The Truth About The Grinch (Chronic Pain Sufferers and Caregivers should read)

[Wiley50]

I'm a member of The American Pain Foundation. If you or someone you know or love suffers from intractable pain,
I URGE you to visit this website. It has been a godsend to me. They Have a DU-like online forum where pain patients can share.

http://www.painfoundation.or

The Truth About The Grinch

http://www.painfoundation.org/page.asp?file=documents/Iris.htm

By Iris Wilde, RN, APF Power Over Pain (POP) Action Network Leader, Wisconsin

Every year we are told the story about how the Grinch stole Christmas. But we are NEVER told the Grinch's side of the story. You see, the Grinch used to be like you and me and was just as jolly, too. Dear Grinch could not wait for Christmas to arrive. In truth, Christmas was the Grinch's favorite day. He joyfully gave gifts to everyone he knew, and no one was left out.

Then one day, Grinch doubled over, and his life changed forever. Grinch thought to himself, “Maybe this is just a temporary condition.” Many remedies were tried to “fix” our Grinch. When Grinch's favorite eggnog didn't even work, he knew trouble was brewing. Grinch looked around and couldn’t see anyone else suffering like he was, so he decided he was the only one. Well, what was this “thing” to be called? Grinch looked low and high and found no answers. Finally, Grinch decided to name what he was experiencing using the first letter of each word that it stood for:

PITIFUL
AWFUL
IRRITATING
NERVE WRACKING

And so it was that the Grinch discovered PAIN—one of the ugliest four letter words in existence. Grinch continued trying everything and when NOTHING worked, he became grumblier and grumblier. When he heard the word “JOLLY,” Grinch went off the "deep end." And so you have the rest of the story of how Christmas was almost stolen by the mean old Grinch, who perhaps wasn't so mean after all.

In time, Grinch realized he wasn't alone in his suffering. He started rethinking things and decided to check out the facts. He came to learn that he was one of more than 75 million Americans who suffer from acute or chronic pain. Many of them feel like being Grinch-like around the Holidays, especially those suffering with chronic pain who may have tried everything and NOTHING works.

What is amazing is how people who suffer with chronic pain don't get meaner; in fact, many work hard to help make other peoples’ Holidays especially happy, even when their own might not be. Some can't be jolly because, after all, just like the Grinch they are now a statistic. Maybe they are one of the tens of thousands of workers who lost an average of 4.6 hours per week of productive time due to a pain condition musculoskeletal pain (5.5 hours/week) and arthritis or back pain (5.2 hours/week) account for the greatest amount of lost productivity. This loss of productivity can also affect the pocket book and can be a major burden on society. In fact, chronic pain takes a greater toll on the U.S. economy ($100 billion) in health insurance claims, lost wages and impaired productivity than any other chronic condition, including heart disease, hypertension and diabetes. What really got to Grinch was discovering that only 1% of the NIH research budget is allocated to PAIN. Now, Grinch had survived lots of colds and minor illnesses, but he had never felt so bad in his whole life. To discover this information was just too much. So, just how is everyone supposed to keep believing in the miracles of the holiday season? No wonder Grinch stole Christmas!

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. That's why research into different ways to treat pain is

important. Also I would encourage anyone who has tried drugs and found that the side effects are too much to look into Eastern medicine and alternative therapies. Personally, I've found Entertropic Therapy helps me with pain and it is non invasive and not a drug. But to each his own.

[Redstone]

2. Thank you, thank you, thank you. From someone who has RSD: Thank you.

Did I thank you yet for posting this?

Nobody who has not had chronic pain can understand the world that we Pain People inhabit.

In case somebody's reading this and doesn't get it: It's not like having a broken leg. You know you'll have a cast on for six weeks, do some therapy, and the pain will go away.

Chronic pain is not like that. It does NOT go away. It's THERE, and it will be there with you for the rest of your life, which can be a long time if you stay away from bridge railings.

The difference is hope. With chronic pain, there is NO hope that you'll ever be free. Because you won't. Your life will be defined by your pain, every day and every succeeding day, now and forever.

It's not fun.

Redstone

[Cleita]

3. Great post from someone who suffers from

mild to sometimes severe chronic pain from various sources. People need to understand that sometimes the crabby old guy/woman isn't feeling that good.

[asjr]

4. Thanks for posting this. Sometimes

I think I can't stand any more pain until I realize I have had to stand it. It will not go away so I learned to live with it.

[Wiley50]

5. .

