On Pain and Suffering

[Marblehead]

Hi All,

 

I broke my hip when I was 58 years old. Did I have much pain? You can bet your ass I did. Did I suffer because of it? Yes I did, a few times. I can remember the times, me saying. "Oh!, poor me!"

 

When I finally got home from the hospital I was in a wheelchair. With a lot of time on my hands and no place to go I spent a lot of time on the computer. I did a search of broken hips. The data showed that 85% of people over 60 years of age who experience a broken hip die within one year of the breakage.

 

I determined I was not going to be one of those unfortunate people.

 

I did not take any pain medication after I left the hospital. Did I have much pain? Indeed I did. But I refused to take meds as I felt I could either deal with or work around the pain. For me there were no questions about what was causing the pain so I had no need to consult with anyone.

 

The main reason I have started this thread is that I believe that understanding pain is very important to each and every one of us. I, however, am not properly educated to speak to the many aspects of pain. I do know, however, that it is important that we know why we are experiencing pain and do everything we can to understand the causes and also to find ways of dealing with or eliminating it without mind-altering medications.

 

I do not have the knowledge to recommend any specific method for dealing with pain. For mine, I did what I knew how to do. That worked for me. I can't suggest that my way would work for anyone else.

 

I can say this though - the more knowledgeable we become regarding how our body and mind work the better chance we will have at keeping our body in the best shape possible and also reduce the frequency of the times in our life that we suffer because life isn't going the way we want it to.

 

Good health to all!

[Ya Mu]

I do hesitate to post on your thread here. Hope my contribution doesn't bring about derailment.

 

Your post is one of the more intelligent and heartfelt posts about pain that I have read on this board.

 

I am posting because it is a subject I have dedicated my whole life to and I too think this is a subject that deserves a whole lot of attention and is ignored by society as a whole. But what I know is that individually it is not ignored and that so many people have these pains in their life bringing about not only the emotional & physical trauma, but loss of income either temporary or until they die. This can destroy a whole family structure.

 

Understanding would be a grand thing. What I can tell you is that western medicine offers not much for people with pain. If it is an acute short-term pain, the drugs (physician prescribed drugs) are not a bad thing, as they can help a person through a rough time. But if it is a chronic long term pain, who in their right mind wishes to toxify their body and walk around in a stupor? No one I have seen except for drug addicts - which can be another side-effect from taking the pain drugs and can turn into a vicious cycle. What is a person to do?

 

And, by the way, I do admire you for refusing the pain meds as you stuck to your convictions. Whenever I go to a dentist I always refuse the shots. I have the ability to utilize my chi to eliminate the pain so I have no need for them - that is up to a certain point. When this point is reached, although so far it hasn't happened, I am sure I will be screaming for the stupid shot. Several of the dental clinics have had bets going on the side that I would break down and ask for the shots. :lol:

 

And from my experience I have seen that the complementary therapies can help immensely in this. They can help eliminate the pain at the source and, in the case of addiction, which extremely complicates the matter, help a person to break that vicious cycle.

 

After working in my own pain clinic for quite some time I was offered a job as a consultant/therapist at a physical therapy clinic. We saw the worst of the worst of people with pain syndromes. Although sometimes the PT methods did assist, the result rate wasn't very high. Introducing the Chinese medicine methods in the clinic made the result rates go from around 17 percent to over 80 percent. But admittedly, that required me to perform 8 to 10 hours a day. And then go home and see 4 to 6 more people at my clinic. I did finally get too busy at my own clinic and concentrated my efforts there. My point is that no one person, no matter how good they are at this, can make the difference needed. What you say about understanding rings so true. With this understanding quite a bit of both pain and suffering could be eliminated, or at least immensely helped. This is one of the reasons I left the scientific field to help others and to teach others what I know of how to do therapies that get results for people with complex pain syndromes.

 

Sorry for the long post. I am guilty of becoming very enthusiastic about this subject.

