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The Big File All issues not easily categorized in the above forums are here. Comments on general health, diet, "getting comfortable," and more are here.


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  #1  
Old 04-22-2005, 11:52 PM
Linda Linda is offline
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Hello,

I read an article recently in Readers Digest (March 2005), "End Your Back Pain." There was an interesting theory posed and I would like to research this a little. I asked Dr. Guyer today about his opinion and he believes there could be a link. I would be curious how many on this forum came from a dysfunctional family, suffered anxiety over a parents' divorce, lived with an alcoholic parent, were sexually, physically or emotionally abused as a child, or have suffered from any kind of severe emotional trauma? I don't want to get personal, but a simple yes or no would be great if any of those situations apply in your case. I am a definite yes, so I find this theory fascinating. I have had numerous doctors say they can look at an MRI of 2 different individuals and the MRI look identically bad in both cases, but one suffers tremendous pain and the other is totally asymptomatic and never develops symptoms. I am wondering if the pain receptors in the brain work different in people that have had some type of emotional trauma in their lives. Thanks if you can help. I may write a paper on this subject.

Linda
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Linda

10-02 - ProDiscs L4/5 and L5/S1 - FDA study - disks placed incorrectly which
caused problem at L3/4 and L2/3
01-05 - ProDiscs at C5/6 and C6/7 in Germany - seems to be working fine so far
Bedbound from 09-06 until 10-08 due to severe pain and weakness
09-08 - Had Fibrin sealant done at L3/4 and L2/3 After 6 weeks - much success!
Hoping and praying that the lumbar revision surgery that was scheduled with Dr. Regan
can be indefinitely postponed
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  #2  
Old 04-23-2005, 08:34 AM
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Harrison Harrison is offline
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Linda, interesting ideas -- but it sounds like a big leap. Pain is one thing, but a leading cause of back pain, problems and issues is disc degeneration. So what would the link be between emotion and DDD?

Maybe upbeat, happy people take better care of themselves. E.g., better posture, diet, exercise, general physical activity..
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Fell on my ***winter 2003, Canceled fusion April 6 2004
Reborn June 25th, 2004, L5-S1 ADR Charite in Boston
Founder & moderator of ADRSupport - 2004
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  #3  
Old 04-23-2005, 09:54 AM
Linda Linda is offline
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Harrison,

I don't know for sure. What I do know is that everybody has some degree of DDD as they age, but those with trauma seem to have a difference in the pain receptors and therefore are in a great deal of pain where others aren't affected even though they have the same degree of degeneration. I just think it is very interesting. I am really not trying to pry into anybody's personal life or say their pain is not real. It is very real. I am just wondering if the pain receptors in the brain work differently.

Linda
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Linda

10-02 - ProDiscs L4/5 and L5/S1 - FDA study - disks placed incorrectly which
caused problem at L3/4 and L2/3
01-05 - ProDiscs at C5/6 and C6/7 in Germany - seems to be working fine so far
Bedbound from 09-06 until 10-08 due to severe pain and weakness
09-08 - Had Fibrin sealant done at L3/4 and L2/3 After 6 weeks - much success!
Hoping and praying that the lumbar revision surgery that was scheduled with Dr. Regan
can be indefinitely postponed
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  #4  
Old 04-23-2005, 03:24 PM
jwestglass jwestglass is offline
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Hi Linda,

I am a firm believer in the mind-body connection that you are exploring and think that most defeineitly that the body has emotional pain that ends up in the tissues. The answer to your questions to your question for me would be a yes to almost all of your questions. Have you read about the affects of Heart transplanst on some of the recipents suddenly craving the food their donors loved and changes of all kinds. Yes, some people can have similar lookin MRI's and totally different symptomolgy. At the same time some of us have had phsyical accidents, falls, car accidents that have affected our anatomy such that surgical intervention was neccessary. I had a
two level ADR and it has been great. AT the same time I realize that my life of Trauma, wich started at three months of age with a need for an emergency kidney removal,scrar removal at 5 years,
abusive alchoholoic parents and many"accidents" kind of set the stage for pain in my life and how I looked and dealt with that pain. If you would like to discuss the matter further feel free to send me an email.
john
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  #5  
Old 04-23-2005, 07:15 PM
biffnoble biffnoble is offline
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A major flaw in allopathic medicine is the idea that the human body is a protoplasmic machine.

