Pain Management - how do you cope?

[jbm]

6. If you actually read the thread, you'd have seen this part, where I clearly recommend checking in with a doctor:

Um, I’m not saying anything about this method, but “you may want to check with a doctor, first” isn’t really “clearly recommend[ing] checking in with a doctor.”

 

[EverythingsHazy]

Um, I’m not saying anything about this method, but “you may want to check with a doctor, first” isn’t really “clearly recommend[ing] checking in with a doctor.”

You may want to check with a doctor, first, as well, and make sure you watch all of the videos that I linked.

"If you have any specific physical conditions, please consult your doctor first."

More caution...

Also, I didn't tell OP to try the method. There is a lot of actual science in the thread (particularly in the videos), that may or may not be of use to him.

 

[dzunk]

1. Nice assumption about my knowledge regarding the Wim Hof Method.
2. You admit to the cold helping with pain, other than that one day.
3. Your experience, especially when it was one time, is an anecdote with little weight behind it. At least I shared a video of an actual doctor giving facts about the WHM, and didn't make any outlandish claims, myself.
4. He should be capable of checking out a thread and reviewing information, and then making an educated decision, perhaps, with the aid of his doctor.
5. If you studied the science behind the method, you'd know that it's not just cold making you go numb. The "hyperventilation" portion of the breath work causes a temporary increase in your blood pH, which has an effect on pain receptors, as well.
6. The breath work is also suposed to have an effect on the body, which causes a release of endocannabinoids upon exposure to the cold water.
6. If you actually read the thread, you'd have seen this part, where I clearly recommend checking in with a doctor:

If you are going to catch an attitude, at least come with some facts that back up your claims, rather than an anecdote.

i wrote my bachelor thesis on pain reception, so i know something about it. There are many factors to pain reception and these all cant be solved with cold water and breathing excercises. I also said this method might work for some people, but i think it would work mostly for healty people in some one-time or short term pain events. If you have a long term condition it might help you, but it also might hurt you. And when you are already in big pain the last thing you want is taking chance to make it worse. Maybe you know a lot about wik hof method, but before making recommendations you should also take some time to study science behind pain and clinical (drug free) methods regarding long term pain.

 

[FlyingLow]

I do not respond well to cold, my whole body locks up, I can’t move, and the cold exacerbates my pain. This method is NOT FOR EVERYONE and annoying when people think it is a solution that EVERYONE should try.

...I think they are cultish the way his most ardent followers push it. Like everyone else just doesn't get it.

 

[arb]

Cold wrecks me also.

 

[Sparkpug]

I absolutely swap strains/varieties around regularly. I notice slight tolerance to specific ones. There's a TGA one called Agent Orange and it, so far, is my #1 in flower form. Has a nice upbeat mental high with a really intensely buzzy physical effect I can't quite describe. It tingles and eliminates the feeling of being stabbed repeatedly which is 80% of my pain. The rest is muscle and bone related. Pure 50/50 hybrids and even pure sativas seem to control it best. Sativas also make me feel warm, like I have an internal heating pad. I feel sort of the opposite with indicas... it makes me feel cold. I also feel lukewarm toward CBD.

I was hoping to reduce my reliance on morphine a bit more but 15mg twice a day didn't exactly work (though the new nurse practitioner suggested trying again with a gradual decline rather than an all at once -I "all at onced" the triple 60mg dose to double 30 with no taper and no trouble.) Due to cannabis I have eliminated the need for breakthrough meds. I also forget to take ms contin regularly cause it makes me itch like my skin is on fire, but I still need it for the remaining 20% of pain.

 

[bulllee]

I had been on Fentanyl patches, Oxy's, Somas. and some 12 other drugs since 2001. I was dying a slow death, still in pain and just fucked up beyond. I knew something had to change after suffering a Transient ischemic stroke back in 2014. I then did something stupid and stopped all my meds cold turkey. Not a wise thing to do when taking opioids, anti-psychotics, and anti- depressants and you have chronic pain syndrome ! I quickly learned you have to wean yourself off all the dope. It's been 5 years with no meds (except heart meds). I found losing weight, staying away from sugar, eating vitamins, and walking everyday are my saving grace. I vape and eat a lot of weed, take Epsom salt soaks, The hardest thing I can take is tylenol. Everything else is incompatible with my heart medicines. Don't get me wrong It's real tough at times, I've had cervical fusion, 4 stents put in, both knees replaced, shoulder replaced, and that's not all. You never get rid of the pain. You learn to manage it. Some things make it a little more bearable. And some things will trigger you and fuck you up

 

[arb]

Stress is the biggest"trigger" for me other than new physical injury.

