Chronic Pain Support Group
Physicians and professionalsdefine pain as chronic if it lasts longer than three to six months and is persistent. It's distinct from acute pain that is a direct result of injury or trauma. This support group is dedicated to those suffering from chronic pain. Discuss treatments that have worked for you, find advice for your specific experience, and find support. You're not...
Sorry - last week was hectic as heck with my grown daughter supposedly getting ready to move out, but not so much. Got her and hubby out at 6am this morning with a U-Haul. She is off to live with Grandma while she finishes her Bachelors Degree in History.
But back to tidbits learned from the workshop.
MRIs.
At one point they asked how many people had had an MRI and 99% of the room raised their hands. They asked those who had two to keep them up. When they got to 15 I was the only one in the room with my hand still up.
He then told us of a double blind study done by the VA where 500 patients with severe back pain and 500 patients with no back pain were asked to take MRIs. The MRIs, without any labels, were then handed to a radiologist and he was asked who was in pain. The end result was that he could not figure out from an MRI who was in pain and who was not.
Some of the people with pain had perfect MRIs, while others with no pain had what looked like crippling conditions.
The thing that we, those who are in severe, chronic, untreatable pain need to take from this is that pain cannot be measured on ANY test.
But back to tidbits learned from the workshop.
MRIs.
At one point they asked how many people had had an MRI and 99% of the room raised their hands. They asked those who had two to keep them up. When they got to 15 I was the only one in the room with my hand still up.
He then told us of a double blind study done by the VA where 500 patients with severe back pain and 500 patients with no back pain were asked to take MRIs. The MRIs, without any labels, were then handed to a radiologist and he was asked who was in pain. The end result was that he could not figure out from an MRI who was in pain and who was not.
Some of the people with pain had perfect MRIs, while others with no pain had what looked like crippling conditions.
The thing that we, those who are in severe, chronic, untreatable pain need to take from this is that pain cannot be measured on ANY test.
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Can you identify these rom-coms from just a screenshot from the middle of the films? This is a multiple choice quiz so even if you're not entirely sure you can always take a guess and at least have a 25% chance of getting it right anyway, so why not have a go?! https://www.buzzfeed.com/alysaurus688/rom-com-screenshot-trivia-quiz
Yet, after better than 10 MRIs on my spine, I am no further towards being pain free than I was five years ago - in fact five years ago I was still a functioning human being.
One thing that sptrout's post jogged in my memory is that DDD sounds super scary, and for many people is completely crippling, but that also 90% of the population over 50 has DDD. So, an MRI is not going to say if a person is having pain from DDD.
Somehow, we all have to find doctors who listen and who explain what they are thinking. Oh that is a tall order....