9 ms·

A cure for pain

80 points by sajid 10y ago

notadoc 10y ago
Be skeptical anytime you hear "cure" for any medical condition, especially with regard to something as enigmatic and complex as pain or the nervous system. And no, another pill a patient has to take every day is not a cure.
- jacquesm 10y ago
  I'm pretty sure a patient that is suffering from chronic pain would happily take a pill if that would make the pain go away without the risk of addiction.
  - Turing_Machine 10y ago
    Not just addiction, but the high risk of death from central nervous system depression. That's what usually kills people who are on opioids.
  - ChristianGeek 10y ago
    Chronic migraine sufferer here...would happily swap the pills I currently take daily just to reduce the frequency of my migraines for one that eliminated them.
    - jacquesm 10y ago
      Migraines are ugly. I used to have a business partner that suffered from chronic migraines. Onset would be so quick that he wouldn't be able to drive home so I got to drive him whenever this happened.
    - notadoc 10y ago
      I'm sorry to hear about that. Do you take magnesium supplements? There is some evidence it can be effective at reducing pain and frequency of migraine. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=magnesium+migraine https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=magnesium+migraine https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28286809 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28286809 Alas, it too is a pill regimen and also not a cure.
  - notadoc 10y ago
    Regardless taking a pill masks the symptoms, it is not a cure. Pain is not like a bacteria and the pills are not like a targeted antibiotic. You do understand that, right?
- Turing_Machine 10y ago
  It seems to me that the only possible "cure" here would be to replace the defective gene. That said, anything that can eliminate extreme pain (or help the people who don't feel pain at all, causing them to severely jack themselves up without even knowing it) would be a friggin' blessing, even if it is a "pill that you had to take every day".
  - notadoc 10y ago
    My personal opinion is that doctors and patients should be able to use anything at all that works for them, assuming risk is understood sufficiently. It is, frankly, nobodies business but theirs.
- codingdave 10y ago
  No, it is not a cure. But until a cure is found, I'll certainly take it as a 2nd choice instead of living with the pain and being stubborn about it. I did resist pills as the answer to my chronic pain for years. And I still refuse to use opioids as the answer. But we did find a non-opioid med that reduces my pain, so while I wish there was a better answer... pills give me my life back. I'm able to exercise again. To play with my kids. To do my job. It isn't my preferred solution, but I'm not going to get idealistic about it and go back to sitting around all day in pain while waiting for the perfect answer.
  - notadoc 10y ago
    What sort of chronic pain do you have and how do you manage it? Pills are often necessary for chronic pain patients, as are opioids which are inappropriately demonized due to some recreational drug abusers.
le-mark 10y ago
I've suffered from occipital nueralgia for over 10 years now. Luckily mine isn't as severe as it ca be for some. I'm able to self treat by applying pressure when it gets really bad. So I manage and it doesn't effect my life much aside from usually being a cranky son of a bitch to my wife, which I do regret. Once a few years ago I had an "occipital nerve block". That's where a pain specialist injects novacain into the nerve. I was pain free for about a month, it was marvelous. But insurance didn't cover it so I never got one again. About a month ago I woke up feeling like I was high or something. I was in physical bliss. I realized it was the first time in many years I'd been totally pain free. It made me kinda sad.
- pasbesoin 10y ago
  A couple of months ago, I had a condition that required a week's worth of prednisone. Not a particularly pleasant experience. But one side-effect that was remarkable, to me: The decades of accumulated aches and pains "went away" while I was on it. A chance to observe, through the sort of light haze the drug left me in, just how much and varied the discomfort was that had accumulated. My primary response to the question of how to control pain, remains: Pro-active health care and preventative medicine and practice. No, it won't stop all cases, but those we can prevent, we should. And currently, too often don't. Too much is focused on "the future." The child that will be. The society we will create. The career we will -- hope to -- have. Until a primary focus is on the present, and taking care of what is at hand, my support for some "future promise" is limited. Among other reasons, because if you aren't healthy and able, you'll have less chance of building it. Or hanging onto it. Or enjoying it. I'm all for taking care of ourselves -- individually and as a society -- for the future. But that action takes place in the present. Until I see a party exercising this -- demonstrating it through actions -- my buy-in is limited. P.S. I guess I went kind of OT, here. I just see so much needless, preventable pain, these days. I really hope for better pain management for those who have pain. And I don't see having it as some "fault" that invariably could have been "avoided." But I see a lot that could be avoided. Steps that could be taken, by communities and society -- but aren't.
- matthjensen 10y ago
  I wish our medical system trusted patients more. Why not tattoo a tiny dot on the scalp where the patient needs to inject, train him, and then send him home with the Novocain. Have a checklist of warning signs that should terminate treatment or require a checkup. Here's a video explaining the procedure. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udDaNhPNwT8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udDaNhPNwT8
woodandsteel 10y ago
You can tell your medical patient is an android when you ask them to rate their pain on a 1 to 10 scale, and they answer back to three decimal points.
Mz 10y ago
Oh, geez. Pain is a messenger. It tells you something is very wrong. We need to start finding more ways to effectively treat underlying causes and stop focusing on mere comfort. That sort of medicine is what they do at hospices waiting for you to die. I spent 3.5 years in constant, excruciating, PLEASE KILL ME NOW pain. So I am not being callous here. I am no longer in that kind of pain because I inadvertently began treating the underlying cause. I am galled by the constant search for better ways to go numb and stop feeling the pain. I can't understand how the serious damage this guy has suffered doesn't serve as a dire warning that this is the wrong path. The right path is to wonder WHY people are in so much pain and solve THAT.
- jimmaswell 10y ago
  There are cases where there's not really anything you can do other than treat the pain, due to current medical science not knowing the answer or another solution otherwise being infeasible.
  - Mz 10y ago
    Yeah, that's what they say about my incurable genetic disorder.
    - maxerickson 10y ago
      And still, there are problems that simply aren't understood. http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/complex-regional-pain-syndrome/basics/definition/con-20022844 http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/complex-region...
      - Mz 10y ago
        I am a former homemaker. Given how far I have gotten by following the principle of treat the underlying cause of the pain, presumably actual doctors and scientists could get a great deal further if that principle was a driving force in their work. Instead, they tend to say shitty things to people like me, such as "People like you don't get well. Symptom management is the name of the game." Yeah, dude, if you make zero effort to get me well because you are psychologically comfortable with writing me off for dead already, it should come as no surprise when the lack of effort leads to a lack of improvement.