Edited April 5, 2012 by Ya Mu

[joeblast]

Back around the time I had my back surgery I was on all that stuff. It felt like I was walking around with 3 feet of cobwebs about my head, so usually I would wait until I was practically seeing red before I'd take one once I began to heal sufficiently after having my back sliced open. I was short on sleep and pissed my back off yesterday...so after work I stretched hamstrings, walked a hundred circles, did some xing shen zhuang movements, leaned on the desk and popped by L5 back into its proper place. Sauna and needles in it. I dislike having to deal with crap like that, but really it only happens when I am lazy in my training, so it is every bit as much my back telling me get off your ass, you slacker There is no context for a pill except for a couple advils after it happens. You have an excellent perspective Michael, it helps, thanks

[Mokona]

For back pain you might want to look into Foundations, I have this wierd pain in my back when I sit in meditation, it's much less noticable now (Dr. Eric Goodman and Peter Park authored)

 

I'd love to use chi kung to heal my hurts, as of now I still can't feel energy during moving meditation, only during VERY relaxed sitting meditation, and not always.(More practice needed!)

 

 

OP/Marblehead-

Congrats on getting well - do you consider any of your current practices(Qigong/Meditation) to be at all helpful to maintaining good health?

[Ya Mu]

Joeblast, you make an excellent point about the practices. My personal experience is almost the same as yours. I broke my jaws in 17 places, have torn both rotator cuffs, broken both arms, and have no as in zero cartilage in multiple places in my spine including the Tempo-mandibular joints. If I get lazy about either my physical exercises or my qigong exercises I get into trouble fast. Just doesn't pay not to do them. I think everyone who has pain should look at all avenues that can help and these exercises are certainly a place to thoroughly investigate.

 

I do, though, disagree with the common western physical therapy exercise approach to new injuries. From my experience there should be some recovery before getting into the intense type exercise I have seen many go through with many types of programs. I had a call from a lady last week who had injured her shoulder and went to the doctor who prescribed the PT. This lady told me after going to the PT clinic she was left with a totally frozen shoulder that was going on 2 weeks duration and asked me to do a session for her. Yeah, even though I am retired from this I do often get talked into doing a session. I told her I would but would she first try this guy who is one of my new students to see if he could help her as he was located in the same town. He has never done this before and I do think he was nervous about trying to help her with only medical qigong. This story ends with her calling me the evening she went to him and saying her shoulder mysteriously became unfrozen with his session. Of course this was placebo effect and no way any new person doing medical qigong could have made this much difference (auuuum where are the devil horns emoticon). We discussed her following up with the physical exercises, which she already knew to do.

[suninmyeyes]

I can say this though - the more knowledgeable we become regarding how our body and mind work the better chance we will have at keeping our body in the best shape possible and also reduce the frequency of the times in our life that we suffer because life isn't going the way we want it to.

Just wanted to frame this.

[Marblehead]

Whenever I go to a dentist I always refuse the shots.

 

Sorry for the long post. I am guilty of becoming very enthusiastic about this subject.

Hehehe. Yes, you do get enthusiastic about this subject. Understandable though.

 

I was always a wimp about dental work. Always took the shot(s).

 

And I do agree that understanding should be the first step in dealing with pain and suffering. Why is the pain there? What is wrong? How do I prevent a recurrence?

[Marblehead]

OP/Marblehead-

Congrats on getting well - do you consider any of your current practices(Qigong/Meditation) to be at all helpful to maintaining good health?

I really haven't found any exercise that helps the hip and leg problems. The complications of the surgery resulted in my broken leg being shorter than it was so I walk with a limp. The surgery required a lot of cutting of muscles and nerves to get the pins in place and these have not recovered and likely never will.

 

However, it really isn't as bad as it might sound. Basically I just cannot walk long distances like I used to. I even get tired going shopping at a super Wal-Mart. Hehehe.

 

But I do exercise my whole body whenever I get into an exercising period. I stay pretty physically active but every now and again I need to rebuild my strength and endurance.

 

I won't ever let the hip breakage get me down.

[Ya Mu]

...

And I do agree that understanding should be the first step in dealing with pain and suffering. Why is the pain there? What is wrong? How do I prevent a recurrence?