 

[EverythingsHazy]

i wrote my bachelor thesis on pain reception, so i know something about it. There are many factors to pain reception and these all cant be solved with cold water and breathing excercises. I also said this method might work for some people, but i think it would work mostly for healty people in some one-time or short term pain events. If you have a long term condition it might help you, but it also might hurt you. And when you are already in big pain the last thing you want is taking chance to make it worse. Maybe you know a lot about wik hof method, but before making recommendations you should also take some time to study science behind pain and clinical (drug free) methods regarding long term pain.

I never claimed that all pain can be resolved with the WHM. I simply suggested the OP take a look at the thread, so he could decide for himself. If you watch the videos in the thread, as I say to do in my post, there are precautions.

Does the method work for everyone? No.

Does it work for some? Yes.

Have multiple people with long term issues, such as MS and Lyme's disease said it has helped them? Yes.

Can the WHM reduce stress, which is can exacerbate various types of pain? Yes.

There's no need to be hostile, when all I did was suggest that someone does their own research on something that may be of some use to him.

 

[MyCollie]

I had been on Fentanyl patches, Oxy's, Somas. and some 12 other drugs since 2001. I was dying a slow death, still in pain and just fucked up beyond. I knew something had to change after suffering a Transient ischemic stroke back in 2014. I then did something stupid and stopped all my meds cold turkey. Not a wise thing to do when taking opioids, anti-psychotics, and anti- depressants and you have chronic pain syndrome ! I quickly learned you have to wean yourself off all the dope. It's been 5 years with no meds (except heart meds). I found losing weight, staying away from sugar, eating vitamins, and walking everyday are my saving grace. I vape and eat a lot of weed, take Epsom salt soaks, The hardest thing I can take is tylenol. Everything else is incompatible with my heart medicines. Don't get me wrong It's real tough at times, I've had cervical fusion, 4 stents put in, both knees replaced, shoulder replaced, and that's not all. You never get rid of the pain. You learn to manage it. Some things make it a little more bearable. And some things will trigger you and fuck you up

Did you lose any range of motion following the shoulder arthoplasty? I don’t mean to pry but I’m facing something similar soon - I know the effects of surgery vary widely and our cases are probably very different but I thought I would ask anyway.

 

[bulllee]

Did you lose any range of motion following the shoulder arthoplasty? I don’t mean to pry but I’m facing something similar soon - I know the effects of surgery vary widely and our cases are probably very different but I thought I would ask anyway.

I injured my right shoulder in 2005, after 3 surgeries they told me I was Sol. Fast forward to 2019 and they said I was an excellent candidate for replacement. My shoulder was really fucked up so anything was an improvement. My range of motion is still limited, but pain is manageable and my shoulder doesn't get those annoying stabs of sharp pain when it's bone against bone. You know what I mean.

 

[MyCollie]

I injured my right shoulder in 2005, after 3 surgeries they told me I was Sol. Fast forward to 2019 and they said I was an excellent candidate for replacement. My shoulder was really fucked up so anything was an improvement. My range of motion is still limited, but pain is manageable and my shoulder doesn't get those annoying stabs of sharp pain when it's bone against bone. You know what I mean.

My situation is a bit different. This is a revision and I know for sure I’ll lose some range of motion. Like you I’ve had some major surgeries. I’ve always moved on and found new ways to adapt but the cumulative effects of all of the surgeries make it worse. But, as usual, I’ll just “keep on keeping on”.

 

[bulllee]

My situation is a bit different. This is a revision and I know for sure I’ll lose some range of motion. Like you I’ve had some major surgeries. I’ve always moved on and found new ways to adapt but the cumulative effects of all of the surgeries make it worse. But, as usual, I’ll just “keep on keeping on”.

Interesting. I do agree on the cumulative effects of surgery making it worse. It's a constant battle that we will never win. I've lost count of all the surgeries I've had. Vaping and eating weed is another tool in the fight.

 

[MyCollie]

Interesting. I do agree on the cumulative effects of surgery making it worse. It's a constant battle that we will never win. I've lost count of all the surgeries I've had. Vaping and eating weed is another tool in the fight.

I agree with the vaping and eating. I've bought multiples of RSO syringes, RSO pills, gummies, mints, suppositories, etc. I've also made cookies, brownies and some chocolate. I only vape certain concentrates. I feel that some of them have a different "smell" then flower and some produce less odor overall. I live in a condo and I'm always paranoid about odor traveling down the hall. My pre-op nurse told me to keep on using it if it helps - just not the morning of surgery. I still decided to stop for about 10 days. It's listed on my record as medicine rather than recreational only because I have a card. I stopped the meloxicam too for obvious reasons.

 

[dzunk]

I never claimed that all pain can be resolved with the WHM. I simply suggested the OP take a look at the thread, so he could decide for himself. If you watch the videos in the thread, as I say to do in my post, there are precautions.

Does the method work for everyone? No.

Does it work for some? Yes.

