Neuropathy Images And Text To Make You Think

Today's post from recent posts on the Neuropathy Association's Facebook page (see link below) is nothing more than a series of images which may teach you something you didn't know about neuropathy. They are loosely based on the rarer neuropathies. Remember, there are over 100 different types of neuropathy although most people suffer from very similar symptoms, irrespective of the cause. These images may open your eyes to the variety of suffering that neuropathy can bring and you may have to Google a few terms to get an explanation but that's surely not too hard to widen your knowledge! Millions across the world suffer from debilitating nerve damage and we're nowhere nearer any sort of cure than we were 50 years ago!

Selected Neuropathy Association Facebook page Images
2014




Catching up on the Facebook chat is possible via the neuropathy association home page






















 https://www.facebook.com/NeuropathyAssociation

What Can Actually Happen To You If You Have Neuropathy

Today's post from neuropathytreatmentgroup.com (see link below) is actually an article attached to an advertisement for a neuropathy treatment and this blog does not support the treatment offered, nor any other form of advertising for so-called curative neuropathy products. Neuropathy is with you for life I'm afraid and all you can do is reduce the severity of the symptoms using chemical drugs or various alternative treatments and supplements. It can't be cured (at the moment), so please don't believe any website that tells you it can. HOWEVER, this article is packed with such useful and accurate information, I can only applaud the author and recommend the content to readers of this blog. It explains simply and clearly what can happen to you if you have neuropathy. Worth a read.

What No One Tells You About Neuropathy and Muscle Control
2016
 
Have you noticed your muscles acting a little strange since developing neuropathy? Perhaps they affect your ability to walk? Or maybe you find it difficult to use your fingers to pick something up? While we normally associated peripheral neuropathy with symptoms like pain, numbness and tingling – there are other symptoms as well.

The peripheral nervous system is made up of three different kinds of nerves: motor, sensory and autonomic. Each type of nerve controls different functions. Motor nerves send signals from the brain and spinal cord to your muscles – controlling motor functions like walking, dexterity and more. Sensory nerves do the opposite – relaying signals like temperature, pain, etc. from the muscles back to the brain and spinal cord. Finally, the autonomic nerves control involuntary or semi-voluntary functions like heart rate, digestion, blood pressure and more.

Peripheral neuropathy can affect some or all of these nerves. The symptoms you experience will depend entirely upon the type of nerve(s)that have been damaged as a result of your neuropathy. If your sensory nerves have been damaged you will experience symptoms such as pain, numbness, tingling or burning. Damage to the autonomic nerves can lead to problems with dizziness, sweating (either too much or too little), nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, constipation, difficulty urinating and more.

If your motor nerves fall victim to nerve damage – various motor functions can be affected. Lets take a look at five possible symptoms you might experience if your neuropathy has damaged your motor nerves:

Loss of balance and difficulty walking

Damage to the motor nerves can make walking difficulty. Your legs may feel heavy and difficult to move or you may feel constantly off balance. Since damage to the motor nerves disrupts the signals from your brain and spinal cord to the muscles – telling them what to do – even something as simple as walking can become a difficult task.

Damage to the sensory nerves can exacerbate this problem. The pain or numbness usually associated with damage to these nerves often affect the feet – making walking even more problematic.

For those suffering from symptoms related to motor nerve damage – extra caution should be used when walking on stairs or other areas where a fall risk is greater. Allowing extra time and avoiding rushing to perform tasks can also help limit your risk of falling.

Loss of Dexterity

Do you find it difficult to pick things up or use your hands to perform certain tasks? If so, that’s a sign your neuropathy has affected your motor nerves. Damage to the motor nerves can affect the ability of your brain to send signals properly to the muscles in your hands. You may notice somewhat delayed reactions in your hands or the muscles in your hands may feel weak – inhibiting your ability to perform even normal tasks like picking something up or moving your fingers.

Some common difficulties associated with loss of dexterity are inability to grip objects, loss of hand strength, difficulty writing or typing, difficulty performing tasks that require small movements, decreased reflexes and more. While you may not be able to restore complete control or strength to the hands – doing regular hand exercises can help you rebuild and maintain muscle strength and improve dexterity control.

Muscle Weakness; Deterioration

As damage to your motor nerves inhibits the ability of your brain and spinal cord to transmit messages to your muscles – you may find yourself limiting the use of your arms, legs, hands and feet. For many, this decrease in physical activity results in muscle deterioration and weakness. As the muscles deteriorate, you lose muscle mass and tone (this is often referred to as muscle atrophy).

Muscle weakness further contributes to the loss of dexterity, balance and difficulty walking previously mentioned. While exercise is often difficult and pain for those with neuropathy – there are low-impact exercises that will help you retain muscle mass and prevent muscle deterioration.

Try these 5 Low Impact Exercises for Neuropathy if you’re experiencing muscle weakness or deterioration!

Cramps; Spasms

The deterioration of muscle mass and the disruption of signals from the brain to the muscles can also lead to painful cramps, muscles spasms and twitches. For many, the cramping strikes at night and can range in severity from mild to extremely painful. In addition to cramping, many experience uncontrollable spasms or muscle twitching – which is visible just below the skin. While not as painful as cramps, they can be quite bothersome.

Loss of Muscle Control

As we’ve already touched on with the sections on loss of balance and dexterity – damage to the motor nerves affects your ability to control your muscles properly. The motor nerves carry messages from the brain and spinal cord to the muscles – telling them what actions to perform. As this line of communication is disrupted – the ability to control muscles is diminished. This is made manifest in loss of reflexes, inability to move hands or feet quickly, difficulty with fine motor tasks (i.e. buttoning a shirt, writing, etc) and more.

While the most common symptoms associated with peripheral neuropathy are pain, numbness, burning or tingling in the hands or feet – they are not the only symptoms. When the motor nerves fall victim to neuropathy the symptoms can go far beyond pain or numbness. They can affect your ability to control muscles and perform otherwise simple physical tasks. Though you may not be able to completely reverse these negative effects, alternative approaches like exercise can help you build and maintain muscle mass – thus helping to minimize the impact of motor nerve damage.

http://www.neuropathytreatmentgroup.com/what-no-one-tells-you-about-neuropathy-muscle-control/

Were You Relieved When You Were Diagnosed With Nerve Damage

Today's post from themighty.com (see link below) reflects, by means of a personal story, what millions of neuropathy sufferers across the world feel before they receive their definitive diagnosis. It seems astonishing in this day and age that we have to jump through hoops of disbelief, suspicion, inaccurate evaluations and faulty diagnoses before a medical professional finally comes up with the answer but it still happens continually in 2016. Naturally, the more neuropathy hits the news, the more patients will have light bulb moments and emerge from the darkness but is the medical profession ready for it? Not by a long chalk! Not only are we prescribed the same medications that were issued 30 years ago but the time scale between symptoms and diagnosis is unforgivably long. Add on to that the general lack of expert knowledge among doctors and you have patient frustration on a massive scale. That said, it is changing and the medical profession and pharmaceutical companies are finally waking up to the problem and working on solutions but hey...it's about time! The author of this article's patent relief at being given a diagnosis is therefore perfectly understandable. Do you recognise yourself in her story? I have a feeling you will.
 

Why I'm Happy I Received Diagnoses of Neuropathy and Myopathy  
11/19/16 By Jen Hardy Contributor I write about Hereditary Neuropathies
 
Let me start by saying I do not want to be sick. I am not lazy, or trying to get attention. What I do want is a diagnosis, so medical professionals can treat my symptoms, and if possible, heal me. There are so many people who do not understand people with chronic illness and why we want a diagnosis so badly. I want to share my story so I can help other people understand how difficult it is to live with unidentified health issues.

As a young girl, I spent a lot of time during my non-school hours in bed and on the couch. My parents chalked it up to me being a lazy person, but when I would get bursts of energy, I’d be out doing all I could, and I didn’t feel lazy! In middle school P.E., I would always stop running because of sharp pain and a burning sensation in my chest. Again, I was labeled as lazy and told to work through the pain. (Twenty-five years later, we would discover I had asthma.) My parents had me in soccer and softball for several years, but I would get worn out quickly, begging to be benched after a few quarters or innings. As you see, there was a pattern. High school went on the same way, only with the emergence of back pain on top of everything else.

I started falling down in my early 20s. People just thought that was funny. “Look how clumsy she is,” they said. Everyone thought I was both lazy and clumsy. I had x-rays and all the standard blood tests, but nothing was showing up. After I had a couple of children, my energy plummeted, but after seeing a variety of doctors, and with a chart thicker than a Harry Potter book, I still had no diagnosis. The medical and family consensus was that I was fine, lazy, and maybe a little depressed. I was a little depressed; my body was betraying me and I didn’t know why. Not only that, but no one who was close to me believed what I was saying.