Why is the Pain there is one of the most misunderstood aspects of dealing with pain.

There are several schools of thought out there. Western medicine mostly attempts to deal with acute situations or organ disease. When pain becomes long-term likely as not far too many pain patients get labeled as crazy, nut-cases. The complementary therapy approach is very diverse. There are those that believe everything comes from a mental/emotional problem. There are those that believe it always comes from the physical. And then there are those that believe it always boils back down to the Spiritual.

 

What I have seen is that none of these approaches even comes close to the totality. What many therapist miss when dealing with pain is that if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, looks like a duck; most probably it is a duck. Attempting to classify the source as either pure mental, pure physical or pure Spiritual is missing the boat, as usually there are components of each and it really doesn't matter which it is as long as we can get to the source and bring balance. The problem now becomes not Why is the pain there? but How does the therapist find the pain source?

 

In the Chinese medicine I teach, we learn palpation first thing. This is an almost lost art in western medicine. Why is baffling because it used to be a main part of physician training. No baffling as to how it came about but baffling to think it was no longer useful. And of course it came about because of modern technology like x-rays, Ct scan, magnetic scans, etc.

 

The Chinese medicine we practice utilizes an approach called Listening. As I mentioned, the art of palpation is the first step. Many things can be learned about the body through simple palpation. First is physical, then electrical, then energetic. The problem with this, if one wishes to call it a "problem", is that these skills require practicing the energetic arts to build the practitioners energy body though a process. This of course means that before we can get to answering our basic question of How does the therapist find the pain source? we have to practice the energetic method for a period of time concurrently practicing the physical palpation. In our method of course the energetic method is the Stillness-Movement practice.

 

The reason the energetics are necessary is complex but if one wishes to attempt to boil it down, one way of putting it that it is extremely difficult to find a problem on the level of the problem. It is like two bulls butting heads.

 

Will continue this explanation of "How to find the problem?" later as it is 6:30 and I have to leave to go to work on finding a problem.

 

to be continued

[Eric23]

The complications of the surgery resulted in my broken leg being shorter than it was so I walk with a limp. The surgery required a lot of cutting of muscles and nerves to get the pins in place and these have not recovered and likely never will.

 

A good friend of mine severely damaged his leg in a motorcycle accident. Had several surgeries done that left the leg shorter than before. He has his shoes altered (lifts on the short side) so that he can get around without limping as bad. Not sure if you've done this or not.

 

I'll go back to lurking now. Very interesting discussion

[Apech]

Thanks to Marblehead for starting this thread - a very interesting/important subject.

 

I suffered from severe back pain about 10 years ago and some treatment e.g.osteopathy made it worse. I was diagnosed with all sorts but eventually it seemed to boil down to soft tissue damage (nothing compared to what some of you guys have been through). But the pain was debilitating in the extreme it took me hours to get up and dress in the mornings and I could not sit normally for longer than about 10 mins. I did take some pain killers but just paracetamol and so on ... nothing strong ... I needed them to get me to work basically. After a while of generally unhelpful western medicine I was referred to a special project which was basically a six week course on working through chronic back pain. This was based on understanding the nature of the anatomy of the back and the nature of pain. This was coupled with physio which was basically light circuit training. I added a yoga class and within a month I was back to normal.

 

The point is that all this was counter intuitive. The pain was bad and the instinct was to rest and keep immobile so as not to aggravate the pain. Completely wrong. The pain killer and rest period should only be for about three days for many typical kinds of injury. Thousands of people perpetuate the pain cycle through fear of the pain itself and western medicine (for all its amazing achievements) tends to support this idea. i.e. 'nothing can be done, it won't get any better, take an aspirin' ... which is a quote that I got from one doctor.

 

Understanding makes you pro-active and not reactive and removes the fear that you naturally feel.

[thelerner]

Thanks to Marblehead for starting this thread - a very interesting/important subject.

