energy on days off and still exhausted starting the next week. Even years in the Army never left me feeling like that I had no idea it was the misery of the IT job that was causing most of my pain and suffering, and it had nothing to do with the job itself, it was the endless insanity of ev…

[flagged]

the owner instructed everyone not to talk to me, I found out years later

if it was a me problem then they would not have let the then president of the company go for working with me

I was not the one with communication problems but people are really good at blaming me for their own problems

Re: Why I left my tech job to work on chronic pain

#84

Post by theshackleford »

Retric wrote: post #78
kccqzy wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Minor post surgery issues My wife has had two surgeries and each time she had a minor post surgery issue. One of them was an area that was tender to touch; another was chronic pain. Neither was mentioned as a possible side effect of the surgery by the surgeon. The main takeaway even if a bit extreme here is avoid all surgeries unless absolutely necessary.

Surgery is a bigger deal than doctors make it seem, but after surgery care can make a huge difference. I had a surgery asked for more pain meds once on day 5 or 6. Instead the surgeon had me come in to look at the wound, made a tiny incision a blob of pus came out and things felt fine the next day. That’s the kind of thing that could have easily resulted in major problems, but just the right treatment at just the rig…

> Instead the surgeon had me come in to look at the wound

I'm surprised this is not the standard for any surgery involving a significant incision. In my country it's been the standard for instance for all three of my cervical spine surgeries, including the one I just had.

At the 7-10 day mark I must go to my normal GP who performs wound review and checks for signs of infection or other anomaly.

Re: Why I left my tech job to work on chronic pain

#85

Post by vertigolimbo »

aspbee555 wrote: post #34

I felt like I was dying at 35 years old, my body was completely betraying me, exhausted, constant pain, no life as absolutely no energy on days off and still exhausted starting the next week. Even years in the Army never left me feeling like that I had no idea it was the misery of the IT job that was causing most of my pain and suffering, and it had nothing to do with the job itself, it was the endless insanity of ev…

So you went back into software development after 5 years? Maybe you had a burnout and just needed to rest

Re: Why I left my tech job to work on chronic pain

#86

Post by quicktemp42 »

accrual wrote: post #73
quicktemp42 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has been eight months and there is no tissue damage. Allergic reactions to implant materials are rare and usually stop an implant from fusing with the bone, but mine has integrated perfectly. I would consider removing it, except it is my upper central incisor... I kept waiting for braces to be removed etc but I'm running out of options now.

Painful! Definitely seems long enough to fully heal, plus you've already done the imaging (CT, MRI) which would be a best next step. Maybe you could try another specialist, though it sounds like you've already done everything correctly and in sequence. I hope you can find relief.

Thanks, it's not as bad as for some ppl but made me really rethink what's important in life and I'm 42 lol. Random event you can't control can be life changing. I have 3 more things on the list to try: - diagnostic temp nerve block around implant - bite / occlusion specialist - some blood work for those rare allergies (super unlikely but why not...)

Re: Why I left my tech job to work on chronic pain

#87

Post by theshackleford »

nwienert wrote: post #66
CoastalCoder wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you mind sharing a little detail about what the physical malady turned out to be, and why it took so long to diagnose? Sounds like an interesting medical mystery.

Combination of two autoimmune conditions, one Ehlers Danlos. Actually EDS is interesting because it became a fad I guess on TikTok to claim you had it like Tourette’s, further exacerbating the above issue. It’s got a wide spectrum. My dad had it so lightly he was just considered “double jointed”. I gained a further thing from mom’s side, which seemed to interplay poorly. Spent 19-26 basically having extreme nausea an…

> At one point I was convinced it was psychological.

I ended up thinking the same thing after a prolonged period of symptoms that didnt make sense. I 100% began to think I was losing my mind and imaginging it. Turns out I had a spinal cord injury. The problem is, not knowing that for as long as I did ultimately did impact my mental health in other ways.

It was nice to find out ultimately that no, I was not just going insane.

Re: Why I left my tech job to work on chronic pain

#89

Post by Aurornis »

sampullman wrote: post #76
Aurornis wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Western medicine “can’t treat stress” This is false. Therapy is designed to do just this and it’s readily available in different modalities that have been trialed and studied. You can book an appointment with a therapist today and start working on techniques to build stress resilience and stress handling techniques > but Eastern medicine definitely claims to be able to. But then so do various nebulous “alternative…

I don't think the allure of Eastern medicine has much to do with a feeling that it's ancient or secret. It's pretty normal here in Taiwan to go to a TCM clinic here in Taiwan for various treatments, including stress. The practitioners have degrees and certifications for it. I can't say how much is placebo, but there isn't really anything mysterious about it.

The ancient and mysterious part is the idea that it’s based on wisdom passed down through generations and herbal concoctions, as opposed to synthetic medicines tested in RCTs. This is precisely what draws a lot of people to it, and why it falls in the category of alternative medicine.

It’s actually very interesting that many of the herbal compounds they use do have some quantifiable biological activities. So it’s not all placebo, but you’ll also discover that many of the herbs being sold don’t contain the ingredients they claim, don’t contain enough active ingredients to do anything, or might even be contaminated.

I once asked some doctor friends what things they’ll never do after seeing the consequences in their patients. One of the most surprising answers, to me, was that they avoided TCM and Avurvedic medicines. Apparently they see a lot of people come in with elevated liver enzymes or signs of kidney problems and discover that some TCM or Ayurvedic herbal remedy is causing the damage. Discontinuing the supplement can stop the damage. This happens with megadoses of other supplements too, especially some of the things peddled to gym bros. However, TCM and Ayurvedic supplements seem to catch people by surprise because they assume it’s safer.

Re: Why I left my tech job to work on chronic pain

#90

Post by doddpronter »

It's crazy how much your physical health is tied to mental happiness/lack of stress. I had a friend that during his most stressful period as a 24 year old in Investment Banking had strep throat 4 times in 2 months.

Several doctor visits concluded that it was the long hours and insane amount of stress that was severely crushing his immune system.

Moral of the story is love what you do and take care of yourself: nothing is as important as your own health and happiness

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