In my 30s, the pain became more intense. It was difficult for me to get around, and I was becoming more unsteady. My pain was mostly in my back, but slowly creeping in a little bit everywhere else too. “Where did it come from? Why was it there?” Those were my questions. What answer did I get? “You must want drugs.”

Through all of this, I would argue with anyone who told me to take so much as an aspirin. I was so anti-any-medicine that wasn’t absolutely life-saving that taking strong pain killers was out of the question. I wanted a permanent solution, not a temporary fix. Again and again and again I was asked, “Why do you want something to be wrong? Why do you keep looking for something to be wrong with you? Why can’t you just do what you’re supposed to do like everyone else?”

I was told by those close to me, “Obviously if the doctor says nothing is wrong, then nothing is wrong.” And, “I’m certainly not going to help you get things done when you are perfectly capable of doing them yourself. Stop being lazy and snap out of it!” But more symptoms kept emerging, and I just kept asking questions, and going to doctors, and not giving up. It’s not easy to keep that up when you feel miserable.

A good personal support system helps not only physically, but emotionally as well. When I was 40, I married a soldier. He not only fought for our country, but he fought for me. He went to doctors with me and explained things when I couldn’t, he helped me to remember to take my medicine when I was too tired to remember by myself, and he always had faith that we would find help and I would get better. With his help, I found a pulmonologist who discovered that I have asthma and sleep apnea. Treating those helped some of my symptoms, but there were still several things going on with my body that no one could figure out.

In my early 40s, my husband got sick with what we thought was a cancerous kidney tumor. I didn’t want to tell him that I’d fallen down the stairs twice in one week, but my sister-in-law did. He immediately sent me to the doctor, where I got an MRI of my back, and they finally found something. Ironically, they didn’t actually find it, they said it was still there! A diffuse atrophy that was found in my back seven years earlier that no one ever mentioned to me. The muscles outside of my lower spine had completely atrophied and been replaced by fat. How could this have happened? Why? We didn’t know, but it explained the pain, weakness, and falling I’d been experiencing for years.

I saw several neurologists. My second one actually told me I had too many symptoms and had to pare down my symptom list for him to be able to help me. “Which symptoms are the right ones?” I cried, but he didn’t know, so it was time to find another neurologist. It is so important for patients to keep searching until they find a doctor who listens to them. If I had listened to the first doctors, I might not be here today. I was misdiagnosed and put through risky treatments that didn’t help, and even a major surgery I didn’t need.

I finally went to a new doctor, my eighth neurologist, who sent me to another neurologist 300 miles away at a medical center that specializes in rare neuromuscular diseases. Finally, the wrong diagnosis was officially ruled out. We also found out answers to the health questions I’d had for years. I don’t have one neuromuscular disease, I have two: neuropathy and myopathy. That’s why I had too many symptoms. That’s why none of it made sense. That’s why no one believed that I was telling the truth. It seemed like too much. Like I was making it up.

We now have names for four out of five of my main diseases: asthma, arthritis, sensory neuropathy, and sleep apnea. The fifth is idiopathic myopathy for now. That means I have a muscle wasting disease and no one knows the cause. I’ve had medical testing, the likes of which I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy, to get to the root of it, but we’re still waiting for the final results. If they’re negative, it means my disease is so rare, it hasn’t even been discovered yet. But my ninth neurologist has done the testing necessary to know I have a serious disease. My body is like a snowman in February; the thaw is coming, we don’t know when, and little bits of me melt away as we wait.

I don’t want to be sick. I don’t want to have an illness. But I do. And because I have fought to find someone to believe in and help me, I have found answers and now I have help managing my pain and fatigue. I still don’t know what’s causing my muscles to atrophy, but in July 2016 I found out that I have neuropathy and myopathy. That’s where most of my system-wide pain is coming from, that’s why I fall, and the muscles that are left work so hard I get fatigued doing the most mundane things.

I’m very happy to finally have a name for what’s been happening to my body for years. I’m not happy because I’m chronically ill. No one wants to be chronically ill, but we do want to be helped. And that’s what a diagnosis does. It helps us get the treatment we need, and live happier, more productive lives.

https://themighty.com/2016/11/ive-been-diagnosed-with-neuropathy-and-myopathy-so-why-am-i-so-happy/

How Much Weight Should You Gain During Pregnancy

Amy Winehouse

Amy Winehouse

Angela Bassett Muscles

Video embedded How much weight should I gain during my pregnancy? It depends on how much you weighed before you conceived and whether that's the appropriate weight .How many pounds should you pack on during pregnancy? WebMD explains how much weight to gain, what to eat, What if You Gain Too Much Weight During Pregnancy?.The amount of weight you should gain depends on At what rate should I gain weight during my pregnancy? How much you should gain depends on your weight before you .Use our pregnancy weight gain calculator to estimate how much weight you should gain during pregnancy and find Weight Gain Pregnancy Weight Gain Calculator.Pregnancy Weight Gain Calculator How much weight should you gain while you're pregnant? Keep tabs on your pregnancy pounds with our pregnancy weight gain calculator..Learn how much weight you should gain during pregnancy and how it's distributed in your body. Get the answers to all your pregnancy weight gain pregnancy weight .We have advice about weight gain in pregnancy and how your BMI affects how much you should gain Weight gain in pregnancy. Weight gain during pregnancy: .Video embedded How much weight should you gain during pregnancy? It depends on your body mass index BMI before you get pregnant. BMI is a measure of body .Weight Gain During Pregnancy; After Pregnancy. Be sure to talk to your health care provider if you are uncertain about how much weight you should gain during your .American Pregnancy Association . One question you may have pertains to how much weight you can expect to gain during the next several months. Why is weight gain .

What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Neuropathy

Today's post from curediseases.pw (see link below) is very sensibly written and should appeal to all readers looking for just a little more information than their doctors are able to supply during a fifteen minute consultation. It addresses some of the myths surrounding neuropathy, many of them brought about because doctors just don't have the time to explain what's happening in any length. Time is the issue here...nobody is suggesting that doctors are being negligent...they just don't have the necessary time! The article fills in some of the blanks, with accurate and helpful information and you may well learn something you didn't know about this frustrating disease that's causing you so many problems. Worth a read.
 

11 Things Doctors Don’t Tell You About Neuropathy
November 19, 2016 ASHLEY

Have you ever learned a piece of valuable new information about neuropathy and thought to yourself, “I wish I would’ve known that when I was first diagnosed.” If you’re anything like me, this is a somewhat frequent occurrence. The reality is that while a lot has been (and is being) discovered about neuropathy in the scientific and medical communities, our understanding of it is an evolving process. Compared to a decade or two ago, we know considerably more now than we did – but even so, there is much that is yet to be fully understood about this silent but painful nerve condition.

As I look back on all I’ve learned about neuropathy over the years – from causes to treatments and everything in between – there is a lot I wish I’d been told about sooner. As with any battle against a chronic condition – knowledge is power. The more you know about your neuropathy – including its potential causes and the steps you can take to most effectively treat it and prevent it from spreading – the better your chances are of reducing your neuropathy related symptoms and preventing further nerve damage.

With that said, here are 11 things I wish I’d known about neuropathy when I was first diagnosed:

There are many potential causes – including medications

Some of the known causes of neuropathy include diabetes, chemotherapy, exposure to toxins, surgery, injury or trauma, vitamin B12 deficiency, excessive amounts of vitamin B6, autoimmune diseases, nutritional imbalances, excessive alcohol consumption and even medications. Knowing the cause of your neuropathy is one of the most important factors in determining how to treat it.



MORE: 7 Potential Causes of Your Neuropathy

In some cases, the cause of neuropathy will remain a mystery even after thorough testing and investigation. This is referred to as idiopathic neuropathy, meaning the cause is unknown. In most cases, however, doctors should be able to arrive at a cause (or number of causes).


Some Causes Are Reversible

One of the dreaded realities we often associated with neuropathy is that the damage is irreversible – that you’re stuck with the pain, tingling or numbness forever. While in many cases the damage and symptoms may last indefinitely, there are cases in which the damage may be reversible. This largely depends on the cause of your neuropathy and how quickly you catch it and take steps to reverse it (obviously, the earlier the better).

Among the causes in which damage has the potential to be stopped and even reversed are diabetes, vitamin B12 deficiencies, nutritional deficiencies, heavy alcohol consumption and medications. Of course, to have any hope of stopping or reversing the damage one must determine the cause of the damage and take immediate steps to remedy the problem.