 

I suffered from severe back pain about 10 years ago and some treatment e.g.osteopathy made it worse. I was diagnosed with all sorts but eventually it seemed to boil down to soft tissue damage (nothing compared to what some of you guys have been through). But the pain was debilitating in the extreme it took me hours to get up and dress in the mornings and I could not sit normally for longer than about 10 mins. I did take some pain killers but just paracetamol and so on ... nothing strong ... I needed them to get me to work basically. After a while of generally unhelpful western medicine I was referred to a special project which was basically a six week course on working through chronic back pain. This was based on understanding the nature of the anatomy of the back and the nature of pain. This was coupled with physio which was basically light circuit training. I added a yoga class and within a month I was back to normal.

 

The point is that all this was counter intuitive. The pain was bad and the instinct was to rest and keep immobile so as not to aggravate the pain. Completely wrong. The pain killer and rest period should only be for about three days for many typical kinds of injury. Thousands of people perpetuate the pain cycle through fear of the pain itself and western medicine (for all its amazing achievements) tends to support this idea. i.e. 'nothing can be done, it won't get any better, take an aspirin' ... which is a quote that I got from one doctor.

 

Understanding makes you pro-active and not reactive and removes the fear that you naturally feel.

 

I went through a bad back many years ago. As always a surgeon said cut. I ignored him, ultimately strength and flexibility turned out to be the saviour.

[ChiDragon]

You know what I think...??? Pain is just like a light bulb. It can be turned on and off. What cause pain in the body...??? I think it was caused by the nerves. We have sympathetic and parasympathetic nerves. They are the complement of each other. One turns the pain on and the other turn it off. IMO Despite to the Chi clog theory, I think that is how it works.

 

I have two examples in my situation to substantiate my claim.

 

1. I had this neck pain, on the right, for two years from knife throwing. It was very painful when I had a backpack on my back and climbing the Great Wall of China. At the time, on top of the Great Wall, I told myself that I will get rid of this pain when I go back home.

 

When I got back home, I bought some books about Acupuncture, Physiology, Human Anatomy and the Gray's Anatomy. From the books, I had discovered that the nerves on my neck were connected to the brachial plexus. In TCM, it was customary not to treat the area in pain but the reflected acu-point. In my case, I have found the reflected acu-points are around my shoulder blade, scapula, in the back. Since these points are in the back, I need to get a hook-like tool to reach those acu-points. With the aid of this hook to apply some pressure to those points, I felt some small soreness on those acu-points. After a few treatment, my pain was almost gone completely. Of course, the pain cannot be completely gone but at least 95 to 99.99% was gone. The mysterious thing about that was the soreness on the scapula are gone too.

 

2. Another case, when I was sitting too long, my left leg gets numb or have a little pain sometimes. I had found two acu-points, on my lower and upper leg, to get rid of the pain and numbness.

Edited April 6, 2012 by ChiDragon

[Marblehead]

A good friend of mine severely damaged his leg in a motorcycle accident. Had several surgeries done that left the leg shorter than before. He has his shoes altered (lifts on the short side) so that he can get around without limping as bad. Not sure if you've done this or not.

 

I'll go back to lurking now. Very interesting discussion

Thanks Eric. Yes, I did consider this but opted out. In the long run, however, getting the altered shoe would likely allow my muscles in my injured leg rebuild better. (The actually limping is not a psychological problem for me and that is probably why I opted out.)

[Marblehead]

... i.e. 'nothing can be done, it won't get any better, take an aspirin' ... which is a quote that I got from one doctor.

Yeah, I got the same thing regarding a serious dry skin problem I had. I did research, tried various combinations of vitamins/minerals, and after about 1 1/2 years found a combination that really helped. This was about twelve years ago and I have not had a serious condition all that time.

[Marblehead]

Attempting to classify the source as either pure mental, pure physical or pure Spiritual is missing the boat, as usually there are components of each and it really doesn't matter which it is as long as we can get to the source and bring balance.

Yeah, well, I think most of us know that I am a materialistic person so I will be looking for a logical reason to the "Why". Doesn't mean I won't cross some borders though after I have defined the "Why".

[C T]

Hi guys! What an appropriate and timely topic.

