Even with pain that we can’t shut off, we have people overdoing things and re-injuring themselves, or making their injuries worse. That would only be more of a problem if people could shut off pain, even temporarily.
As others have pointed out, the pain vs no pain debate was settled looooong before humans, or even primates were on the scene. On average, individuals with pain sensors left more offspring than those without. What you’re asking for, the ability to conciously reset out chronic pain awareness threshold, would be great, but no ones ever lived long enough to ask for it before.
I think we’re trying to say the same thing.
My point was that *if *the source of chronic pain is inside the brain / mind, *then *seeking to fix it by numbing the peripheral nervous system or doing something to repair the injury site will be ineffective.
Phantom pain is 100% real at the top-most conscious level of the mind. It’s 100% unreal at the level of the limb that was cut off 10 years ago and the nerves which once connected that limb to the brain. Someplace in the middle of all that brain / mind processing is where the pain originates. And so that’s where one would have to look to find a solution.
obbn I think I read somewhere about neurosurgeons being able, in some circumstances, to sever the nerves leading to the painful injury part. Even if true, probably not possible with severe back pain. OTOH, you might want to ask your doc or look into this.
My severe back pain is now under control to some extent after surgery, but a couple years ago it was so bad I was on morphine for six months. It did alleviate the pain somewhat, but I hated the damn stuff as I felt horrible all the time. I eventually went cold turkey and quit, but it was the worst 12 days of my life.
Hope you can find some relief somehow. Chronic pain does wear you down.
Klondike, I am very happy to hear that your pain is under control. I have thought about going through surgery again, but it would be the 4th time for me and enough is enough. If the surgeons could give me a reasonable explaination for doing it I might try, but as I said upthread, going in to just look around isn’t good enough for me.
I have been on morphine for about 2 years now. Before that it was Fentynal and prior to that popping Vicodin every 4 hours for years. I ran out of morphine one weekend and couldn’t get a hold of the doc. Treated the pain with Percocets and suffered through what it couldn’t handle. The good part was that I had zero withdrawl symptoms. Lucky I guess.
The problem with the morphine, fentynal, etc is that the sedating effects are worse than horrible. I feel tired all the time and unmotivated. It makes me seem and feel much older than I am (44). Recently the doc has put me on Adderal (amphetimine) to wake me up. While my energy is still very low, I am much more awake now. However, it is just another drug I have to take and something tells me that taking this stuff for the next twenty years isn’t good for me, but there doesn’t seem to be an alternative.
I wish you luck in the future. Perhaps you are correct that I should talk to a few more surgeons and see if I can find one that specializes in this type of treatment. They have talked about removing the hardware in me, 3 rods and 6 screws, to see if they are causing the pain. When I really hurt I swear I can feel them.
And to everyone who has read and to those that have responded, I don’t mean to sound like a whining baby. I have mentioned my injury in other related threads. I am not trying to draw attention to myself or get sympathy. I am just hoping that someone might mention something that will be the key to getting this resolved. I can’t tell you how much this has changed my life. I lost a wife, a career and my ability to enjoy the things I used to. Take care of your backs, you don’t ever want this problem.
Damn, one more thing was going to mention and forgot. In Scottsdale, AZ (near where I live) I found a Pain Clinic. There were two MD specialists, a chiropractor and a couple of P/As, all of whom were very sympathetic and thorough in reading all my history and X-rays. They helped a lot too. Maybe you can find such a specialty in your area.
I have also contemplated having a Whole Body Transplant.
Whole Body Transplant? Also, did you have fusions? I am fused L3-S1, which must not be good b/c every doc that has ever seen my x-rays/mri’s have always said something to the effect of “ohhhhhh, that’s really down low”
I hate to tell you this now, but everybody I ever knew that had fusion had a lot of trouble.
I had a laryectomy (sp?). One of my problems was stenosis, so that procedure chopped away most of the bone on the back of the spinal column (L3-L4), which relieved the pressure on the spinal cord. That has really helped a lot, but still have constant pain in my butt and legs. The surgeon told me this would get rid of the leg pain, but would not help the lumbar pain. Turned out the opposite, which confounded the doc. So it goes.
Your situation does sound pretty awful, but one of the rules of medical treatment is to keep looking, keep trying and keep researching. New stuff comes up all the time.
You ever consider the Mayo Clinics? Expensive, and your insurance may not be accepted, but you might go to their website and look it over.
In your case, you may not need the whole body transplant, just a spine transplant. 
Good luck, I sincerely hope you can find some relief.
Have you tried either bio feedback or hypnotherapy?
Thanks for the info. I have a doctor now that I trust and believe he has my best interest in mind. I (unfortunately) am Social Security Disabled now, so Medicare is what I have. It is actually quite good. I will say however, that I miss working very much and would give anything to go back. It is very tough to live on SS Disability even though I have a high benifit because of my working income, but the benifit is not enough to live on.
Oh, and sorry for my inability to detect snark and humor. Seems the morphine cloud can do that sometimes!
Although I’m having more trouble than I expected finding a cite, I think that quote is actually from T.E. Lawrence (‘Lawrence of Arabia’).
ETA: Okay, I just had the wrong words. It’s “the trick is not minding”. Here is the Google search result. Take your pick.
Gaius Mucius beat them both by almost 2500 years though without the pithy quote.
I’ll agree with that – solutions like amputating further and further along the limb to get rid of neuromas at the stump are generally ineffective, for instance. Ramachandran’s books say that the pain seems to originate in the brain itself.
I wonder if there is any research on whether phantom pain responds to dissociative anesthetics like ketamine or nitrous oxide the same way regular pain does.
If you find some, let me know
Oops. In the future I’ll exercise greater care when relating a quote.
Your quote seems to be correct (as quoted in All The President’s Men), but it came after Lawrence of Arabia so perhaps Liddy lifted the line. Or maybe the screenwriters just made them both up. 