For those with diabetes or nutritional deficiencies, managing blood sugar and improving diet is key to reversing the damage. Those with vitamin B12 deficiencies should work with their doctor to determine ways to eliminate the deficiency through diet or supplementation. Finally, those with neuropathy caused by alcohol or medications should restrict or eliminate the use of the substance causing the damage.

Nerve Damage Can Spread If Underlying Cause Isn’t Addressed

The peripheral nervous system is comprised of nerves running from the brain and spinal chord to other parts of the body. Damage to the peripheral nerves typically manifests itself first in our extremities – usually the hands or feet. What many neuropathy patients don’t realize is that over time these symptoms can spread to other parts of the body – including the arms, ankles, legs and more – if the underlying cause isn’t addressed. This is why both early detection and treatment are so critical. 

Look Out For Early Indicators of Peripheral Neuropathy

The earlier you can catch neuropathy the better your chances of preventing the symptoms from spreading. Some of the early signs of neuropathy to watch out for include:
Gradual numbness or tingling sensations in the feet or hands (which may spread into the legs and arms)
Sharp, stabbing pains
Intense burning pain
Extreme sensitivity to touch
Loss of balance or coordination
Muscle weakness, loss of motor skills
Restless Leg Syndrome (RLS)

Neuropathy Can Affect Muscle Control

Within the peripheral nervous system there are three types of nerves: motor, autonomic and sensory. While the most recognizable symptoms of neuropathy are related to the sensory nerves (i.e. pain, tingling and numbness) – nerve damage can manifest itself in other ways as well. When neuropathy damages the motor nerves, it disrupts the nerves ability to relay messages from the brain and spinal cord to various muscle groups. This can result in difficulties such as loss of balance, difficulty walking, loss of dexterity, cramps or spasms, muscle weakness and loss of muscle control.

MORE: What No One Tells You About Neuropathy & Muscle Control


Neuropathy Can Affect Autonomic Functions

Another group of nerves that can be affected my neuropathy is the autonomic nerves. The autonomic nervous system is a division of the peripheral nervous system that influences various internal organs such as the heart, stomach, liver, adrenal gland and more. Damage to the autonomic nerves disrupts the signals sent from the brain and spinal cord to these various organs – sometimes resulting in a disruption to the involuntary functions these organs are involved in.

MORE: Heartburn, Indigestion and 25 Other Symptoms You Didn’t Know Were Caused By Neuropathy

Here are the most common organs affected by damage to the autonomic nerves and the symptoms generally associated with them:


Pain Medications Only Mask the Pain

There are a number of prescription medications available to help cope with neuropathic pain. These medications have been a lifesaver for many sufferers (myself included) as they help take the edge off the pain and make it more manageable. Unfortunately, their purpose is simply to help mask the pain rather than help correct the underlying problem. In addition, there can be negative side effects associated with any prescription medication – so one must be aware of the risks.

MORE: Strategies for Fighting Neuropathy Without Prescriptions

Understanding that these prescription medications would not necessarily stop or reverse my nerve damage – but merely mask the symptoms – helped me to recognize the importance of trying various approaches to help address the underlying causes of my neuropathy. 

Natural Herbs & Supplements May Help

While prescription medications typically only mask the symptoms, nutritional supplements and herbs may help both relieve symptoms and address underlying causes. By addressing underlying causes or problems, they may help to slow or even stop the nerve damage from spreading. Some of the best supplements and herbs for nerve pain include:
Vitamin B12
Vitamin D
Magnesium
Alpha Lipoic Acid
CoQ10
Acetyl-l-carnitine

Vitamin B12 is especially important for nerve health. It helps build up and support the myelin sheath – a protective coating around the nerves that shelters them from damage and infection. Studies have shown that high doses of vitamin B12 can promote nerve regeneration of damaged nerves.

MORE: Top 10 Herbs & Supplements for Nerve Pain 
 
Alternative Therapies Can Help (but be patient)

Like a lot of people, I was hesitant about alternative therapies and skeptical about the promised results. However, alternative therapies have proven to be very beneficial in both helping me to manage my pain as well as improving my overall health. That said – there is no miracle therapy or treatment that is going to relieve my nerve pain overnight. I’ve found that with alternative approaches, the results are gradual – but they tend to be lasting results.

Alternative therapies for neuropathy range from low-impact exercises like yoga or tai chi to ancient practices like acupuncture. Here is a good list of popular approaches you may want to explore if you are suffering from neuropathy:
Acupuncture
Massage
Yoga
Tai Chi
Walking or stationary bike
Biofeedback
TENS therapy (Transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation)

MORE: 10 Little Known Ways to Relieve Nerve Pain 
 
Diet Could Be Helping or Hurting Nerve Pain

Something else I wish I’d known was the impact that diet can have on the symptoms of neuropathy. There are certain foods that can aggravate nerve pain as well as ones that can help boost nerve health. Knowing which foods or ingredients fall into which category can make a big difference!

Among the foods that can make neuropathy worse are casein-based products (commonly found in dairy products), artificial sweeteners, gluten, added sugars and refined grains. When consumed excessively, alcohol can also harm the nerves and block the absorption of essential vitamins like B12.

MORE: 4 Nutrient Deficiencies That Are Killing Your Nerves

Foods that promote healthier nerves include ones rich in B-complex vitamins such as B12 & B2. Other important vitamins and nutrients for strong nerves include vitamin D, vitamin E, Magnesium and Zinc.
Joining a Neuropathy Support Group Can Help

They say that experience is the mother of all wisdom, so what better way to learn about neuropathy than to join others who have been living with it for years? Joining a support group or online forum can give you insights into living with neuropathy that you might not find elsewhere. They are also safe environments to ask questions and learn what experience others have had with various medications, treatments and therapies.

To find a support group near you, the Neuropathy Support Network has a useful support group search tool. In addition to local support groups, there are a handful of online support groups or forums. For finding information and support online, check out these 10 Resources Every Neuropathy Sufferer Should Bookmark.

Life with neuropathy can be painful, overwhelming and frustrating. As with anything, the more experience one has the more wisdom and insight he or she will gain into how to better cope with the hand that has been dealt. For me, the process has been gradual and frustrating (of course) – but I’ve learned many things that have resulted in small yet meaningful changes to make the road a little smoother. What things do you wish you had known about neuropathy when you were first diagnosed?

http://curediseases.pw/11-things-doctors-dont-tell-you-about-neuropathy/

Cannabis CBD Patch For Nerve Pain Relief Something For You

 Today's post from ireadculture.com (see link below) offers an alternative to smoked, or inhaled cannabis for nerve pain relief. A new product in transdermal patch form has arrived, which distributes CBD extract through the body and avoids many of the things that put people off using cannabis as a pain killer (you don't get high with CBD folks). This could be a major breakthrough for neuropathy patients. You may already have seen CBD oil products on your health shop shelves, or advertised on internet (depending on where you live in the world and what the attitude there is) but if you want to take the step towards trying cannabis to control your symptoms, what better way is there than a patch on the skin! Definitely worth a read.

New CBD Patches Combat Nerve Pain and Fibromyalgia
by Jacob Cannon | November 4, 2016

Although cannabis is still considered to have no medical use by the Drug Enforcement Administration, pharmaceutical companies continue to create medications that prove its efficacy against countless ailments. Cannabis Science, Inc. has developed two new pain relief patches that are specifically for patients with Diabetic Neuropathy nerve pain and Fibromyalgia.

Fibromyalgia is a medical condition in which the individual experiences chronic widespread pain and a higher, more painful response to pressure. Neuropathy damages or spreads disease to nerves and can have various painful effects depending on which nerves are affected. Now patients facing either of these ailments might find relief with the transdermal CBD patches created by Cannabis Science.

The transdermal pads are made with high potency cannabinoid (CBD) extract. The extract is released in a controlled fashion, which enters into the bloodstream through a medicated adhesive patch that is put on the skin. The CBD extract enters through the skin and into the central nervous system, which is how patients receive pain relief.

The Cannabis Science CEO, Raymond C. Dabney, confirmed that these developments are just the beginning for his company, according to www.biospace.com. “The development of these two new pharmaceutical medicinal applications are just the tip of the iceberg for what we see as the future of Cannabis Science,” Dabney said. “While we strive to increase our land capacity for growth and facilities to produce our own product to supply our scientists with proprietary materials to make these formulations, we are so busy researching more potential needs for cannabis-related medical applications and developing the methods for delivery of these medications.”

CBD is notorious for being one of the active ingredients in cannabis that leads to various healing properties from helping to reduce seizures to acting as an anti-inflammatory and pain reliever. One of its most attractive properties to many is that it does not have any psychoactive properties. As more states vote soon on allowing medical cannabis programs in their state, Cannabis Science only sees greater opportunity to help more patients.