 

Some of you here may recall that i love dogs very much. I have 3 dogs, two of which are classified as strong breeds. The other one is as sweet as a plum... she's big, long, with droopy eyes and long, dangly ears.

 

Well, today my left hand nearly got torn off by one of them. It was sheer good fortune that i am still able to type this, albeit with a small degree of difficulty as i am only able to use the fingers of the right hand and middle finger of the left as most of the hand is bandaged up. There's 3 deep lacerated wounds that look real nasty and will take quite a while to heal, plus a number of puncture wounds on both hands. This is in addition to another bite i got just Monday passed. Likely it will be at least 20 days before i can return to cheffing duties, which is a bummer.

 

Anyway, not to bore you all with specifics, suffice to say that i had to endure six long hours in the Emergency Dept getting treatment, and even though the hand has now swollen to almost double its size, i have not taken any painkillers in the last 10 hours, nor do i intend to. I do not practice any qigong nor any other form of energetic, chi-based healing practices. Just a thorough understanding of the basic principles of mind and how to harness its potential to manage pain.

 

I still love my dogs to bits, but we have decided to return one of them to the breeder from whom we took him. After much contemplation, we feel this is in the best interest of the animals concerned, especially the one who lately seems to think he needs to exercise his dominance over the smaller-sized dog.

 

Just wanted to share a Good Friday story with y'all.

 

Have a great weekend!!

[Ya Mu]

Yeah, well, I think most of us know that I am a materialistic person so I will be looking for a logical reason to the "Why". Doesn't mean I won't cross some borders though after I have defined the "Why".

Oh, I agree. That was why I said if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck it probably is a duck and not some esoteric reason. Can't tell you the number of people who came into the clinic with stuff that will roll your eyes like "I hurt really bad down my arm and I think it is because my heart chakra is opening". I do try to keep a straight face then go right to the area neurologically effecting their problem (nerve problem - not "heart chakra problem") and balance it out. If I can get time to finish the post I started above you will see that there always is a logical reason for the pain and indeed is one of the points of the post.

 

Materialistic is fine. Another way to think of it is you can't separate the totality of a person into bits and pieces because all those bits & pieces function together. This is simply trying to achieve homeostasis.

[Marblehead]

... i have not taken any painkillers in the last 10 hours, nor do i intend to. I do not practice any qigong nor any other form of energetic, chi-based healing practices. Just a thorough understanding of the basic principles of mind and how to harness its potential to manage pain.

Yes, in your case a more important consideration would be to make sure the wounds do not get infected.

 

Apparently someone forgot to tell the dog, "Don't bite the hand that feeds you."

[Marblehead]

Can't tell you the number of people who came into the clinic ...

Nice follow-up post.

 

Identifying the 'real' cause of any problem is the most important step in problem solving process.

[C T]

Yes, in your case a more important consideration would be to make sure the wounds do not get infected.

 

Apparently someone forgot to tell the dog, "Don't bite the hand that feeds you."

Yup! Dont bite hand that feeds is right!! It was not his intention though... its my own carelessness that caused it.

 

Update: 22 hours have passed. Still no painkillers taken. Trying to get a full night's uninterrupted sleep was not possible as the hand was throbbing a bit, yet i feel well rested this morning. I remember having a dream of looking at my hand and thinking Wow! No pain at all! Amazing to have such severe wounds and be pain-free! Am on antibiotics though to ward off infection.

[Aaron]

Hi guys! What an appropriate and timely topic.

 

Some of you here may recall that i love dogs very much. I have 3 dogs, two of which are classified as strong breeds. The other one is as sweet as a plum... she's big, long, with droopy eyes and long, dangly ears.

 

Well, today my left hand nearly got torn off by one of them. It was sheer good fortune that i am still able to type this, albeit with a small degree of difficulty as i am only able to use the fingers of the right hand and middle finger of the left as most of the hand is bandaged up. There's 3 deep lacerated wounds that look real nasty and will take quite a while to heal, plus a number of puncture wounds on both hands. This is in addition to another bite i got just Monday passed. Likely it will be at least 20 days before i can return to cheffing duties, which is a bummer.

