Fifty years ago my mother (above, photo 1949) was admitted to hospital for exploratory surgery. To see if she had cancer. Today a very dear friend of mine is bravely fighting cancer: he is in week two of chemotherapy and radiotherapy. A scalpel hasn’t been near him yet. There will be surgery, but the diagnosis hasn’t required surgery. We have ways to look inside the body that we didn’t have in my mother’s time.
It Began With Sudden Blackouts. Then Came Some Alarming News is about a woman’s survival today that would not have been possible fifty years ago. G.C.M. is a rare autoimmune disease.
It was giant-cell myocarditis (G.C.M.), the most dangerous of the possibilities. This mysterious and deadly autoimmune disease has only been diagnosable before autopsy since the development of the heart biopsy some 50 years ago. Effective treatment has only recently emerged.
In Get the Stress Out of Your Life I talk about another RA patient I met at the gym. I can’t help but wonder had he been diagnosed in this era, rather than over twenty years ago, would his outcomes have been different?
Many people will remember thalidomide. Thought initially to be a great drug for treating morning sickness during pregnancy, it caused babies to be born with limb deformities.
About 40% of babies damaged by the effects of thalidomide died in their first year. But there are adults alive today who are living with disabilities caused by thalidomide.
Medical science learnt and the drug was no longer prescribed to pregnant women for morning sickness.
Medical science continues to learn. There are many articles in the media of late about opioids and addiction. Here are just two recently published; one from the USA, one Australian.
Neither article paints a positive picture. From the latter article:
…health authorities worldwide are grappling with soaring rates of opioid addiction and deadly overdoses. In Australia, the majority of opioid overdose deaths are now related to prescription painkillers rather than heroin.
Earlier in the week I became involved in a discussion on Twitter about alternative approaches to the management of chronic pain. I had just published an article, Our Pain, Our Brain and Our Nervous System. I work very hard to stay off pain killers and am very happy with my progress. In this twitter conversation I was told by an American MD there is no evidence supporting activity as a strategy. I wished my pain clinicians had been in my study so they could have taken over! As I was somewhat outnumbered and I do find 140 characters limiting, I bowed out of the conversation. I felt it didn’t matter what evidence I presented, I was not going to be heard. Two of the participants in that conversation reached out and I am communicating with them individually.
That experience got me thinking. We, both doctors and patients, are happy to use our new imaging technologies. We are grateful there is now a way to save a G.C.M. patient. We embrace biologics such as adalimumab. Why then are some so resistant to the concept there may be other ways to treat chronic pain than pain killers? UK studies have found GPs are “unconfident” discussing exercise with patients. This is perhaps related to the bigger picture.
The Pain Management Research Institute (University of Sydney) offers the ADAPT program.
When no effective or curative treatments are available the person in pain needs to shift their focus from seeking pain-relieving treatments to things they can do something about, despite ongoing pain.
These include increased activities, physical fitness, strength, mood, sleep, reducing reliance on unhelpful medication, developing useful coping strategies, improving relationships at home, getting back to suitable work, etc.
This requires that the person in pain has a good understanding of their pain and accepts the idea of living a normal life despite ongoing pain.
I can attest it doesn’t happen overnight. Yes, it takes effort. But the rewards and results are worth it.
Alternatives to pain killers are definitely worth considering. The programs do have exclusion criteria (refer the ADAPT link above) and people like myself with underlying on-going medical conditions do face additional challenges. It works for so many of us. What have you got to lose? More importantly, what can you gain?
Use of strong pain killers can result in drowsiness – no driving, perhaps unable to work, limits social interaction. One common one makes me and many other people very nauseous to the point all I can do is lie still. Not how I want to live my life. None of the pain killers cure the pain or help me live a normal life. We do less; as a result our bodies de-condition. As a result of that we most likely develop more pain. Weak muscles lead to unstable joints. I can’t build muscle strength if I am lying on the bed too nauseous to move from the use of a pain killer. I got my life back.
Resource:
Manage Your Pain (Australian Pain Management Association)
Limberation 