[undergroundpanther]

6. Glad for yer post..Kick!

Because I found out a short while ago I got degenerative disc disease.WonDeRful, it's gonna get WORSE!! And I got bone spurs all down my spine, looks kinda cool in an xray, like my spinal discs are horned, but damn it hurts sometimes. Got hit by a car going 45 mph And I was crossing the street,on foot. And incompetent EMT's made it worse..And this is what grew out of my crappy treatment.
Anyways I must say,if I hurt like this now and now I find myself hauling ass on the bus every other week to get a pain shot, than I know I will be even more thankful there is a pain foundation a few years from now when the real OUCH starts and I hope it does not get worse. I ain't holding my breath tho..
Anyways, thanks for the post, If you can PM me about info on the foundation I might want to try to scrape up some funds and join.I don't get much on SSI but maybe I could join I dunno. K&R'ed it anyways!I'm a panther so I get snarly when I hurt and when I hurt really bad, I might just bite, and knowing me,my roommate the werewolf, starts eyeing up the tranquilizer gun on the wall of the Panther palace..LOL....(It's a furry thing)...

[Wiley50]

7. Panther, It doesn't cost money to join

I'm on SSI too. Remember?

Didn't you just make a move?
How'd it go?

[undergroundpanther]

11. Cool, I had no clue

Joining was free. Cool I'll sign up tomorrow.
As for moving...I didn't move, my ex did..he moved out of MY place.I'm much saner now that he's out.I My ex was abusive,he was emotionally unavailable and I really couldn't tolerate his cold disinterested narcissism , and his games were making me crazy..So he had to go.My sanity is more important than him.
However I am planning to move sometime to a place with better access to transportation closer to Baltimore city.I hate it out here in the boonie suburbs where there is nothing to do,and to get anywhere you need a car.
The bus out here just SUCKS. It takes a fifteen minute walk to and from the bus stop, than it takes 4-5 hours because of the two hour bus cycle to get to and from an appointment that would take a little over ten minutes to drive to in a damn car on this crappy bus.

[Pastiche423]

8. So many people living in pain

and pot (the only thing that allows me to sleep through the pain) is illegal.

[Wiley50]

9. They actually make me pee in a jar every month

as a requirement for them keeping me on opiates.

No pot for those on junk

(what ever happened to opiated hashish?)

Go figure

[silverojo]

10. I have fibromyalgia

And I thank you for this wonderful post and the links!

Others on this thread have made some excellent posts, as well.

[undergroundpanther]

12. What scares me about the pain thing

Is addiction.

Usually my doc when she gives me shots gives me torridol nubain and a anti nausea drug I can't remember the name of right now, three friggin needles.But hey it stops the pain for almost two days,gets me through the hump.But there have been days she sent me to the ER and there I got morphine.I didn't like the way it made me feel flushed it was pretty unpleasant, I am one of those types of people that hate being high.

Anyways the morphine silenced the pain that I was thankful for but I'd hate to have my mind in that weird state the morphine put it into all the time.So I'm pretty damn scared about it all deep down. I don't say alot about it because what's there to say. I'm just waiting for the next stage of ow and hoping it takes a long time to happen. My back is another reason I want , no HAVE TO get out of this town.This house has stairs and it's a chore going up and down and a yard that has to be mowed and maintained.It's scary just picking up the branches off the trees in the yard hurts, never mind shoveling mulch, I'm done in one load with the friggin mulch.Yards are one of the stupidest things ever, considering the work and time it takes to maintain it to suburban expectations. If I had my way it would turn into a woods, let the weeds grow and brambles because that way as the developers turn every bit of animal habitat into ticky tacky overpriced houses, my place could be a haven for some owls, deer,squirrels, birds, rabbits, foxes, raccoons and if I get lucky maybe a bobcat would have a place to live.

I want a one story place with NO YARD,just enough of a patch of space to put out some catnip for my kitties and a grape vine.A fruit tree maybe,and NO stupid GRASS. A place close to good bus routes .With neighbors that aren't gonna get crotchety about insomniacs with 3 cats who has an active social life , is freaky,twenty years younger looking than my age ,plays with fire(poi), has big intimidating winged cat sculptures by the door ,a heretic who does obscure rituals and sometimes makes noise too. Conservative neighborhoods are out and I DO NOT want a fucking tight-ass "neighborhood association" telling me what colors to paint my house or what kinds of curtains to have.

Fuck that kind of authoritarian bullshit-o-rama before it starts .. It would be WAR.Trust me, I hate meddling authoritarians worse than most teenagers say they do.Get me pissed off on a day when my back is kicking, I might just let the neighborhood association meet the edge of my claws,So I ain't going there if I can help it.

