Bone picking time

*grrr* I saw this article in a published journal (so I won't post the link here). It has to do with how too much pain medicine can turn out to make a pain patient more sensitive to pain. Here's a short exerpt:

Most patients don't understand that excessive use of opioids can actually make them hypersensitive to pain, said Dr. Lake of the Michigan Head Pain and Neurological Institute, Ann Arbor. “They believe the pain is stronger than the medication, not that the medication is actually making them worse.” This thought process can be the root of ever-increasing medication use, as the patient experiences “pain anxiety” and attempts to forestall pain by premedicating.

The first step is to teach patients how medication overuse exacerbates headache pain, he said. Only when they have a clear understanding of this relationship will they be open to adhering to medication limits.

Quite a few of his references go back to 1990 with some more recent references citing the benefits of biofeedback published in 2002.

First of all, he doesn't distinguish between the different types of pain. Most pain experts agree that there's physical pain (from injury, arthritis, etc.) and neuropathic pain (the kind of pain that triggers my headaches).

Since he cited references, I don't know how much real patient information there is. But MY experience is that anything they used to treat me (anti-epileptics, SSRI, or pain medicine) would work for about a month. Then the pain would come back, and they'd prescribe a higher dose, and the cycle repeated itself until I reached the maximum doesage allowed.

All those years on pain medicine, what do I have to show for it. I'm now allergic to demerol, morphine still doesn't touch my pain, and I perceive LESS pain when I have a physical injury. I've since all this happened broken two bones, and thought they were just a sprain. I also managed to get a deep gash in the inside part of my right foot and to this day I still don't know how I managed to do it. So now I obsessively search my body every morning in my lotion routine to look for injuries.

Yes, I know people that claim to be in pain when they're looking for a fix to their addiction to pain medicine. Drag the psychologists in for them. Can I tell the difference between an addict that may or not be in pain - probably not. Then again, I don't make anywhere near the salary of a doctor. (Though I had a very nice chat with a neurologist on the elevator ride in this morning.)

I hope this doesn't set back doctors that treat people that have a real pain issue. If it does, the suicide rate in the TN group will probably go up a bit.