“As more states nationwide legislate for the legalization of cannabis and cannabis derived medications, we here at Cannabis Science are focused on developing pharmaceutical formulations and applications to supply the huge growing demand expected over the coming few years,” Dabney said.

http://ireadculture.com/new-cbd-patches-combat-nerve-pain-fibromyalgia/

What Do You Mean You Have Chronic Neuropathic Pain

Today's post from lifeinslowmotionblog.com (see link below) looks at a dilemma which faces us all when confronted by disbelieving or ignorant faces that don't have a clue what we're on about when we go on about neuropathic symptoms. It's human nature - people match what they hear our pain involves, with what they have experienced in their own lives. Only we know how different neuropathic pain is and how much it can influence our daily lives for the worse. The article talks about a 'communication dilemma' and indeed that's exactly what it is. Just explaining that 'chronic' pain is not a measure of how severe the pain is but a description of something that just never goes away, (chronic meaning, long-lasting) is difficult enough. This article attempts to put the problem into context and help us feel better about the situation when it comes to dealing with other people's opinions.

Explain Your Pain: The Communication Dilemma
Posted on July 30, 2015 by lifeinslowmotion

Hi Folks, I’m starting a new series called “Explain Your Pain” which will attempt to address the difficulty of explaining our chronic pain to our family, friends, and others who need to be in the know. In this first post “The Communication Dilemma” I lay out the problem, and in future posts I will give some thoughts on how to move productively move forward to explain our pain.

Something about chronic pain is mind-numbingly difficult to describe. Something about describing our chronic pain experience leaves us feeling ashamed, alone, and misunderstood. If you struggle to explain your chronic pain to family, friends, and loved ones, you are not alone.

We all have memories of those tongue-tied moments, those seconds that stretched into minutes, as we sifted through our brains to try and find the right words. The words never seem to come.

We all have those relationships that are just not the same, because we have never been able to find the right words to explain why we have suddenly become so unreliable, always cancelling plans.

We all have those tear-stained memories of feeling so misunderstood and so judged that we are unsure if we will ever talk to that one friend again.

We can all remember conversations that were intended to bring clarity and understanding but somehow ended up only adding to the overall confusion.

If you have chronic pain, you are familiar with this communication dilemma. You are familiar with the gap that exists between our intimate experience of chronic pain and how much our family and friends know about our daily experience. You are familiar with the gap, but so far have been unable to bridge it. So far, words have fallen short.

What about chronic pain is so impossible to describe and so difficult to comprehend? Why do conversations about chronic pain feel unnatural? Why is this communication dilemma a common and overarching theme in the lives of so many who struggle with chronic pain? Perhaps if we can begin to answer these questions, we can figure out how to move forward in this quest to explain, in this journey to be known.

Describing chronic pain is difficult because it requires that we put objective and concrete words to a subjective and abstract experience.

At first glance, chronic pain appears to be a tangible and physical experience, but this is not the full story. Our chronic pain is certainly physical, and it feels concrete to the one who experiences it, but in a somewhat paradoxical sense, it is also incredibly subjective and abstract.

Why? These paradoxical qualities exist simultaneously because of the discrepancy between what we experience and what the people around us see.

Chronic pain is tangible to the person who feels it, but abstract to the person who cannot see it. We are the only one who can feel our own pain, and depending on the type and severity of our pain, those on the outside are often unable to see any tangible evidence of what we are experiencing. Because no one can see our pain, the question of whether the pain is real or as bad as we say lingers between our relationships and underlies all of our conversations. And so people wonder, in silence or out loud, “If it cannot be seen, is it actually there?”

Our pain cannot be seen and it cannot be objectively measured beyond a wildly inaccurate 1-10 scale that means something different for each person who uses it. Because it is a subjective experience that cannot be objectively measured, the word of the chronic pain fighter must be taken as true despite no apparent evidence to confirm.

Because there is often no evidence of what we experience, our pain behaviors and responses to our pain are used to confirm our lack of sanity instead of the presence of our pain. Our grimaces, limps, and our groans, as well as our decisions to spend all day lying on the couch or cancelling work in response to something that is invisible are used to prove that we are exaggerating, crazy, or seeking attention, instead of serving as evidence for our pain.

Describing chronic pain is difficult because society has little understanding of the difference between acute and chronic instances of pain.

The terms “acute” and “chronic” as used to describe pain are not a part of our societal vocabulary. And because these important descriptive words have not become ingrained in our vocabulary, people tend to think that pain is simply pain.

When people believe that all pain is the same, this poses a huge problem, because most peoples’ experiences of pain are of the acute variety. When people hear the word “pain,” they then draw on their own experience of acute pain to understand our experience of chronic pain. They make the grave mistake of assuming that chronic pain and acute pain are more alike than they are unalike.

But all pain is not created equal. All pain is not the same. Chronic pain is vastly different than the more common experience of acute pain.

Chronic pain is a continuous and unrelenting experience, vastly different from acute experiences of pain. While acute pain has purpose, alerting us to bodily damage, chronic pain is often purposeless, our body’s pain system run amok. It is poorly understand that pain over time becomes magnified a hundred fold because of how it must be dealt with continuously and with no hope of a break. The hope that exists when pain is acute, that hope that the pain will one day go away gives strength to persist and keep going. However, this same type of hope for physical relief is not present when pain becomes chronic and may not ever go away.

Describing chronic pain is difficult because our pain is unpredictable and transforms over the course of an ever-changing story.

Our chronic pain is shifting and ever-changing. We feel one way on Monday and a different way on Tuesday. The intensity, quality, and presentation of our pain vary throughout the days, weeks, months, and changing seasons. New symptoms come and go. Old symptoms worsen and intensify. We have flares, relapses, setbacks, and periods of relative calm.

Because our pain is always changing, keeping people updated on our condition requires a continuous conversation. We cannot explain our pain one time and expect people to understand. With each new season, we have to supply updates and new information.

Our chronic pain is paradoxical and contradictory. It is a complex and multifaceted experience that is many times confusing even to those who experience it. If we don’t fully understand our own chronic pain, how can we explain it to others? We don’t know what triggers our pain or where that last flare came from. We don’t know how to explain why we felt good on Monday and bad on Tuesday, because we are unsure of the reasons ourselves. Oftentimes we are unsure if or how our various symptoms connect, and oftentimes we do not have a clear diagnosis. When we are dealing with conditions that we have a hard time explaining ourselves, we will struggle even more to convey what we do know to the people around us.

Describing chronic pain is difficult because long-term and unrelenting suffering makes people uncomfortable and sometimes people do not want to know.

Sometimes people do not want to understand our pain. Listening does not come naturally to people, and this is especially the case when the topic is one that makes people uncomfortable. Unrelenting suffering that may never go away makes people uncomfortable because they are unable to fix our problem or give us effective advice. Unrelenting suffering makes people uncomfortable because it inconveniences them and because when we suffer, oftentimes the corner edges of our suffering will affect them as well.

Sometimes describing our chronic pain is difficult because people do not want to listen long enough to fully understand. Sometimes people do not want to listen long enough to understand because our suffering makes people feel uncomfortable and they are unsure how to respond.

Describing chronic pain is difficult because we are too exhausted to keep explaining.

Because our pain is complex, confusing, and contradictory, it takes great energy to explain and keep people up to date. At times we feel able to explain our pain, but we choose not to because we want to save our precious energy for more important things. The physical effects of our chronic pain wear us down and exhaust us. We must carefully decide how we will use our small pool of energy, and sometimes explaining our pain doesn’t seem like a worthy enough endeavor.

For all of these reasons, we eventually reach a state in which we are no longer willing or able to attempt these difficult conversations. And over the years, we tend to move towards one of two tactics.

Instead of seeking to explain our pain, we start to complain about our pain.

We become so hardened and bitter towards those who never seem to want to understand that we move into angry and bitter complaining. Our attempts at productive conversations seem pointless, so instead we move towards ceaseless complaints of how horrible our pain is. Often this turns into a downward spiral as we push people further away, and confirm everyone’s beliefs that perhaps we really are crazy, exaggerating, and attention-seekers.

Instead of seeking to explain our pain, we burrow inward, shutting everyone out, living in silence.

Many of go into hiding. Explaining our pain has become such an exhausting and futile effort that we begin to live out our chronic pain in secret, hiding how much pain we are actually experiencing. Over and over again, we plaster a smile on our faces, pretending that everything is ok, when it is far from ok. We stop explaining because we are exhausted and need every drop of our strength to fight this pain that haunts us.