Have multiple people with long term issues, such as MS and Lyme's disease said it has helped them? Yes.

Can the WHM reduce stress, which is can exacerbate various types of pain? Yes.

There's no need to be hostile, when all I did was suggest that someone does their own research on something that may be of some use to him.

sorry if you had a feeling i was being hostile. that was not the point. i was just a little worried to see a suggestion for WHM in a thread like this. i think there should be more caution regarding new approaches of dealing with pain, since as i said, chronical pain is very hard to deal with. idk if you can imagine, but it is terrible to feel hope towards something that might help you, jus tot figure out it just made things worse.

arb: agreed, stress is a huge factor i pain perception. its interesting there is not so much information regarding stress modulatin pain perception (the exact title of my bachelor thesis was stress influence on pain perception, obviously said in a more complicated way in my language ). i alsways recommend to chronical pain patients to learn some kind of relaxation, many of them said it helps them to ease the pain a little, or at least to be more in peace with it and thus its easier to concentrate on other things a feel the pain less.

 

[arb]

sorry if you had a feeling i was being hostile. that was not the point. i was just a little worried to see a suggestion for WHM in a thread like this. i think there should be more caution regarding new approaches of dealing with pain, since as i said, chronical pain is very hard to deal with. idk if you can imagine, but it is terrible to feel hope towards something that might help you, jus tot figure out it just made things worse.

arb: agreed, stress is a huge factor i pain perception. its interesting there is not so much information regarding stress modulatin pain perception (the exact title of my bachelor thesis was stress influence on pain perception, obviously said in a more complicated way in my language ). i alsways recommend to chronical pain patients to learn some kind of relaxation, many of them said it helps them to ease the pain a little, or at least to be more in peace with it and thus its easier to concentrate on other things a feel the pain less.

While pain is physical our perception of it is mental..........I tell myself that sometimes.
I often tell medical personnel when discussing medical cannabis that its the mental relief that cannabis provides that is its most essential characteristic for me.

 

[dzunk]

There are many ways to cope with pain mentally. It actually might lower the physical feeling of pain, but it takes practice. For me it is most useful to redirect my attention Outside of my body completely. I think VR headsets might be a big help for pain patients when combined with meditation techniques or some games.

 

[EverythingsHazy]

sorry if you had a feeling i was being hostile.

so yeah, dont recommend shit you know nothing about, just because there is some kind of movement behind it and it seems cool.

That was the only part that I found rude. Otherwise, I'm fine with people having opposing beliefs or making opposing comments. My suggestion was merely for him to look at the thread. to see if it could be of any use, because the WHM does have pain alleviating attributes. It's not perfect, though, and is somewhat stressful on the body, so caution must always be exercised during practice, even if you are perfectly healthy.

Anyway, I'm not on here to make enemies, so apology accepted. I hope you find something that helps your pain. I do know what it feels like to get hopeful about a possible new "cure" that ends up falling through just like all of the others. It sucks. Luckily, we are in a time period where the fields of health and medicine are advancing somewhat rapidly, at least in certain areas, so there's some hope that something useful will be discovered or created, even if nothing currently exists.

 

[Alexis]

While pain is physical our perception of it is mental..........I tell myself that sometimes.
I often tell medical personnel when discussing medical cannabis that its the mental relief that cannabis provides that is its most essential characteristic for me.

Very true and we can definitely elevate above it and I feel we are supposed to by nature when we harness this free ability we doubt and take for granted which lies within all of us.

Kava helps ease my own physical discomforts wonderfully, and right now it strikes me that a large element of that is actually mental and psychological to do with raising my mental and emotional state and effectively detaching myself from all of the clutter and baggage that has built up in my mind over the day or night.

But as I mentioned to you before I still swear on the effectiveness of that topical magnesium spray and magnotherapy for localised acute injury and pain.

Especially for improving mobility with hands and forearms where I suffered some really terrible prolong to repetitive strain injuries about 7 years ago and every time I applied the magnesium oil it instant pain relief and increased my flexibility and mobility in those areas.

Magnets are good as well and that company I mentioned to you, Norstar, they also make a magnetic massaging tool called the Magnessager.

I think I might have mentioned it to you actually but using that for 10-minutes on a specific area is like wearing a strong neodymium magnet for 24-hours.

Plus that infrared massaging tool I think I also mentioned to you I hope so at least, the infrared in particular is incredibly effective at anaesthetising and bringing lasting pain relief at the same time as literally stimulating the healing of soft tissue injury.

I'm only reiterating that here for the sake of any others who may be interested in exploring these avenues.

Hope all is well with you Arb this evening mate.


Edit- just struck me this concept, from your simple expression above- that we could possibly make a legitimate philosophical type argument that pain is imaginary?

