Chronic Pain

Chronic pain is a cunning enemy, striking first at the body, then the mind. The injuries it inflicts can spread to entire families -- as illustrated by the story of one couple, Joel Sappell, senior metro projects editor at the Los Angeles Times, and his wife, free-lance writer Mona Gable.Joel: For more than four years, pain has held my family and me hostage, often depriving us of life's simplest pleasures -- an afternoon in the park, an outing to the beach, a night on the town.Our ordeal started mysteriously in the summer of 1994.

Take an aspirin and call back in, well, a few years. That's how long it may take for the next generation of painkillers to arrive.But they are coming, and researchers say these new and powerful substances -- born from the most advanced knowledge of how pain messages travel from the periphery to the brain -- will revolutionize pain treatment for chronic conditions such as migraines and arthritis."

For thousands of years, healers have used a single herb to treat a wide variety of symptoms. It has been tried against colds, hemorrhoids and dandruff as well as more serious conditions such as asthma, inflammation and loss of appetite.Until the early 20th century, American physicians often prescribed it as a pain reliever, muscle relaxant and treatment for migraine. But in 1937 the Marihuana Tax Act was passed to keep people from abusing this herb. The consequence was to make it nearly impossible to use it for legitimate medical purposes.

Before you decide to take your arthritis to Arizona, consider these surprising new findings about the influence of weather and climate on chronic pain: Patients living in the relatively warm, dry climate of San Diego reported a greater sensitivity to changes in the weather than those who had to cope with the cold and damp conditions of Boston or Worcester, Mass.A better bet than any of those three cities for chronic pain sufferers seeking relief from the vagaries of weather might be warm and moist Nashville.

Pain is the body's early warning system. Like a smoke detector that won't stop shrieking, it alerts you that something is wrong.Without pain you might do yourself serious damage before you realized it.Burns, cuts, blisters, sprains, breaks and bellyaches are just a few of the causes of pain that get your attention and motivate you to take action. That's certainly a benefit. But there is a downside, especially if the pain doesn't go away.Unrelenting pain can take over a person's life, making it hard to think, work or carry on. It can delay recovery from surgery and promote complications.

Rebecca Katz was 29 when she first felt the searing pain in her pelvis that was to change her life. Over the following months, as the pain increased, sometimes causing her to double over, she was examined by specialist after specialist: four gynecologists and two urologists.Exploratory procedures revealed nothing. All the usual tests came back negative. One urologist told her she was "bladder obsessed."Yet every day, the pain seemed to grow."I was going from doctor to doctor who was either dismissing me immediately or who was getting frustrated and then dismissing me," says the Baltimore marketing consultant, who is now 31. "They would say, 'We can't find anything wrong with you.' . . . I thought, 'Am I going crazy?

What would we do without pain? You'd pick up a hot frying pan and burn yourself badly if it weren't for an almost instantaneous reflex that makes you drop it. You might walk miles on a sprained ankle doing further damage except for the body's protective signal that says stop.Pain is the body's early warning system that alerts you to anything from appendicitis to a heart attack.Despite its importance, pain can ruin people's lives. You could live with a stuffy nose or stiff joints, but pain gets your attention and can dominate every waking moment.

HEALING AND THE MIND.Bill Moyers.Doubleday.364 pages. $25.Changing life habits. Self-hypnosis. Yoga. Meditation. Group therapy. These approaches to medicine no longer stem from grandmother, or from the hippie down the street, or through techniques of a psychiatric counselor. As Bill Moyers reports in "Healing and the Mind," the companion volume to a five-part PBS television series by the same name, these methods are being examined scientifically and incorporated successfully by mainstream physicians as a complement to (but never a substitute for)

Read these words very closely. Closer. Closer. You can feel yourself getting tired. Tired. Tired of all the Hollywood-hooey that surrounds hypnosis.Many people think of hypnosis as something that is done to you, like in the movies, with frumpy old Viennese psychiatrists swinging pocket watches.A lot of people are afraid that if they undergo hypnosis, they'll come out of the trance quacking like a duck or tearing off their clothes whenever they hear the number nine.The truth of the matter is that hypnosis is something you can learn to do for yourself, to help yourself.

Q : I have suffered from pains all over my body for about thre years. Several doctors who examined me and did numerous tests failed to pinpoint the problem, and my husband thinks I am just neurotic. Several weeks ago I saw an arthritis specialist who made the diagnosis of fibromyalgia. It would help me and my family if you would explain fibromyalgia.A: Fibromyalgia, once called fibrositis, is a common condition that affects women about 10 times more often than men, most often between the ages of 30 and 60. The hallmark of the disorder is chronic pain in the muscles and tendons (fibrous tissues connecting muscles to bones)

It's the lightning season again. Bolts from the sky kill more than 50 Americans each year, on average. Nine have died so far in 2009. Most are young males, and a third are struck at work. Ninety percent of those hit by lightning survive, but often with chronic pain, brain injury and thought-processing problems. Hear thunder? Go inside. Stay off (and unplug) hard-wired computers, phones or games.