 

Anyway, not to bore you all with specifics, suffice to say that i had to endure six long hours in the Emergency Dept getting treatment, and even though the hand has now swollen to almost double its size, i have not taken any painkillers in the last 10 hours, nor do i intend to. I do not practice any qigong nor any other form of energetic, chi-based healing practices. Just a thorough understanding of the basic principles of mind and how to harness its potential to manage pain.

 

I still love my dogs to bits, but we have decided to return one of them to the breeder from whom we took him. After much contemplation, we feel this is in the best interest of the animals concerned, especially the one who lately seems to think he needs to exercise his dominance over the smaller-sized dog.

 

Just wanted to share a Good Friday story with y'all.

 

Have a great weekend!!

 

I'm really sorry to hear you were bitten. I actually had a phobia of dogs for nearly 30+ years, stemming from a bite by a german Shepard when I was nine. I was grabbing it's food bowl to feed it and it bit me on the hand. I don't mind dogs so much anymore. I hope that you heal up alright.

 

On another note, if you're not taking pain killers, you might want to consider some visualization exercises to help manage the pain, one that worked for me and I used it when I had my toothache, is to concentrate on a spot on the wall and while you're breathing in say, "I'm breathing in peace and relaxation" as you're breathing out, focusing on the spot, say, "I'm breathing out pain and anxiety."

 

I know it sounds a little goofy, but it actually works. If you would rather, instead of a spot on the wall, you can imagine a ball of light in front of you, the important thing though, is to make sure that you're visualizing, seeing in your mind, the peace and relaxation entering your body, and the pain and anxiety leaving your body, for either the spot or ball of light. Once you've managed to reduce your pain, push out with your hands and imagine that you're pushing the ball of pain away as well.

 

Again, sounds Kooky, I know, but it's worked for me for years, I hope it works for you. This isn't medical advice of course, it's just a description of how I manage pain and shouldn't be practiced in lieu of your recommended care. Always consult a doctor before trying anything that deviates from your treatment plan.

 

Aaron

Edited April 7, 2012 by Twinner

[ChiDragon]

Yeah, well, I think most of us know that I am a materialistic person so I will be looking for a logical reason to the "Why". Doesn't mean I won't cross some borders though after I have defined the "Why".

 

 

I am glad that you do allow some infinitesimal room for finding the truth....

[JustARandomPanda]

When I got back home, I bought some books about Acupuncture, Physiology, Human Anatomy and the Gray's Anatomy. From the books, I had discovered that the nerves on my neck were connected to the brachial plexus. In TCM, it was customary not to treat the area in pain but the reflected acu-point. In my case, I have found the reflected acu-points are around my shoulder blade, scapula, in the back. Since these points are in the back, I need to get a hook-like tool to reach those acu-points. With the aid of this hook to apply some pressure to those points, I felt some small soreness on those acu-points. After a few treatment, my pain was almost gone completely. Of course, the pain cannot be completely gone but at least 95 to 99.99% was gone. The mysterious thing about that was the soreness on the scapula are gone too.

 

2. Another case, when I was sitting too long, my left leg gets numb or have a little pain sometimes. I had found two acu-points, on my lower and upper leg, to get rid of the pain and numbness.

 

Acupressure was independently re-discovered in the West several decades ago. For anyone who wants to see how Westerners explain and use Acupressure I recommend the following book (it's awesome!). Obviously since it's Western based it uses body-centric explanations Westerners are comfortable with and understand (blood, muscles, nerves, hormones, etc) rather than 'chi' or other TCM ways of explaining things.

 

The Trigger Point Therapy Workbook: Your Self-Treatment Guide for Pain Relief - 2nd edition.

 

 

The entire book has tons of diagrams mapping which points map to which areas of pain and almost all places you work on do not line up with where one experiences the pain. Anyway...it is very detailed so you can go through the entire program with your own body and even eventually use it on others as well.

[Marblehead]

I am glad that you do allow some infinitesimal room for finding the truth....

Hehehe. I already know the truth. I'm just not sharing it all all at one time or in one post.