There is a third option. It is possible to move out of our silence without moving into unhelpful complaining. It is possible to successfully explain our pain. Most of our past conversations were unsuccessful because of the simple fact that we were not prepared, and I believe it is possible to prepared. Once we begin to understand the nature of our chronic pain ourselves, we will better know what topics are important to convey to other people. It is possible to speak the truth about our pain with confidence. It is possible to speak about our pain in a way that will enable others to truly understand.

Once we are prepared, explaining our pain will no longer be a hopeless endeavor.

Stay tuned!

http://www.lifeinslowmotionblog.com/explain-your-pain-the-communication-dilemma/

What Nourishes You Most Deeply Are You Listening Four keys and four herbs for October transitions

I Know The Way You Can Get 

I know the way you can get 

When you have not had a drink of Love: 

 Your face hardens, Your sweet muscles cramp. 

Children become concerned 

About a strange look that appears in your eyes 

Which even begins to worry your own mirror 

And nose. 

Squirrels and birds sense your sadness

And call an important conference in a tall tree. 

They decide which secret code to chant 

To help your mind and soul. 

 --Hafiz, excerpt

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Did your heat come on this morning? Did you feed the wood stove?

Mine came on for the first time of the season. I smelled the metallic air when I woke, and I knew to grab socks and a sweater.

There was a misty haze of cold dew along the fields, and a quietness of busy people slightly more withdrawn.

The poetry of the horizon speaks of geese pushing time and of leaves blushing red and setting sail.

There is much work of medicine and magic to be done, still.
I feel the stirring of our ancestors asking more of us, and the longing of the Earth for more response-ability.

I watch the squirrel heed these laws every time he digs to bury a nut.

Nature calls us to heed rhythms.

Are you listening? What do you hear?

