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This is a summary of an excellent BBC programme I watched on "chronic" pain and pain killers.
Research now indicates that "chronic", as opposed to "acute" pain does not respond well to pain killers, which merely hook the users onto opioids.
This is because chronic pain is like a memory of pain, affecting a person's brain connections, long after the real cause of an acute pain has been eliminated. Chronic pain is real, but only in the way that watching a movie can create a version of reality.
Let's hope that a means of damping down these self-strengthening brain circuits can be developed.

[bbc.com]

Petter 9 Feb 16
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Personally, if my pain is mild I take an Ibuprofen. When it is strong, I go "catatonic", almost disconnecting my mind from my body.
Sometimes I will sit in an armchair, wearing headphones, listening to Beethoven or Brahms symphonies set to repeat. After 4 or 5 hours the pain has eased.
I no longer get regular migraines, but in the days when they were common I discovered that ergotamine was super effective. However, long term use has side effects.

2

being a long term pain sufferer you do get used to being in pain which makes it less painful in itself.

Thank you for that insight.

@anglophone your welcome

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That is why I am extremely cautious about being prescribed any opioid. I have found that paracetamol (called acetaminophen or Tylenol in the USA) coupled with ibuprofen to be extremely effective in managing severe pain. It was much better for me than tapentadol (an opioid). Tapentadol also has no effect on me, and made me feel ill as well, which did not go down well when coupled with pain!

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Thats interesting. So then remember not being in pain?

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I’ve had chronic pain since age 23: migraines, then at age 31: fibromyalgia...adding others along the way to 59. Gastroparesis, hypertension, neuropathy, diabetes, and more.
I weaned myself off morphine years ago because I’d rather be clear-headed. I only get narcotics in the hospital for 10+ pain. At home, gabapentin for neuropathy, mild muscle relaxers, Tylenol.
The pain is always there. I’m really good at pretending to be ok...which leads to people accusing me of faking.
It’s frustrating, but fuck ‘em. It’s my body and I’m in it, not them.

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First, let’s be completely honest about pain meds.
They only do so much for physical pain.
And they do next to nothing for nerve pain.
Reality is that pain meds help you to not care you are in excruciating pain most of every day. Still VERY important

When you are living with a 6-10 chronic pain, you are not living, you are only surviving.

Addiction can be a problem for some people. Then for others it is not.

I weaned myself off fentanyl patches. They didn’t even get me high after a few years. Because I was on the same dose always. I was able to get off of them, because of surgeries and nerve meds. I weaned very slowly, without withdrawals.

When people lose the high, they don’t see how their pills are still working. So they take more. When they run out, that’s when the problems start.

I take gabapentin for my nerve damage, but use norco for pain that escalates. Because my pain is REAL, all the time.

If there was a pill/med/plant that got rid of my pain, I would prefer it to the opioids.

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I heard the new pain management doctors doesn't want to wait to control pain they say that the sooner it is controlled the milder it is where as they use to wait and that some pain meds counter act the addictive affects of opoiods.

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I suffered from chronic pain for 5 years diabetic neuropathy. Went to 6 pain specialists Is no medicine that would help. It wasn't the memory of a pain. Within 3 months of changing my diet, it went away.

It came back once after eating a Schlotzky's (a sub full of cheese and meat). Two days after eating the sandwich the pain went away again.

So if you don't mind saying ... what was your major dietary change?

I have the very infrequent beginnings of diabetic neuropathy. I have found it arises (in my feet) when I do one or more of (1) missing a dosage of my diabetes meds, (2) kick off the covers at night so my legs get cold. This only happens a couple times a month so far, but I'm sure it's some fresh hell that my body is cooking up for me.

Lately I've added sublingual B3-6-12 (hydroxycobalmin) to my regimen as I've read it's neuroprotective.

@mordant Plant-based whole-food. See [agnostic.com]

I'm taking these comments in as I had neuropathy long before they found out I was diabetic. Diet, meds, and sleeping in heavy socks help me a lot.

@DenoPenno My neuropathy started long before diabetes. However it was only numb 'feet. When the pain started he was fully diabetic.

Now I have no pain, and my arteries are clear of plaque.

Like you, I switched to a plant based diet because I was suffering with chronic pain from fibromyalgia and peripheral neuropathy. I found that cutting out foods with chemical additives, eating as much organic stuff as I could and cutting out sugar greatly reduced the pain from both conditions.

@DenoPenno I don't have diabetes, but I do have peripheral neuropathy from FMS. My chiropractor, of all people, told me to cut back on sugar to reduce the episodes. It feels like someone is stabbing me in the bottoms of my feet with red hot daggers . And when I took her advice, I found the episodes have almost completely stopped, unless I overdo the sugar

Happy to hear you can mediate the pain.

Diet does seem to affect well-being. I do not have a wheat allergy, because I can eat puffed wheat cereal without any problems, yet wheat bread often affects me. I concluded that it was the modern additives that commercial bread contains that affected me and tried baking my own using nothing other than wheat flour, yeast, salt and water. It gave me no problems whatsoever. I can guzzle huge amounts, so I feel thar many people with gluten allergies actually have "additive allergies". What think you?

@Petter You made a scientific observation. It corresponds with the plant based whole food diet.The additives to prepared foods or not wholesome.

@EdEarl If you can't pronounce it, don't eat it! 🙂

@TheoryNumber3 Of course, but those aren't the only things. I can pronounce salami, which the WHO said is as bad for people as cigarettes.

@EdEarl Nobody should be eating processed meats. They're nothing but leftover animal parts, fat and chemicals. I grew up on bologna sandwiches on white bread and corned beef hash from a can. Gross. I wouldn't go near that stuff today.

@TheoryNumber3 My mom fed me similar things. And, I agree, that stuff is a poor substitute for food.

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