Posted by lc bob on March 05, 1999 at 13:37:19:
In Reply to: Please report on 48 hours posted by Jackie on March 05, 1999 at 11:01:19:
first, let me say i agree with those who've expressed disappointment. i'll try to keep this objective. the first half hour was dedicated to essentially 2 patients. one had a very bad case of tremors in one arm and attendant excruciating pain for which a brain probe was used to stimulate some nerve center and his tremors and pain were relieved - apparently completely. the other (actually 2 women) were for different reasons having leg pain from operations to repair skiing accident damage. there was no essential solution offerred here, except to indicate that their pain was emdemic to their injuries, and the solution to their problem was to learn to live with it, ignore it as much as possible, and treat it as a fact of life (one woman just gritted her teeth thru the pain of therapy, the other - in much more pain - decided to climb a wall to show the pain she was larger than it was). while both these women are admirable for their intestinal fortitude, the message i got here was, "pain is manageable, deal with it." about 20 minutes were given to headaches. statistics were quoted for general, run-on-the-mill rege everybody-gets-them HAs, and the only sub-group mentioned was, of course, migraines. the central story and "migraine" representative was a poor teenaged boy who thrashed about on a couch while his mother watched and held him in horror (later detailed to include her fear that he'd take his life - also mentioning that after watching him she could understand how that might "cross your mind".) this unfortunate bot had been to the diamond clinic in chicago and diagnosed by dr. diamond as sufferring from migraines. (!!) his cycle was even reported - a very short one (by what i can tell) of clusters every 8 DAYS or so (and i suppose remission for about a week at a time). he said he was shooting for 1-2 months of freedom from the pain after he was issued a regimen of drugs in chicago. the one thing that stuck to me here was his descriptions of the pain ... i paraphrase: "it's the worst pain you can imagine." short and sweet. when asked to place his pain on a scale of 1 to 10, he said 14. when challenged, he said 14. it was a no brainer for him. my guess is (and my feeling is) that the use of what appeared to be an obvious clusterhead was held up as a migraine sufferrer, and the upshot is that the stark image of cluster pain was essentially "used" to invoke a sense of compassion for migraine pain. i felt used, anyway. sorry, i promised. finally, they showcased the doctors' problems prescribing pain killers (narcotics) to patients that were obviously in need of them and not adversly affected by or addicted to them, for fear of prosecution from authorities accusing them of dealing drugs (essentially). 2 southern doctors were interviewed, and their patients were shown with and without these meds. one guy had to fly 6k miles to get his meds because his doctor couldn't/wouldn't give him a 'script for them anymore. that was about it, Jackie ... no earthshattering or eyeopening news ... in fact, we weren't even mentioned. i videotaped it. i'll try to create a series reasonably sized .AVIs from the tape and get them posted somewhere for you guys to download - if you think that'd be a good idea. but it's not groundbreaking stuff, sadly. hope this answered your question,
pain freedom is STILL a human right!!
-lcb