Just like the material 3d world which supposedly is an illusion of matter, which is in fact pure energy vibrating at particular levels and I guess this also tyres in with the entire movement and proposition of the Ascension process and raising of vibrational levels of human consciousness to a different dimension altogether, like 5D I believe, after quickly traversing through the demon residing fourth dimension on the way.

Supposedly anyway LOL I try and keep my mind open as possible.

 

[arb]

I think Buddha said all of lifes suffering is caused by our attachment.
Sadly some days I can only detach so much and for the rest I am eternally grateful for drugs.
Hope your well @Alexis and say hello to Mum for me.

 

[Alexis]

I think Buddha said all of lifes suffering is caused by our attachment.
Sadly some days I can only detach so much and for the rest I am eternally grateful for drugs.
Hope your well @Alexis and say hello to Mum for me.

Thanks mate, I feel you totally. At rocky times, when it can feel like we lack all control over our overall health and how we feel from day-to-day, it can be for myself, a really hard task to enjoy my drugs and get sufficient comfort to be at peace at all.

Better times, more easy come!

Zero vapor here today, but edibles, 60 grams of kava (basically a lot haha), and I did even trip on 180ug last night, mad me! Nice buzz all round anyway.



Oh....oil of oregano- is actually a surprisingly effective general painkiller and anaesthetic along with with a myriad of other reputable health benefits, especially in the current day of Corona.

Zane Hellas on ebay is the one.

 

[dzunk]

That was the only part that I found rude. Otherwise, I'm fine with people having opposing beliefs or making opposing comments. My suggestion was merely for him to look at the thread. to see if it could be of any use, because the WHM does have pain alleviating attributes. It's not perfect, though, and is somewhat stressful on the body, so caution must always be exercised during practice, even if you are perfectly healthy.

Anyway, I'm not on here to make enemies, so apology accepted. I hope you find something that helps your pain. I do know what it feels like to get hopeful about a possible new "cure" that ends up falling through just like all of the others. It sucks. Luckily, we are in a time period where the fields of health and medicine are advancing somewhat rapidly, at least in certain areas, so there's some hope that something useful will be discovered or created, even if nothing currently exists.

i didn't mean shit like it is a shit. i should have written method. shit was too much. again, sorry for that.

 

[Alexis]

@EverythingsHazy easy bro. There is also another breathing technique method, with astounding general health improvements reported, and totally safe as far as I am aware- called the Buteyko method.

I did this for a while in 2011, 12. It involves only mouth or sinus shallow breathing, can't remember which, for x amount of minutes, then a full and complete exhalation, followed by as long a nose pinched breath hold as possible.

Unbelievably, I worked up to holding my empty lungs for up to 2.5 minutes.

It always energized, refreshed, calmed and uplifted me. Improved my breathing.

Quite remarkable to hold breath for over 2 minutes after a complete exhale, you then go immediately back to I think 4 minutes shallow breathing, repeat the exhale and hold, a certain number of times.

It works some magic, according to some scientific logic. Legit stuff I swear, which I'm sure has pain relieving properties too.

 

[EverythingsHazy]

i didn't mean shit like it is a shit. i should have written method. shit was too much. again, sorry for that.

No hard feelings, man.

@EverythingsHazy easy bro. There is also another breathing technique method, with astounding general health improvements reported, and totally safe as far as I am aware- called the Buteyko method.

I did this for a while in 2011, 12. It involves only mouth or sinus shallow breathing, can't remember which, for x amount of minutes, then a full and complete exhalation, followed by as long a nose pinched breath hold as possible.

Unbelievably, I worked up to holding my empty lungs for up to 2.5 minutes.

It always energized, refreshed, calmed and uplifted me. Improved my breathing.

Quite remarkable to hold breath for over 2 minutes after a complete exhale, you then go immediately back to I think 4 minutes shallow breathing, repeat the exhale and hold, a certain number of times.

It works some magic, according to some scientific logic. Legit stuff I swear, which I'm sure has pain relieving properties too.

I think I watched a video about that one, a few months ago, but I dont know as much about it. I know that with the WHM, I held my breath on an exhale (not full just to neutral) for right over 3 minutes, once. My average is 1:45-2:30, though. The WHM really oxygenates us and drops out CO2 levels, though. I wonder how the Buteyko affects the body chemisty.... Time to reasearch. lol

 

[Alexis]

No hard feelings, man.


I think I watched a video about that one, a few months ago, but I dont know as much about it. I know that with the WHM, I held my breath on an exhale (not full just to neutral) for right over 3 minutes, once. My average is 1:45-2:30, though. The WHM really oxygenates us and drops out CO2 levels, though. I wonder how the Buteyko affects the body chemisty.... Time to reasearch. lol

Yeah that rings a bell, that mechanism you describe, it was so long ago. But I think that may essentially be the exact effecf. Except I do believe the buteyko method is entirely safe.