Four Keys and Four Herbs for October Transitions:

~~~~~
Temperature:
==========

How is the temperature in your body? Do you wake feeling cold, hot, or uncomfortably mixed? What do you do support your comfort?


Ginger
Ginger root helps to warm our circulation and regulate our 'triple heater', making temperature adaptation easier for our bodies. Instead of hot cocoa, try a cup of gently simmered fresh ginger root, with a little bit of honey. Or, make ginger root hot cocoa :)


Daylight and Moonlight:
==========

How is your rest & activity feeling? Are you sleepier or more energized than you were in the summer?

Seaweed
Seaweed is mineral rich giving our bodies the ability to be fully awake, and fully asleep, at the appropriate times. Seaweed is also brimming with both lunar and solar energies .... as it is fed by the sun and nourished by the moon and her watery tides. As perhaps the fastest growing vegetation in the world, seaweed feeds our wholeness and ability to be strong during periods of growth and change.


Your muse:
==========

How is your creative self? Engaged, disowned, tired, longing or restless? Your sense of divine connectedness to your life and your daily expressions of self? Your time for self care and reflection, meditation, or nourishing touch?

Cardamom
Cardamom is just sensual. It's sweet and spicy, gentle and strong, loving and clear. Cardamom in my warm milk, on my warm apple compote, or in a spicy soup, cardamom just makes me feel inspired. I often combine it with my other favorite muse herbs like Damiana and Kava Kava, but on her own she can re-awaken the imagination and playful self. When our senses and our mind are both playing, we can experience intense creative satiation.


Your footing:
==========

Do you feel steady, sure footed, and solid? Or frail and precarious? Are you the river, or are you the glass bottle floating down the river, headed for rapids? What is the message in your glass bottle, waiting to be freed, so that you may flow?

Burdock
Burdock to me is a water root. Dug from the wet earth and cooked in soups we are centered deeply in our water-bone humanness. We become grounded, centered, yet not stagnant. Burdock root nourishes our ability to be stable in our bodies, in our truth-speaking, and in our hearts.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Perhaps you open my newsletter or blog expecting to be more formally taught about herbs.

By now you've probably realized that isn't entirely how I roll.

I could teach you about just herbs, but if you don't have the willingness to listen to your body, herbs aren't going to do much.


I don't teach answers, I teach questions.

I give possibility and options and resources and catalysts .... the answers belong to you. Answers can change over time.

And our bodies are part of nature. In listening to nature, we hear our bodies. In listening to our bodies, we hear nature.

In being honest about our senses, intuitions, impulses, and callings, we access a deep and perhaps ancestral strength that can empower our lives in profound and meaningful ways.

My wish for you is to continually have access to, and connection with, your true source.

May you have a blessed day, dear one.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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I seemed an unlikely candidate for the LSR but with so much change in my life, I felt a bit untethered and felt that I needed to nourish, to care for myself during this difficult time. So I signed up and almost immediately started regretting my indulgence (where do we learn such thinking?)

Until I received the first month’s materials and herbal goodies… The content is thoughtful and challenging; each month I was asked to consider just how empowered I am on the inside.  Are my beliefs and actions aligned? What do I truly know to be true about myself? How do I perceive my place in this complex world?    How much do I trust myself, my values, my intuition?  In addition, multiple resources are offered for future pondering.  Working through each month’s topic was just that – work. Some topics were easier than others; all of them contributed to a deeper appreciation of my gifts and me.

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Ananda’s wisdom and love are expressed throughout the LSR program.  I am moving forward with renewed energy and know that I will continue to return to the content on those days when defeat seems to be looming.  During this past year of incredible change in my life, the LSR proved to be a very wise investment in myself.  A luxury for so many women…self-care is seldom on our To-Do list.  

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By taking this year long course I have transformed a lot of my self-care habits and shifted my priorities to taking better care of myself. I love the new relationship I have formed with nourishment and self-care and I love the end result of being less stressed and finding more joy in my every day life. 

Plus, just getting that incredible package of treasures each month was a beautiful experience within itself. Ananda makes some of the best herbal products I've ever experienced! Self-care and nourishment are some of our most powerful tools for health and longevity, I am really grateful that I prioritized these qualities in my life through the Lady's Slipper Ring."

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Methow Valley Herbs 

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I Have Sciatica Why Are You Grabbing My Foot

It is 5 am in Badwater, CA. There are approximately 100 runners toeing the chalked line. There is 135 miles, over 10,000 ft in elevation gain and 120 degree heat under the Death Valley sun between them and the finish line. I see my runner crossing the horizon towards our support car, his stride looks shortened, but smooth for mile 60. Over the next 75 miles we take turns passing off race essentials. At 4 am, as a team, we cross the finish line at Whitney Portal.

So how did this journey begin?

From the moment I met him I could hear the “thud”. It was the sound that his foot made as it he walked through the clinic.  He tells me he is a runner, but not just a runner, but he is running in the Badwater Ultramarathon in July. 135 miles of “thudding” into the ground! To bring the pressure up a notch, this is going to be his 11th consecutive finish. As I watched him move and walk, I can't stop focusing on the stiffness of his foot which is causing the "thud". But how do I explain his lack of foot mobility is contributing to what he is actually coming to see me for… SCIATICA?

What is Sciatica?

Sciatica is a general term used to describe inflammation of the sciatic nerve or nerve roots which comprise it. Sciatica can be caused by a disc injury or stenosis (narrowing of spaces of the spine), which puts pressure on the nerve roots. When our foot hits the ground force is transferred up the leg and into our lower back. Our foot is designed to pronate upon impact to allow for shock absorption.  The bony anatomy of our foot and ankle causes a biomechanical chain reaction. This generates a rotation in the leg then into the pelvis which helps to recruit the gluteals to provide the stability of the back. However, if the foot remains supinated, ground reaction force is transferred into the spine instead of being absorbed through the foot and leg. When the mobility of the foot is limited, the lower back is forced to move more to compensate for the lack of motion. The increase motion of the back decreases the amount of space the nerve has to pass through the spine.

When the foot pronates it causes a rotation up the leg which
helps to dissipate force and maintain good motion of the back.

When the foot remains supinated the foot remains rigid forcing
the back to rotate more which decreases space for the nerves.

To improve his foot mobility I begin to facilitate pronation of his foot. IT worked! His sciatic pain decreased.  I worked on it some more and his pain was gone! He was able to walk and jog in the clinic without his symptoms. 

From the moment I helped his foot become more supple and pronate, his sciatic pain got better.

So when you foot hits the ground: is it supple (pronated) or rigid (supinated)?

             

You can even see from the pictures above the difference in the position of the pelvis.

Techniques

Mobility

The technique is performed to increase mobility of the foot to reduce stress to the lumbar spine. This will help minimize your risk of sciatica. Stenosis is narrowing of the canal in which the nerves exit the spine. If you have a herniated disc, this is NOT a technique for you.

For forefoot runners, it is also important to have a mobile foot. The motion of supination and pronation occurs in the forefoot instead of the mid and rear foot.

Strengthening
After mobilizing the foot, it is important to retrain the muscles and joints in this new motion. This allows the newly acquired motion to be recognized as a movement path. If your body doesn't use this motion, the foot and ankle will become stiff again.

Here are examples of exercises which use the muscles and joints in all 3 planes of motion to retrain the body.

Please consult with a health care professional prior to performing these exercises. If it increases your pain, STOP!

Can You Cope With Neuropathy Possibly!

Today's post from fithealthinsurance.info (see link below) is a nicely written advice article about coping with neuropathy. Yes it tends to lean on many of the things we've heard before about training our brains to cope with nerve pain but it doesn't speak down to you and provides a slightly different perspective, with a sprinkling of humour which you may enjoy reading. By the way, the book she mentions is not new but is a valuable resource nonetheless. Worth a look.

You Can Cope with Peripheral Neuropathy
Practical and uplifting insights from patient-expert and author Mims Cushing: August 31, 2016 

“You might not be able to manage your body the way you like, but you can manage your mind,” counsels Mims Cushing, who has been jotting down coping tips from patients and professionals since chronic nerve pain disrupted her life more than a decade ago. Those handwritten words of wisdom are now available in the new book, You Can Cope with Peripheral Neuropathy:365 Ways for Living a Better Life (Demos, 2009, $18.95).

“In 1996 my feet were constantly burning and numb,” she tells the Post. “My lifelines to sanity were The Neuropathy Association and Dr. Norman Latov—the neurologist who co-authored the book with me.”
 
The Top Ten

When neuropathy gives you fits and you’ve done your best to seek medical advice:

1: Be excited about the buzz regarding neuropathy. People don’t say, “Never heard of it” as much as they used to. There’s a sea change out there that is making it easier for 20 million people to deal with, track, and understand their condition.

Today, The Neuropathy Association (neuropathy.org) can provide the name of a specialist near you. You can receive newsletters by mail and sign up with Google Alerts for updates. Experts recognize different types of the disease and dozens of reasons for having it.

2: Be grateful. It’s hard to be stressed when you are thankful and appreciative. Stress surely makes your neuropathy worse. To be less frazzled, keep a gratitude journal. (It doesn’t have to be a Pulitzer Prize winner.) At bedtime, think about what you’re grateful for—don’t groan about what you did wrong during the day or make to-do lists. Saying “I’m so grateful,” puts a different, healing spin on your feelings.

3: Be open to everything that might help you. Which technique seems out of place: acupuncture, meditation, tai chi, or drumming? Did you say drumming? Well, all of these methods (and others) are used for healing. I beat African drums at a senior center. Maintaining a powerful, constant rhythm is meditative. People in the class say their blood pressure and pulse rates go down. And on Tuesdays when I drum, my feet hurt less.

Dr. Jerome Groopman, renowned writer and physician, suffered an accident and was in pain for 19 years. Finally, he listened to a doctor’s advice to not give in to the god of pain. After one year of initially difficult exercise, he was pain free. I recommend Dr. Groopman’s books, including The Anatomy of Hope.
Consider new ideas you may have dismissed. And when you think about things you can’t do, remember that you now have the time to do things you may not have had time to do before your neuropathy: cook special recipes, research your genealogy, study a compelling topic, write in a journal, or create an indoor container garden.
And P.S.: Perhaps you must do some things differently, such as using a walker at the mall. But you can still do them.

4: Banish toxic people. You can wail about the curmudgeons in your life, slap ’em upside the head (which I don’t recommend), or ease yourself away—the best way to deal with them. Troublesome friends or relatives can make you sad or cause you angst, both of which make our illness worse. When my friend Madelyn heard someone was driving me nuts, she said, “Don’t let her rent space in your head!” Optimistic friends can help our spirit. Author Wayne Dyer says, “Your friends are God’s way of apologizing for your relatives.” Writer Judith Orloff calls the mean people in our lives “Energy Vampires.” Maybe you must be around difficult relatives during the holidays. Is it any wonder your neuropathy worsens then?

5: Focus on something greater than yourself—volunteer. I believe people quit volunteer jobs because they haven’t found the right one. A pianist in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, volunteered at a local hospital and was asked to change the sheets in the Emergency Room. After a few weeks, he asked if he could go to patients’ rooms and play music on a portable piano. He found the perfect job for him.