Tylenol doesn't do shit for my back.So most of the time I do my elaborate pillow propping ,use two heat pads, a back brace thing,and use my trance skills.Sometimes I'll go to get tattoo work done when my back is being an ass because focusing on the tat pain as a distraction is better than fully feeling my back.

[Mythsaje]

13. My wife has fibro and a seriously screwed up back

and has been on tramadol (ultram) for quite a while now. She swears by it. Without it she can barely move, but it allows her much greater freedom of movement and eliminates a good amount of the pain. Far better, in her opinion, than most narcotics--without the hazy, dazy feeling.

[symbolman]

14. K & R good buddy

Man, 75 MILLION?! Now THAT is a voting block if I've ever heard of one.

Maybe we can get the feds to ease OFF some of these doctors so we can get some goddam quality of LIFE going on.

I get my prescription each month, and if I vary so much as one pill a day, all of sudden at the end of the month I am suffering from bone aches, extra toilet time (hard to leave the house that way), jimmy legs (kicking in bed), insomnia, more pain, etc, etc..

I have arthritis of the spine, and whiplash - it feels like someone has Karate Chopped me between the shoulder blades and plunged an ice pick into my neck ALL THE TIME.

Pain people live in increments of time "Only an hour to go before I can have another pill" or "Only four more hours", etc, etc.. and on top of that I have only so many pills PER Day, and for most days I stay up 20 HOURS of it. Now as I see it, when you are prescribed pain meds everyone figures that at least 8 of those hours you'll be sleeping, so you only need X number of pills. But if you DO 20 hours a day, you need a little extra, and if you take one extra a day for those 30 days, all of a sudden you are ABUSING DRUGS, and get the old stinkeye, when all you've done is PUSH yourself to DO MORE WORK.

Another thing that most people don't have to worry about. If your doctor sucks you can usually try to find another one. If MY doctor sucks and I go to another one, I can be accused of "DOCTOR SHOPPING" and they can just call the cops, either doctor.

Like one of the other poor posters here, every once in a while I need a Pain Vacation - even on the meds it doesn't go away, it just makes it so you don't spend the day SCREAMING at people, so I head for the doctor and have to BEG him to boot me up with something that will make me completely pain free for a day, reset my pain clock, give me a Total Break from it.

Who wants to live like that? No one. You are a prisoner of these goddam pills, yet some people act like it's a big party. Amazing. Meanwhile my liver is rotting, can't have a beer, and can't RUN or work out on a bowflex or weights, when not more than 12 years ago I could pick a goddam refridgerator UP and WALK it over to where I wanted it. As a younger man who worked in a factory we used to arm wrestle for that week's paychecks on Friday nights, and I arm wrestled the biggest guys in the bar, while I may not have won, I never lost.

And I'm thinking that's part of the reason my back is so screwed NOW :)

I feel for each and every one of you here, believe me, I KNOW what you are talking about.

[OneBlueSky]

15. from personal experience, I can testify that chronic pain makes . . .

accomplishing anything pretty much a losing struggle . . . there are times when I can't eat, can't sit and read, can't even lie down to relax because the pain is so intense . . . at these times, the medications do nothing more than make it minimally tolerable -- keeping me from jumping off the nearest bridge . . .

and friends and family wonder why I'm not "doing more" with my life . . . why I'm mostly homebound and no longer socializing . . . why I'd prefer to be by myself than to be around others . . . unless they've experienced it, they simply cannot know what chronic pain can do to you . . .

[radfringe]

16. thanks from someone who has fibromyalgia

at least - that was what the last doctor told me I had... :eyes: been going on for 14 years

I'm currently going through a major flair-up with it. Spasms across the shoulders, and the back-of-the-head type headaches (ice-pick headaches I call them)

and then there's the Restless legs at night... This usually happens when I'm having a flair-up

had a bout last Friday evening with the Ice-pick headache that made me very nauseous. All I could do was take a major LA-LA pill and hope it would knock me out. It did.

[unblock]

17. chronic migraineur checking in...

i get anywhere from 2 to 7 a week. even on a non-migraine day i invariably have some kind of headache. i've gone entire seasons without a non-migraine day.

triptans (zomig ns is my current favorite) work wonders when they work, but often do nothing.
stadol ns is my narcotic backup, which i dilute so that i can still function. the good thing is that it always does SOMETHING for the pain, the bad news is that it never does more than dull it slightly.

i'm constantly trying preventatives. at the moment i'm on petadolex, co-q10, verapamil. my body seems to adjust to whatever i take so maybe i get a month of slight improvement when i start a new med, then i'm back to square one.

blecch.

in a nutshell, chronic pain SUCKS!

