Chronic Pain - finally, some interest in understanding it by Karlin Blog entry

Blog: Path of my Life
by Karlin

Chronic Pain - finally, some interest in understanding it

Medical research - Chronic Pain news

Date: 12/5/2007 1:04:15 AM ( 17 y ) ... viewed 3576 times

You may remember my theory [in this blog] about the involvement of the brain in chronic pain conditions like Fibromyalgia and so on. I found no research to back it up, despite the obvious nature of it.

Simply put, I figured that there are some people with a brain that is easily overloaded in the pre-motor areas and areas of the brain that decide what to do with sensory input. Those people will feel more pain from the same input compared to ordinary people, and then another part of their brain will over-react and start "gaurding" the body by cramping muscles and so on.

Well, finally I found a website that has something on that topic, plus other topics related to Fibro and chronic pain conditions.

Here is a quote from one article about that:
"[Neuroimaging] revealed a conspicuous pattern of altered brain morphology in the right superior temporal gyrus (decrease in grey matter), the left posterior thalamus (decrease in grey matter), in the left orbitofrontal cortex (increase in grey matter), left cerebellum (increase in grey matter) and in the striatum bilaterally (increase in grey matter)."

In other words, the brain is different in pain people. Especially the orbitofrontal cortex part being bigger - and therefore capable of "doing too much" - helps my theory out.

Link -

http://tinyurl.com/25sp8h

definition of word in this article:
"nociceptive" - refers to something causing or reacting to pain

------------Gut Bacteria needs to be right for people to feel right:

Here is another interesting one - these are all from the same website, just different pages - that is a topic that I have long believed to be very important to understanding disease, but totally ignored by medical research:

"Alterations in intestinal microbial flora and human disease"
- of course the intestinal flora makes a big difference!!! Humans are 90 % bacteria and only 10% human cells [another article I will try to get a link for - try googling it].
Link:

http://tinyurl.com/2s7t3g

2nd article: "Infection of the Gut"

http://tinyurl.com/2edw3l

-----------MU [opiate] receptors lacking:

Here is one that is close to my heart - about morphine and fibromyalgia - it seems that opiate drugs do not have much effect on people with 'fibro', and again it seemed like something simple research could have found out long ago.

Here is the link that shows it could be true:

http://www.fibromyalgiasupport.com/library/showarticle.cfm/ID/8346/t/CFIDS_FM

" Decreased central mu-opioid receptor availability in Fibromyalgia "

----------------- hypoglycemia:

Finally, another issue that I suffer from personally and have tried to get my doctors to pay attention to but was always dismissed as "what would you know" - hypoglycemia and chronic pain/CFS.

Scrolling down to the 2nd last paragraph you will see this:
"Some hypoglycemics also suffer from Fibromyalgia"
Wow!! I may have been right!! Not that I am so smart, but that I am the freakin' patient and I know what I am feeling!! Not only that, but when I finally figured out how to control my hypoglycemia, I had an improvement in my pain levels.
Link:

http://tinyurl.com/2t4w2g

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OK, thats enough for now - my midback is hurting like crazy from being in this position - see how I sacrifice for you? - lol, just kidding... [NOT!!]

Anyways, with a little "non-drug based" research there is much common sense ideas to be confirmed. Many of these discoveries could have helped me reduce the pain I have felt for so many years, and they might even help me convince my doctor to give me a bigger prescription for morphine!! [which, by the way, I don't suggest as a treatment for chronic pain - it will eventually just become an added problem that contributes to your pain, as well as having certain withdrawal pains most of the day]