Day: 05/16/2015

My Dance

Do you know how it feels
to be all alone?
Forgotten, discarded
Just like a stone

Do you know what it’s like
to have no one at all?
No friends, no family
No one to call

The silence surrounds you
There is nothing else
An absence of life
which leaves only strife

Do you know the toll
it takes on your soul?
No amount of wishing
able to make you whole

I hope you don’t know
the cost of being alone
The feeling of doubt
that you don’t really count

Without all this pain
I might have a chance
But somehow I doubt it
This is My Dance

Not looking for pity
Keep your prayers to yourself
There’s nothing to do
Though I wish you could help

Just look around you
Take in your good fortune
You have people who care
Aren’t you glad that’s not rare?

What does CNN have to say about treating back pain?

http://www.cnn.com/2012/HEALTH/expert.q.a/01/16/back.pain.stimulator.brawley/index.html

Asked by Larry, New York:  I have had severe, chronic back and sciatic pain for many years. My particular problems cannot be resolved surgically. Nerve blocks and other minimally invasive procedures have been partially successful in temporarily reducing the pain. Medications have reduced my back pain, but the sciatic pain continues to be severe. My pain specialist has suggested an implantable nerve stimulator for the sciatic nerve. How successful are these devices?

By:  Conditions Expert Dr. Otis Brawley, Chief Medical Officer, American Cancer Society

When symptoms of nonspecific low back pain persist more than three months, the goal of treatment moves from “cure” to controlling pain, maintaining function and preventing disability.

Studies show that many patients with chronic low back pain do not receive evidence-based care. Too often, there is overuse of unproven interventions (such as traction and corsets), over-reliance on opioids and muscle relaxants and underuse of exercise therapy.

Injection of nerve roots with steroids or numbing medications (nerve blocks) generally provide short-term relief and can be done only when the source of the pain is identifiable.

The experts gave the following recommendations for patients with chronic low back pain.

The patient should try to remain active and limit bed rest.

Engaging in supervised exercise therapy that includes stretching and strengthening is an important part of therapy, as is some aerobic activity

Consider yoga, spinal manipulation, massage therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy and acupuncture.

Do not use lumbar supports.

Use nonopioid analgesics such as acetaminophen or nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs.

Only the most severely disabled, with a low vulnerability for drug abuse, should use opioids. Opioids should then be used sparingly for acute exacerbations of back pain.

Avoid use of anti-epileptic medications, muscle relaxants and benzodiazepines such as valium for long-term low back pain.

A nerve generates an electrical signal. In sensory nerves, these signals may communicate pain to the brain. A nerve stimulator is used to cancel out the electrical pain signals in the nerve. The peripheral nerve stimulator is implanted under the skin and is placed to send electrical pulses to the problematic nerve directly.

A very few patients do get relief with implantable nerve stimulators and other treatments such as interferential therapy, low level laser therapy, short-wave diathermy, traction, transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS), ultrasound or percutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (PENS).

These treatments are worth a try for people who have not gotten adequate relief from other more established treatments. All the experts I consulted noted that treatment of chronic low back pain is often frustrating and patients going through the experience often develop clinical depression.

They suggested that health care providers and patients be on the lookout for depression and they suggest that it be treated aggressively with antidepressants.

In other words, avoid using drugs that actually do help, and when all the other alternative treatments don’t help, treat chronic back pain with antidepressants.  (And good luck.)

Brain Chemical May Offer New Clues in Treating Chronic Pain

https://www.utdallas.edu/news/2015/5/6-31524_Brain-Chemical-May-Offer-New-Clues-in-Treating-Chr_story-wide.html

In people with chronic pain, neurons continue to send pain signals to the brain, even in the absence of injury, but the causes of this are not known… A potential explanation comes from A11. These neurons didn’t affect acute pain, but they did have a profound effect on chronic pain, researchers found. By targeting these neurons in mice with chronic pain, the researchers permanently reversed a chronic pain state…

Yes, but doesn’t chronic pain usually begin with acute pain?  That’s not an “absence of injury,” unless we’re talking about conditions like fibromyalgia; and even then, who can say if that’s not caused by acute pain from a prior injury?  Yes, chronic pain becomes a disease state in and of itself, but it doesn’t just appear, like magic, bypassing the neurons that are affected by acute pain.

The study was funded in part by The University of Texas at Dallas, the National Institutes of Health and the Rita Allen Foundation.

http://www.ritaallenfoundation.org/raf-news/news-dr-kathy-foley.htm

This 45 million dollar, nine-year project funded by [financier and philanthropist] George Soros had as its focus transforming the culture of death in America through initiatives in science, the humanities, education, and professional training.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Soros

Economist Paul Krugman is critical of Soros’ effect on financial markets.

“[N]obody who has read a business magazine in the last few years can be unaware that these days there really are investors who not only move money in anticipation of a currency crisis, but actually do their best to trigger that crisis for fun and profit. These new actors on the scene do not yet have a standard name; my proposed term is ‘Soroi’.”

His insider trading conviction was upheld by the highest court in France on June 14, 2006. In December 2006, he appealed to the European Court of Human Rights on various grounds including that the 14-year delay in bringing the case to trial precluded a fair hearing. On the basis of Article 7 of the European Convention on Human Rights, stating that no person may be punished for an act that was not a criminal offense at the time that it was committed, the Court agreed to hear the appeal. In October 2011, the court rejected his appeal in a 4–3 decision, saying that Soros had been aware of the risk of breaking insider trading laws…

Soros has been a major financier of the Drug Policy Alliance – an organization that promotes cannabis legalization – with roughly $4 million in annual contributions from one of his foundations…

The Project on Death in America, active from 1994 to 2003, was one of the Open Society Institute’s projects, which sought to “understand and transform the culture and experience of dying and bereavement”. In 1994, Soros delivered a speech in which he reported that he had offered to help his mother, a member of the Hemlock Society, commit suicide…

In 2008, Soros met his current wife, Tamiko Bolton, forty-two years his junior; he married her on September 21, 2013. Bolton is the daughter of a Japanese-American nurse and a retired naval commander. She was raised in California, earned an MBA from the University of Miami, and runs an Internet-based dietary supplement and vitamin-sales company…