[Patiod]

18. Interviewed the guy that invented "Pain as the 5th Vital Sign"

He was a former President of the Pain Society, and he's one of my heroes!!! They are doing God's work.

As you well know, Wiley50, We have such a twisted view of drugs in this country - during interviews with MDs, RNs and Pharmacists about a new way of delivering pain control to terminally ill patients, we found no one was interested. Not because it wouldn't work but (it did) but because they might have trouble accurately charting how much was delivered. Only the hospice MDs said "Great! Bring it on! We'll figure out a way to use it! Any tool for the arsenal!"

The DEA has made regular doctors so terrified of DEA scrutiny (rightly so - who wants their license yanked?) that they're afraid to treat patients appropriately.

Those who are imminently terminal have a GREAT resource: Hospice Docs. They understand and care about pain and they don't care one bit about the DEA (because they can show the DEA terminal diagnoses for each of their "over-medicated" patients, and they're then allowed to "get away with it")

But those who are "merely" in hideous daily chronic pain don't have Hospice physicians as a resource. My dad is there right now - he was IN THE HOSPITAL with multiple small fractures of his back and hips, his pain was out of control, and the nurse says "Doctor is concerned about how long you've been on Percocet and wants to start cutting you back". Hello? The Percocet wasn't TOUCHING his pain yet. Today they started him on a TOPICAL treatment that is absolutely inappropriate for his type of pain - but hey - it's NOT ADDICTIVE!!!! :cry: I'm going to talk to his docs about maybe getting him a terminal diagnosis so we can get him appropriate pain treatment (he is 83 and has emphysema - maybe we can swing it). How sad is that?

Yes, you've touched one of my Big Issues, Wiley50. Thanks for helping raise awareness.
And check out The Pain Society as well - they're more physician-oriented, but it's all good information.
:rant:

/hope your pain beast is sleeping right now. I'll hold you in the Light with my Dad.

[Wiley50]

20. Yes, I know All About Untreated Pain

I tried to move to Virginia in '05. I didn't think I would have any trouble
finding a doctor as I had all my medical records and a clean 2 years of
no escalation in my dosage. Boy was I wrong. I saw 4 doctors in 3 months
and was refused treatment by all of them.

In the end i had to move back to TN where my doctor is. I feel like I'm married to him.

I installed carpet and other floor coverings for 30 years. It was heavy work that did a lot of damage to my body.
I have Degenerative Disk Disease with ten disks with some degree of damage, several pretty much gone and several
vertebrae have basically no cushion between them anymore. This has caused the root nerves to both legs being
impaired. The doctor calls it Chronic Progressive Nerve Damage (at least it's progressive, lol). I have no
feeling in my toes (both feet) and apparently it will continue to get worse. It's a situation that has caused
me major pain over the years, but for the last 3 years I've worn a Transdermal patch that releases 50 micro grams of Fetanyl (a narcotic 100 times more potent than morphine by weight)an hour into my bloodstream. It works pretty well but
causes me to be physically tired most of the time. That's why I'm online pretty much all of the time, as I get pretty fatigued just going to the doctor or the store, pretty much the only time I go out these days.

But I was in severe pain for over 10 years before I was finally diagnosed in 2000 and until '03 they
kept giving me non-additive and non-effective stuff. The Fentanyl patch is no opium dream. I threw up daily for trhe first year, But it sure beats hurting.

[307 MMS]

19. Painful

I haven't worked in over 2 years and am considering SSI Disability. It's not my choice but I may have no other way. I've got spinal stenosis, arthritis, herniated L-5 an abnormal left hip and sacro-illiac issues to go with all that. I've beeen hooked on percocet but beat that. Now, it seems nothing works. Chronic daily pain should be at the top of the research list, IMHO. Thanks and I will check out the Pain Foundation.

[Wiley50]

21. .

[BattyDem]

22. Thank you for this post

I'll check out the Pain Foundation. I have Fibromyalgia and Peripheral Neuropathy. Sometimes the pain is so bad, I don't know how I'll get through it. Somehow, I do ... but it's getting more and more difficult as the years go by. The pain has consumed my life ... I can't even work! What makes matters worse is that I look healthy, so a lot of people think I'm lazy because I don't work. They can't see my pain. They can see me limp or use a cane, but they don't understand how debilitating it actually is. It's frustrating and depressing. :-(