80 points by sajid 10y ago

Be skeptical anytime you hear "cure" for any medical condition, especially with regard to something as enigmatic and complex as pain or the nervous system. And no, another pill a patient has to take every day is not a cure.

jacquesm 10y ago
I'm pretty sure a patient that is suffering from chronic pain would happily take a pill if that would make the pain go away without the risk of addiction.
- Turing_Machine 10y ago
  Not just addiction, but the high risk of death from central nervous system depression. That's what usually kills people who are on opioids.
- ChristianGeek 10y ago
  Chronic migraine sufferer here...would happily swap the pills I currently take daily just to reduce the frequency of my migraines for one that eliminated them.
  - jacquesm 10y ago
    Migraines are ugly. I used to have a business partner that suffered from chronic migraines. Onset would be so quick that he wouldn't be able to drive home so I got to drive him whenever this happened.
  - notadoc 10y ago
    I'm sorry to hear about that. Do you take magnesium supplements? There is some evidence it can be effective at reducing pain and frequency of migraine. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=magnesium+migraine https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=magnesium+migraine https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28286809 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28286809 Alas, it too is a pill regimen and also not a cure.
- notadoc 10y ago
  Regardless taking a pill masks the symptoms, it is not a cure. Pain is not like a bacteria and the pills are not like a targeted antibiotic. You do understand that, right?
Turing_Machine 10y ago
It seems to me that the only possible "cure" here would be to replace the defective gene. That said, anything that can eliminate extreme pain (or help the people who don't feel pain at all, causing them to severely jack themselves up without even knowing it) would be a friggin' blessing, even if it is a "pill that you had to take every day".
- notadoc 10y ago
  My personal opinion is that doctors and patients should be able to use anything at all that works for them, assuming risk is understood sufficiently. It is, frankly, nobodies business but theirs.
codingdave 10y ago
No, it is not a cure. But until a cure is found, I'll certainly take it as a 2nd choice instead of living with the pain and being stubborn about it. I did resist pills as the answer to my chronic pain for years. And I still refuse to use opioids as the answer. But we did find a non-opioid med that reduces my pain, so while I wish there was a better answer... pills give me my life back. I'm able to exercise again. To play with my kids. To do my job. It isn't my preferred solution, but I'm not going to get idealistic about it and go back to sitting around all day in pain while waiting for the perfect answer.
- notadoc 10y ago
  What sort of chronic pain do you have and how do you manage it? Pills are often necessary for chronic pain patients, as are opioids which are inappropriately demonized due to some recreational drug abusers.