Sometimes volunteering means listening. It’s powerful to say: “You talk. I will listen.” A man I know got some bad news from a doctor. As he was leaving, the doctor put his hand on my friend’s shoulder. And my friend suddenly felt better. The church handout, Our Daily Bread, says, “When we forget about ourselves, we do things others will remember.” And, I add, we think less about our pain.

6: Love your cabbages and caviar equally. Consider chores to be as meaningful as creative hobbies and other diversions. Next time you are ironing or emptying the dishwasher, realize that it’s of value. Don’t rush around.

7: Let the good stuff in. Floridian Eugene Richardson, a retired Lt. Colonel and brilliant man who has had neuropathy for 41 years, watches for life’s little miracles (they are all around), and not for things to worry about. Do you have UFOs, Uninvited Foolish Observations, flying around in your head? Take a break from all the craziness in the world. When you have a crummy day, write about it or have a first-class pity party. Restrict the party to seven minutes, and do it when you are alone. You will carry on longer if you have an audience. Yes, your family may need to help you in a myriad of ways, but don’t dump your complaints on them. The less you fuss, the more they’ll want to help you.

8: Be kind to your body. This does not mean eating ice cream smothered with Chicken Alfredo. But you can hurt your neuropathy by jumping on hard surfaces, or doing certain kinds of Pilates, says Dr. Alan Berger, head of neurology at Shands, Jacksonville. I’ve figured out two perfect places where we can exercise without gravity being an issue: a swimming pool and a space shuttle. I’m buying a space shuttle. They cost around $50 billion, so I may have to get it on eBay.

Keep hunting for the exercise that’s right for you. Many fitness centers offer chair-based programs, even for yoga. Just as we can choose to not read a book we aren’t enjoying, or walk out of a movie, we can decide to change exercises.

9: Enjoy your own company. Now, a great spouse is a wonderful thing. So is a true friend, someone who will listen when you call at 3 a.m. But nurturing solitude is important, too. Find your own private place of peace: a park, a beach, the mountains, or the sea. Drive there or maybe just visit it in your dreams. Find stillness in solitude, and solitude will bring you peace.

Friends are not always available. YOU, on the other hand, are always available. Don’t beat yourself up because you have neuropathy. Treat yourself like gold. If you do that, you’ll treat others like gold, too.

One of my favorite sayings from writer Mary Gordon is, “I never feel so accompanied as when I am on my own. And I have figured it out. It is because God is beside me.” Another quote I love is, “You cannot see yourself in a rushing brook, only in a pond of still water” (Zen).

10: Embrace things that can embrace you back. Money can’t. A house can’t. Nor can a car or jewels. Friends and family can embrace you, and a dog can embrace you with a wagging tail. A cat’s purr is an embrace. Laugh along with what you embrace. Remember Norman Cousins’ book, Anatomy of an Illness, about the importance of belly laughs? Still a great read. Grandchildren can make you laugh, too. One grandchild said, “Grandma, your skin doesn’t fit your face.” Another commented, “Gram, you have curly skin.” If you don’t have a source for jokes, have someone send you a bunch from the Internet.

http://fithealthinsurance.info/2016/08/31/can-cope-peripheral-neuropathy/

When Neuropathy Shocks You Into Action

Today's post from georgeschofield.com (see link below) is the personal story of an educated man taken by surprise by a neuropathy diagnosis. He had none of the 'normal' neuropathy symptoms of tingling, numbness etc but found himself falling over at unexpected moments and for no apparent reason. Many neuropathy patients will be able to identify with what he says and the way he says it and maybe his best piece of advice is not to put your physical problems down to old age!!

A TROUBLING DIAGNOSIS
 
Feb 2 2016 George H. Schofield, PhD

I have to admit I took it badly. Not for long but badly nonetheless. You’d think I could simply test out of the emotional part of this. After all, I’m a professional counselor, a psychology PhD, an author and expert on human behavior and adaptability.

Wrong!

What set this in motion was the shocking number of times I tipped over. Once, after turning around quickly in a walk-in closet. (How is it that I can repeatedly ride my new bike for 30 miles without incident but just fall over in my closet?) Then, getting out of a car on my way to an important meeting. Then again in my closet. And again. My own diagnosis: doing too many things at once; distraction. My doctors’ diagnosis: peripheral neuropathy.

Peripheral what? I’d never heard of it.

That may be because it’s most commonly associated with diabetes, which I do not have, and as a side effect of chemotherapy, which thankfully I haven’t ever needed. Peripheral neuropathy (PN) is a condition that affects more than 20 million people in the US. It usually involves pain, numbness or tingling (or some combination thereof), but in my case I don’t have any discomfort whatsoever. It’s just that my brain doesn’t seem to know where my feet are when they are in close proximity to one another, especially when they’re turning.

There’s no cure for PN, but for some people—especially those with pain and tingling—a drug (sometimes Lyrica) is prescribed and may help with symptoms. For me, the treatment is physical therapy and better shoe support. That’s for my feet. For my head, I needed some other things, which I’m recommending to other PN sufferers:
Get Educated. A good source of information is the American Chronic Pain Association, ACPA.org. There also may be support groups in your area. There’s no PN support group where I live, but it is discussed at diabetes support groups, so I may try those.
Inform and educate your family and friends. Let your loved ones know about your diagnosis. They already will know something has changed just by observing you, but may not know the cause. In the case of PN, stumbling can be mistaken for having a drinking problem. Help your loved ones worry about what’s really going on and let them know how they can help.
Have a heart-to-heart talk with your life. I often say that there are a minimum of five of us living in my house at all times: my wife, me, our marriage, my life, and my wife’s life. Each of them needs nurturance. Each doesn’t always see eye to eye with the other. My wife and I were already in agreement. My life and I had some decisions to make. What do we want our quality of life to look like going forward? How dedicated to being active and vital are we? What kinds of limitations does this diagnosis place on us and what do we want to do about it?
Work seriously at whatever treatment process you choose. I’d never had physical therapy before, and was surprised at how much work it is. After the first few sessions, it’s easy to see progress and even easier to slack off. Kind of like dieting. Stick with your treatment for the long run, even for the rest of your life. You and your life (not to mention your family and friends) deserve it.

I also now know from experience that there is one thing NOT to do. With temporarily runaway emotions, I made the leap from a troubling diagnosis to OLD AND SLIDING DOWNHILL, which, of course, made it just that much more difficult for me to get centered again. So:
Do not succumb to the drama of the moment and translate your diagnosis into a confirmation that it’s the beginning of the end. It’s easy to do. This is where items 1-4 above come in. They are all essential.

It’s likely that this won’t be the only opportunity I will have to react to a medical/social/financial/professional announcement. I’m starting to think of it as practice for the ups and downs of life. I’ve found a lot of meaning in a song performed by the wonderful Christine Lavin, with apt rollercoaster metaphors. Be sure to watch Christine’s face as you are listening. Music and lyrics by Matt Alber. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8xgoa04SNY

http://www.georgeschofield.com/a-troubling-diagnosis/

Testing Pain Are You Believed

Today's excellent post from vox.com (see link below) talks about something that many people living with neuropathy are very much aware of and that is how their doctors perceive their pain experience. The feeling that you're not believed, or taken seriously, is far too common and it comes down to the fact that the methods of testing pain are inherently deficient. The article looks at what it's like to be disbelieved and then goes on to explore new possibilities of more accurate pain testing, with an emphasis on brain imaging, which may be very helpful in the future. Well worth a read.
 

The pain test
Doctors have no idea how much their patients are suffering. That's about to change. 
by Susannah Locke on October 15, 2014

Ally Niemiec could have lost a kidney because doctors didn't believe she was in pain. It was last fall, and one of at least a dozen times that her rare kidney disease had sent her to the emergency room. She recognized the pain. She knew something was wrong.

But when she turned up in an Atlanta emergency room that Saturday afternoon, vomiting and doubled over, no one believed her. They looked at her pain medication records and decided she had a drug abuse problem.

"They told my mother that I needed to go to rehab and was a drug addict," she says. The hospital wouldn't give her any narcotic pain medication and refused to do an x-ray, ultrasound, or CT scan.

That time, Niemiec was lucky enough to have other options. She left for another hospital, where they treated her pain and then removed her kidney stone the next morning.

This discouraging experience was nothing new. For many years, she was used to doctors not trusting her. "There's nothing more horrific than a doctor looking you in the eye and saying there's nothing wrong with you when you're in debilitating pain"

One problem has been that her kidney disorder, renal tubular acidosis type 1, is described in medical journals as not painful. But to her, it was. Since she was 13, she's had about 100 kidney stones and 18 surgeries to remove them. At one point, her pain was so bad that she couldn't drive and had to leave her job. She went from doctor to doctor trying to get help. When her pain got really bad, she didn't find adequate treatment for three long years.

"There's nothing more horrific than a doctor looking you in the eye and saying there's nothing wrong with you when you're in debilitating pain," she says. "To me, it's a form of torture."

Eventually, she got a spinal cord implant that uses electrical signals to block her kidney pain. Now she's 24 years old and works at a tech startup. But many others continue to suffer.

Approximately 100 million Americans have chronic pain. That's about a third of the population. Yet the most cutting-edge test for pain is a doctor holding a piece of paper with a bunch of frowny and smiley faces on it or asking you how bad you feel on a scale of 1 to 10, with ten as the worst pain imaginable. It seems a much better test of imagination than of pain.




And as Niemiec can attest, the subjectiveness of the scale causes problems — it only works if the doctor believes you, and relying only on trust can threaten people's lives.

There must be a better way to test if someone is in pain. "That would completely have changed my experience," Niemiec says. "It could have saved me three years of my life."

Right now, such a test doesn't exist. But it's looking likely that it might someday soon. In several key studies, scientists have used brain-scanning machines to accurately predict if someone is in pain.

A more objective pain test could transform pain medicine and lead to new treatments for people who suffer. It could weed out people lying in order to get drugs. And it could prove to doctors that people like Niemiec are really in pain.

But this new technology also raises all kinds of ethical and legal questions. It might also end up as faulty mind-reading that could be used to deny care and insurance coverage to those who are truly in distress.
What is pain?

"Pain is so wonderful because it is so bad," says Sean Mackey, the chief of pain medicine at Stanford's medical school, who was the first to show that pain can be gauged using a brain scan. "It keeps us out of harm and out of danger."

Mackey's right: pain teaches people to stay away from hazards and tells them when they're injured or sick. It trains us to keep our hands away from hot stoves. It lets us know when our appendix has burst. Or when we're having a heart attack. Pain is so important that people who cannot feel pain encounter repeated injuries and have shorter life spans.

Despite pain's importance, it is quite difficult to define. And that difficulty underlies much of the disagreement about whether objective pain testing is even possible.

Today, pain is understood as a type of subjective experience. The International Association for the Study of Pain states that pain is "An unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage, or described in terms of such damage."

So although the mechanisms for what usually causes pain — certain receptors on certain neurons — are fairly well known, pain is still not defined as a physical thing that your body does. Your neurons could be firing off pain signals like crazy, but as long as you don't feel pain (like if you've popped an Advil or are under anesthesia), you're not in pain. If you feel pain, you are in pain.


But brain imaging can put an image to the invisible.
It can give them something to see. 

Why the world needs a better pain test

