How to deal with extreme physical pain • Hacker News Board

Re: How to deal with extreme physical pain

#91

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 1:50 AM UTC

giantg2 wrote: post #45

banana_giraffe wrote: post #12

I have a chronic condition that causes pain. One of the things I've learned, in as much as I can, is I don't tell anyone. I'd rather be rude than explain I'm in pain. Not because I don't appreciate sympathy. Not because I'm ashamed. It's because I don't want your advice on how to make the pain go away or to deal with it. I'm tired of advice. I've got too much advice. I try things, I research issues. I talk to doctors…

I have to admit, one of my thoughts was 'Is there anything I can recommend'.

[deleted]

Re: How to deal with extreme physical pain

#92

Post by hnick » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 1:50 AM UTC

stordoff wrote: post #27

schoolornot wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Had invasive surgery on my humerus that involved drilling & cutting into bone and muscle. The pain following the nerve block wearing off was indescribable. Groaning was about the most I could do. The pills might as well have been made out of sugar. You're right, perspective does change permanently. There weren't "seeing the light" moments but I certainly know now who my friends are. I have an interesting view of life…

> I'm also viciously dismissive now of any legislation or practices that limit controlled substances. I'm not an addict and I shouldn't be punished for other peoples acts. I find myself agreeing with this. Opiate overuse and addiction is certainly a problem, but I also question some of the negativity I see regarding their use (from a UK perspective). I was on tramadol (200mg/day) for about six months, and was told, b…

If it's a real concern then managing coming off the pills should really be part of the treatment. Don't just leave people to wing it. Did they offer that to you?

Re: How to deal with extreme physical pain

#93

Post by shock » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 1:50 AM UTC

uprighten wrote: post #66

centimeter wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your diet plan allows beer it’s probably not very effective. Doctors aren’t going to be very helpful here - 95% are incompetent. You should probably try to come up with a good and efficiently computable a priori dietary strategy (e.g. evolutionary ancestral diet, with the goal of minimizing the chance of running into defective metabolic pathways). I can’t think of any such strategies I’m aware of that would allow…

I'm not sure about 95% of doctors being incompetent. If nothing else they are much better trained than the average person offering advice.

Trained to do what? Cure chronic disease?

Edit: instead of answering, a bunch of doctors downvoted this question.

Re: How to deal with extreme physical pain

#94

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 1:52 AM UTC

banana_giraffe wrote: post #51

Waterluvian wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would you hope people do if you did tell them? My guess is "Damn that sounds awful. Let me know if I can help" and then dropping it entirely?

Pretty much. If you want to talk to me about what my symptoms are, and what I do to treat it, fine, I'm happy to discuss things most of the time, with the understanding that it's me telling you about my life experience, nothing more. I know I'm coming off rude here, but the truth is, I don't want your advice on how to fix things, or worse, your advice that it's not as bad as I think it is, and that I can do whatever…

[deleted]

Re: How to deal with extreme physical pain

#95

Post by dheera » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 1:54 AM UTC

robotresearcher wrote: post #23

dheera wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This also honestly makes me wonder how hard it must be for wild animals who get injured, and need to worry about predators throughout the whole recovery process.

A serious injury that limits mobility is certain death from starvation for many or most species. Adults of most species don't feed each other. This is true enough that finding a body or fossil with a healed fracture of a long bone is very interesting as it implies something about social behavior.

That's such a horrible death. Nature is brutal. One would wish there were a kill switch if you knew you were both in pain and going to die of starvation. Having that might even save some of your species members so that predators can't guess where the rest of the healthy ones are.

It's also strange that social behaviors didn't evolve in more species. They seem to have the brains to migrate thousands of miles and borrow homes, yet they don't have the brains to help members of their species, which would help them proliferate.

Re: How to deal with extreme physical pain

#96

Post by metalforever » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 1:55 AM UTC

m0zg wrote: post #24

bichiliad wrote: post #7

I didn’t realize how privileged I was until a relatively minor bike crash left me with a hard limp for a week or two. There’s a lot of lessons there (how can we design streets better? why don’t we focus on accessibility? why is the healthcare system hard to navigate?) but honestly the one that really hit me is how privileged I am to be healthy.

It's remarkable how many people I know, including myself, had significant bicycle-related trauma. I broke my ankle in three places due to a fall (do not recommend by the way, once the shock wears off the pain is pretty bad, and then after a while you have to walk on your still partially broken foot so that it heals properly). A friend of mine broke a clavicle. Another friend nearly fractured her spine. I sold my bike…

Yeah I got hit by a bike because someone wasn’t following the law and now I have a chronic issue

Re: How to deal with extreme physical pain

#97

Post by curiousDog » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 1:56 AM UTC

Wonder if he's able to code. I have Thoracic Outlet Syndrome (TOS) and work at a FANG. Everyday and every line of code is a challenge. Planning to push through for a few more years before I can find a new career where I don't haave to type as much but I don't know what yet. Really sucks.

Re: How to deal with extreme physical pain

#98

Post by shakna » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 1:57 AM UTC

> When I'm done yelling, I'm trying to sit quietly and meditate about this pain. What is it trying to tell me? Can I mentally follow the nerve from the location (referred pain or otherwise) to my brain and determine what the body wants me to know? Am I being told there's danger?

For many chronic pain conditions this is a vital step, and that acceptance can be a huge boost, allowing you to get through a day.

Unfortunately for many of us... It isn't. I'm in pain now, chronic and debilitating, but there's no known cause. There's no message my body is trying to send other than the equivalent of every light on the dashboard turning on. Something is malfunctioning, so the body is misbehaving, and I'm in agony.

Every moment, of every day, for the last fifteen years, the pain is there are increasing. As you learn to tolerate the pain, the body learns to increase the signal because it thinks there's something that needs to be addressed... But there's not.

Sometimes... There's simply no escape. And learning to live with that is a harder truth.

Re: How to deal with extreme physical pain

#99

Post by Zenbit_UX » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 1:58 AM UTC

strstr wrote: post #25

"A healthy man wants a thousand things, a sick man only wants one". There are so many forms of illness where this is true. I've never experienced anything nearly as persistent and painful as frozen shoulder. The worst thing I've experienced was probably Sciatica as a teen. It was particularly frustrating since the pain was intermittent and invisible to others. Through fairly substantial lifestyle changes, I haven't h…

Someone I know is dealing with sciatica now and it's not going well, do you have any insights on what helped you?

Re: How to deal with extreme physical pain

#100

Post by rpdillon » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 1:58 AM UTC

Waterluvian wrote: post #42

banana_giraffe wrote: post #12

I have a chronic condition that causes pain. One of the things I've learned, in as much as I can, is I don't tell anyone. I'd rather be rude than explain I'm in pain. Not because I don't appreciate sympathy. Not because I'm ashamed. It's because I don't want your advice on how to make the pain go away or to deal with it. I'm tired of advice. I've got too much advice. I try things, I research issues. I talk to doctors…

What would you hope people do if you did tell them? My guess is "Damn that sounds awful. Let me know if I can help" and then dropping it entirely?

My employer had me go through training that had this video as part of the curriculum. Though I already understood the ideas, the video was still useful for me. It's less than 3 minutes long.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Evwgu369Jw

In short, sometimes people need connection to others; problem-solving mode isn't always the most useful path.