le-mark 10y ago

I've suffered from occipital nueralgia for over 10 years now. Luckily mine isn't as severe as it ca be for some. I'm able to self treat by applying pressure when it gets really bad. So I manage and it doesn't effect my life much aside from usually being a cranky son of a bitch to my wife, which I do regret. Once a few years ago I had an "occipital nerve block". That's where a pain specialist injects novacain into the nerve. I was pain free for about a month, it was marvelous. But insurance didn't cover it so I never got one again. About a month ago I woke up feeling like I was high or something. I was in physical bliss. I realized it was the first time in many years I'd been totally pain free. It made me kinda sad.

pasbesoin 10y ago
A couple of months ago, I had a condition that required a week's worth of prednisone. Not a particularly pleasant experience. But one side-effect that was remarkable, to me: The decades of accumulated aches and pains "went away" while I was on it. A chance to observe, through the sort of light haze the drug left me in, just how much and varied the discomfort was that had accumulated. My primary response to the question of how to control pain, remains: Pro-active health care and preventative medicine and practice. No, it won't stop all cases, but those we can prevent, we should. And currently, too often don't. Too much is focused on "the future." The child that will be. The society we will create. The career we will -- hope to -- have. Until a primary focus is on the present, and taking care of what is at hand, my support for some "future promise" is limited. Among other reasons, because if you aren't healthy and able, you'll have less chance of building it. Or hanging onto it. Or enjoying it. I'm all for taking care of ourselves -- individually and as a society -- for the future. But that action takes place in the present. Until I see a party exercising this -- demonstrating it through actions -- my buy-in is limited. P.S. I guess I went kind of OT, here. I just see so much needless, preventable pain, these days. I really hope for better pain management for those who have pain. And I don't see having it as some "fault" that invariably could have been "avoided." But I see a lot that could be avoided. Steps that could be taken, by communities and society -- but aren't.
matthjensen 10y ago
I wish our medical system trusted patients more. Why not tattoo a tiny dot on the scalp where the patient needs to inject, train him, and then send him home with the Novocain. Have a checklist of warning signs that should terminate treatment or require a checkup. Here's a video explaining the procedure. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udDaNhPNwT8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udDaNhPNwT8

woodandsteel 10y ago

You can tell your medical patient is an android when you ask them to rate their pain on a 1 to 10 scale, and they answer back to three decimal points.

Mz 10y ago

Oh, geez. Pain is a messenger. It tells you something is very wrong. We need to start finding more ways to effectively treat underlying causes and stop focusing on mere comfort. That sort of medicine is what they do at hospices waiting for you to die. I spent 3.5 years in constant, excruciating, PLEASE KILL ME NOW pain. So I am not being callous here. I am no longer in that kind of pain because I inadvertently began treating the underlying cause. I am galled by the constant search for better ways to go numb and stop feeling the pain. I can't understand how the serious damage this guy has suffered doesn't serve as a dire warning that this is the wrong path. The right path is to wonder WHY people are in so much pain and solve THAT.

jimmaswell 10y ago
There are cases where there's not really anything you can do other than treat the pain, due to current medical science not knowing the answer or another solution otherwise being infeasible.
- Mz 10y ago
  Yeah, that's what they say about my incurable genetic disorder.
  - maxerickson 10y ago
    And still, there are problems that simply aren't understood. http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/complex-regional-pain-syndrome/basics/definition/con-20022844 http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/complex-region...
    - Mz 10y ago
      I am a former homemaker. Given how far I have gotten by following the principle of treat the underlying cause of the pain, presumably actual doctors and scientists could get a great deal further if that principle was a driving force in their work. Instead, they tend to say shitty things to people like me, such as "People like you don't get well. Symptom management is the name of the game." Yeah, dude, if you make zero effort to get me well because you are psychologically comfortable with writing me off for dead already, it should come as no surprise when the lack of effort leads to a lack of improvement.