Mackey, the Stanford pain specialist, got his PhD in electrical engineering and also an MD. "Coming out of medical school, you probably couldn't find anyone more mechanistic or linear in their thinking than me," he says. "I ended up going into pain medicine because I was intrigued about the opportunities of really making a difference in people's lives."

Working with pain patients, he often found himself using needles to block pain. (One common treatment for chronic pain is a temporary injection of anesthetic into the body, which stops pain signals from reaching the brain.) But it wasn't working for everyone. "There was large numbers of people that I wasn't helping with that approach," he says. "What really was helping them was listening to them, hearing about their fears, their anxieties, their beliefs about their pain."

Those observations got him interested in the brain side of things, the psychology side, and how things like anxiety, fear, and empathy influence pain. "It was around this time that this field of neuroimaging was being established, which allows us to open up windows into people's brains to see where pain is processed and perceived."

He wanted to use the technology to learn about how people experience pain differently and how thoughts and emotions affect pain, hoping to be able to better tailor therapies to people for better treatment. Along the way, it began to seem possible to create a test that would correlate with someone's pain levels.

A pain test could help all kinds of people. One main group is those who can't speak for themselves. For example, even into the 1980s, some doctors didn't believe that babies felt pain and so routinely did surgery on them using just muscle relaxants to keep them still. And today, some people can't tell others what they're feeling, including small children, some adults with developmental disorders, and people in coma.

And even among people who can communicate fully, not everyone's word is regarded as truth. Researchers have documented discriminatory patterns in how health-care workers treat pain. Women are more likely to have their pain dismissed as not real. And one study found that female emergency room patients with abdominal pain were less likely to be given strong pain meds than men were. Papers have found similar phenomena for racial minorities.

And until the last couple of decades, doctors thought that many people with chronic pain were faking it. Roger Fillingim is a psychologist at the University of Florida who studies pain. He describes patients saying that just the feeling of a long-sleeved shirt on their arm was painful: "We used to call that crazy." Now, doctors know that a lot of chronic pain is actually real. For example, fibromyalgia, which causes pain throughout the body, was in the crazy category, too. Now it's known to affect roughly 15 million people in the United States.
The problems with pain medication

Drug abuse is another reason a better pain test could come in handy. That abuse has led narcotic painkillers to become more tightly controlled in recent years, sometimes so tightly that people with real pain problems have trouble getting their medication.

There's no question that there's a prescription-drug abuse problem in this country. Each year, more people die in the United States from prescription painkillers than from heroin and cocaine combined. And some, but not all, of the people abusing these drugs are people who do not have an actual pain problem.

One recent review on the topic found that about 20 percent of chronic pain patients given opiate drugs long-term had either none of the drug or a non-prescribed opiate in their urine during screening tests, which suggests that they might be selling or giving the drugs away rather than taking them responsibly. (The study also found that very few — 3 percent — of all of the patients personally ended up with an addiction or abuse problem related to these drugs. If patients with a history of drug abuse are excluded, this number drops below one percent. However, screening people out doesn't always happen in today's hectic health-care environment.)

It's difficult to balance what regulations will get pain meds to patients who need them while keeping them from people who don't. You can see where these objectives collide in the recent battle over Zohydro ER. This new drug is an extended-release version of the opiate hydrocodone and the only hydrocodone for sale without another drug in it.

It's also somewhat analogous to OxyContin, which became a preferred drug of abuse in the late 1990s and early 2000s — at least until 2010, when its manufacturers made OxyContin difficult to snort or inject, with pills that were hard to crush and that turn into a gel when wet. "If you could somehow measure pain, would that be helpful? It would be helpful to me because I want to know if my patients are legitimate."

However, Zohydro ER, like every opiate on the market except for OxyContin, has no such anti-abuse features built into its pill. For some with chronic pain, it's their only chance for relief. To others, it's death in a bottle.

In October 2013, the FDA approved Zohydro ER against the recommendation of its independent advisory panel. In the spring of 2014, Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick banned it, but a judge struck the ban down just a month later. And in August, several governors petitioned the US Department of Health and Human Services to undo the decision.

Concerns about abuse have also led to changes in regulation and enforcement that pressure doctors, wholesalers, and pharmacists to give out fewer narcotic painkillers.

For example, in Florida, crackdowns to combat a previously growing problem with pain-medication deaths has made it difficult for legitimate pain patients to actually get their prescribed medication, says Jeffrey Fudin, a pharmacist who specializes in pain treatment and is an adjunct associate professor at Western New England University.

A better pain test is one thing that could help real pain patients prove themselves — and weed out the liars. "If you could somehow measure [pain] would that be helpful? It would be helpful to me because I want to know if my patients are legitimate," Fudin says.
The research on brain imaging

Recent advances in brain-imaging technology have shown that the mind's secrets are sometimes surprisingly readable. For example, some researchers have used brain scanning to guess with some accuracy what shapes people are looking at or what type of object they were dreaming of: a building, a car, a person.

The main technique researchers are using is functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI. An fMRI machine employs a giant magnet that can read where blood is in the brain. And because blood flows more to active brain areas, an fMRI scan can measure brain activity.

In the past few years, researchers have published studies showing that fMRI could determine whether someone is in pain.

In 2011, in a small study of 24 people, Mackey's group used advanced computer algorithms to show whether someone was receiving a painfully hot stimulus to his or her forearm with 81 percent accuracy. The observed differences in brain activity weren’t clustered in only one area, but in many, many places across the entire brain.
A pain test could help all kinds of people. One main group is those who can't speak for themselves.

In 2013, a paper led by Tor Wager, a neuroscientist at the University of Colorado Boulder, confirmed those findings in a bigger study published in a very prestigious journal: The New England Journal of Medicine. It involved 114 participants and correctly guessed whether someone was in pain about 95 percent of the time. Even more impressive was that the brain patterns seemed somewhat universal — that is, the algorithms were developed on one set of volunteers and then worked on another set that had never been scanned before.

Then in 2014, Mackey published another paper that looked at patients with chronic back pain, using still MRI images to examine brain structures rather than brain activity. He was able to produce an algorithm that guessed with 76 percent accuracy whether or not a brain was from a chronic back pain patient. A similar study published the same year identified people who had chronic pelvic pain with 73 percent accuracy.

Still images of brain structure like these could someday help chronic pain patients justify their condition, even though they don't show brain activity itself.

All of these new studies are still firmly in the realm of science, not medicine. These tools are not ready for use on patients to determine a course of treatment. Mackey estimates that that might be 10 years away.

The tests can't yet accurately predict someone's exact level of pain. And they've only been demonstrated within the confines of well-controlled laboratory studies.

In addition, most researchers don't believe that there's just one pain brain-activity pattern, but that different kinds of pain will end up producing different patterns. So, touching something hot might look different than the muscle pain of fibromyalgia, which might look different than chronic back pain. And that means that a lot more research will be needed before such technology could be used on the wide variety of painful health issues that exist.
The problems with an 'objective' pain test

Both Mackey and Wager see a lot of potential in using brain imaging as a research tool to better understand the various causes and types of pain — and to develop new ways to treat it. They think that such scans should only be used to confirm someone's pain, but never to go against their word and deny that they're in pain when they say that they are. That's because pain is defined as a subjective experience. And the brain scan is objective. So, to them, the brain scan is merely an objective marker of possible pain.

Another reason for that stance is that a person could be feeling a kind of pain that they haven't found the brain signature for yet. "It might not look like other people's pain, but it might be their pain," says Wager.

And, says Mackey, "There is the potential for abuse. There's always the potential for people misusing this technology for insurance purposes to deny care."

However, both researchers do support using the technology someday on people who can't say if they're in pain or not, like babies or some people with developmental disabilities. Because any evidence is better than nothing at all.

Another problem is that pain might be something that cannot be reduced to a bunch of neurons firing. "Some people believe that pain isn't simply some sum or algorithm of brain activity, it's an emergent property of brain activity," says Fillingim. "And maybe we won't figure out how the experience of pain emerges from some pattern of brain activity. And maybe the formula is different for different people."

"Could we similarly look at someone's brain and tell you how happy they are, how satisfied with life?" he asks. "These are all pretty high level experiences."

Another problem could come from brain-scan pain tests getting used in court. Some people approximate that awards for pain and suffering make up about half of personal injury damage awards. So there's big money on the line. "The legal system has a tremendous need for more objective ways of measuring pain," says Adam Kolber, a professor at Brooklyn Law School who has written extensively about the future ethical and legal implications of pain testing. "There is the potential for abuse. There's always the potential for people misusing this technology for insurance purposes to deny care."

He's not that concerned about how pain tests will be used in the long run. He notes that there are standards in place to stop new technology from becoming admissible evidence until it's fully developed. And he focuses on the positive side of what the technology could do: "This is a possibility of better compensating people who are in pain. I think that's promising."

But not everyone agrees. And Mark Sullivan is one of them. He's a psychiatrist and bioethicist at the University of Washington who specializes in treating patients with chronic pain. He's been one of the most vocal opponents of the drive to find objective measures of pain.

He's debated both Mackey and Wager in person at pain research meetings and debated on paper in the Journal of Pain in 2013. And he says he's concerned about people who are truly ill being denied workers' compensation and social security because nothing can be found on a brain scan: "You could easily see a situation where someone says, ‘Well, I can't work because I have terrible back pain.' And you stick them in an MRI scanner and it's ‘I don't see any evidence that you're in pain. So we're not going to give you disability payments anymore.'"

Whether it leads to good or bad outcomes, computing power, fMRI resolution, and data from patients will keep increasing. Technology will march on, and someday, someone is going to start selling something called an objective pain test, whether or not that's actually what it's capable of.

And no matter how accurate the test is or isn't, the images it produces could help pain become a more visible problem in health care. Pain isn't something that someone can see, like a physical wound. It can take numerous forms, making it easier for medical practitioners to ignore.

44-year-old Californian Elizabeth Schenk is one of the many patients who've had doctors ignore her agony. She used to be a pilates instructor, but her chronic pain has brought her into a new career counseling people with pain problems. At its worst, her pain has been excruciating: "like someone was dragging a knife down my thigh," and "like someone taking a hammer to my thumb," and "a chisel to my spine."

"What I've experienced in the medical world is that if they don't see anything, they won't do anything," she says. But brain imaging can put an image to the invisible. It can give them something to see.

http://www.vox.com/2014/10/15/6895171/how-doctors-measure-pain-brain-scan-fmri