Pain is the No. 1 reason people seek medical help. Acute-onset pain suggests a medical emergency and immediate medical assistance is necessary. Chronic pain has a significant impact on human life. According to Dr. Zhaoming Chen, the best way to control chronic pain is a multidisciplinary approach that includes complementary and alternative medicine. Chen, chairman of the American Association of Integrative Medicine and a physician at St. Agnes Hospital, offers several easy ways to help people deal with pain.

On tonight's House, the cranky doctor finally gets a patient he can relate to. In this new episode, House (Hugh Laurie) and his team try to figure out what's wrong with a man suffering from chronic pain - something House has lived with for years. No word on whether the patient is also an insufferable jerk. Meanwhile, Foreman and Thirteen (Omar Epps and Olivia Wilde) deal with their budding relationship, and Cuddy (Lisa Edelstein) gets a lesson in juggling work and parenthood. The medical mystery show now in its fifth season celebrates its 100 episode next month.

The June letter from the Baltimore Health Department alerted physicians, nurses and other providers to a significant increase in methadone-related overdose deaths. The letter from Dr. Laura Herrera, a deputy city health commissioner, raised the possibility that the overdoses involved prescriptions for pain. It was a cautionary reminder that health care providers should educate their patients about the proper use of methadone and the lethal risks of taking extra doses. Dr. Herrera was right to be concerned: Methadone-overdose deaths of city residents have risen from seven in 1995 to 74 in 2007.

The solution of equal parts Listerine, baby oil and water for dogs' hot spots is the most fantastic remedy I've read about in a long time! The minute my dogs start "worrying" a spot, I get out my spray bottle, spray the area thoroughly, massage the solution into their skin, and the problem stops immediately. No more hot spots that involve trips to the vet. Several years ago, we heard from a radio listener that his veterinarian had suggested Listerine and baby oil for his Dobermans and his horses.

Sixteen years ago, Steve Zatuchni was a computer sales manager, making a six-figure income. Then all hell broke loose in his brain. He became severely depressed, to the point that he could no longer work. He slept up to 18 hours a day, and when he was awake, felt so miserable he wished he were asleep. He tried dozens of medicines, in myriad combinations. Nothing worked. Distraught, he tried to kill himself several times. Then, in 2004, he enrolled in a study of an experimental therapy called transcranial magnetic stimulation, or TMS -- a noninvasive treatment that sends magnetic pulses into the brain.

The crash that grounded Linda Berl had nothing to do with the Piper Cherokee that she flew to shuttle needy Eastern Shore patients to local hospitals. What got her was a low-altitude tumble from the front porch of her Delaware home in 2001 that left her with a broken leg and persistent, debilitating pain. "Sometimes I'll feel like my foot is on fire," she said. "It feels very deep, like it's in my bones." The pain dominated Berl's life for years, but now the 47-year-old Smyrna resident hopes to return to flying with the help of a spinal cord stimulator -- a device that Johns Hopkins doctors implanted under the skin of her back to override pain signals traveling from her body to her brain.

Carroll hospital offers advice on pain for women Carroll Hospital Center will hold a program on "Women and Chronic Pain " from 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. Wednesday at the Women's Place on Stoner Avenue in Westminster. Dr. Vajira Gunawardane will present information on living and dealing with chronic pain. Information: 410-848-2244. Family support group focuses on dementia care Copper Ridge, in partnership with the Alzheimer's Association Greater Maryland Chapter, will hold a Family Support Group meeting at 6:30 p.m. Thursday in the Kershner Room.

Despite sweeping new warnings that the nation's most popular painkillers can harm hearts, stomachs and skin, many Americans are going to go right on taking them, saying the relief is worth the risk. The popular arthritis drug Bextra last week became the second Cox-2 painkiller pulled from the market while the Food and Drug Administration pinned its highest warnings on Celebrex and nearly 20 other common prescription-strength drugs such as Mobic, Motrin, Naprosyn and ibuprofen. The move tainted trusted remedies and replaced them with nothing but confusing alternatives, prompting many patients to count pills and ration what's left of medications that have worked for them.

Dr. Charles Morris Narrow, a noted pain management and rehabilitation physician, died of a heart attack Nov. 19 in his Owings Mills home. He was 48. The day he died, he had been expected to leave for Israel, where he was scheduled to speak at the annual conference of the Israel Association of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. Dr. Narrow was born and raised in Levittown, Pa., and earned a bachelor's degree in biology in 1978 from Earlham College in Richmond, Ind. He graduated from Ross University School of Medicine in Edison, N.J., in 1988 and completed his residency in physical medicine and rehabilitation in 1992 at National Rehabilitation Hospital in Washington, D.C., where he was chief resident.