Unless you're Steven Spielberg, machines to date are souless. Humans are complex synergies. The infant a step along a continum started with conception which procedes to adulhood, old age and death. There is definitely a psychological component in disease esp. spine disease. I think we can help each other by sharing our knowledge of ourselves and our life experience.

The science of the spine is so undeveloped that even the fact that mid-thorcic pain may be referred C7 disease was until recently unknown. This is why we need to probe ourselves and report on our own experience.
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  #6  
Old 04-24-2005, 07:21 PM
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Harrison Harrison is offline
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Linda, I made not have been as supportive as my previous post indicated. I think your idea is great -- just very challenging. If you want to nurture these ideas here, go for it! We all would benefit. Furthermore, you are welcome to post any drafts or final papers here or on the main site.



(Some people forget that the main site is www.adrsupport.org)

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"Harrison" - info (at) adrsupport.org
Fell on my ***winter 2003, Canceled fusion April 6 2004
Reborn June 25th, 2004, L5-S1 ADR Charite in Boston
Founder & moderator of ADRSupport - 2004
Founder Arthroplasty Patient Foundation a 501(c)(3) - 2006
Creator & producer, Why Am I Still Sick? - 2012
Donate www.arthropatient.org/about/donate
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  #7  
Old 05-01-2005, 09:53 PM
lisa lisa is offline
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For what I ran across, it seems like childhood trauma is accociated with increased pain syndromes in small retrospective studes but not large prospective studies. However I didn't do a detailed review, this is just what I came across accidentaly looking for other medical information. Putting these in www.PubMed.org and looking for more articles might get much more information if you are interested.

On the other hand it is now becoming apparent that chronic pain causes changes in your brain (called central hypersensizitation, see, for example, http://www.wfubmc.edu/nba/faculty/coghill/coghill.html ) so it seems not improbable that people exposed to painful childhood abuse might have more pain. Childhood neglect and childhood PTSD also cause brain changes according to my psychologist friends. I don't know if those changes also affect systems involved in pain processing.

I wonder if the effect of trauma is not that those patients are more likely to develop psychosomatic issues as the docs offen claim but that the abuse sets up conditions that make it more likely for the patient to develop central hypersenstization if they do get injuried as those parts of the nervous systems are already partially injuied. Probably someone has already looked at that since there seems to be a lot of research in this area with the advent of fMRI and PET scanners.

Clin J Pain. 1993 Dec;9(4):260-5.

Childhood psychological trauma and chronic refractory low-back pain.

Schofferman J, Anderson D, Hines R, Smith G, Keane G.

San Francisco Spine Institute, California.

OBJECTIVE: To examine the correlation between childhood psychological trauma(s) and refractory back pain in patients with and patients without prior spine surgery. DESIGN: Retrospective chart review survey of 101 consecutive patients who had undergone multidisciplinary evaluation for refractory back pain. SETTING: Private practice, tertiary care spine center. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Each psychological risk factor (physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional neglect or abuse, abandonment, and chemically dependent caregiver) was rated as present or absent. Spinal pathology was graded as significant or not significant. RESULTS: There were 56 patients with failed back surgery syndrome, 28 men and 28 women, with a mean age of 43 and mean pain duration of 45 months. There were 45 patients with no prior surgery, 26 men and 19 women, with a mean age of 43 and mean pain duration of 33 months. In the failed back surgery syndrome group, 27 (48%) had three or more risks and 39 (70%) had two or more. When the 12 patients with significant pathology are not considered, 24 of the remaining 44 (55%) patients had three or more risks. In the group with no prior surgery, 26 (58%) had three or more risks and 38 (84%) had two or more. When the five patients with significant pathology are not considered, 24 (60%) had three or more risks. CONCLUSIONS: Multiple childhood psychological traumas may predispose a person to chronic low back pain. In patients in this setting with refractory low back pain with or without prior lumbar spine surgery, three or more childhood psychological risk factors are prevalent, especially in patients with minimal structural pathology.


Long-term prospective study finds no association between childhood trauma and adult pain complaints. This is the only prospective study of this issue in the medical literature. All other research that purports to establish a causal connection between childhood trauma and adult pain has been retrospective:

Pain. 2001 May;92(1-2):283-93.

Childhood victimization and pain in adulthood: a prospective investigation.

Raphael KG, Widom CS, Lange G.

Department of Psychiatry, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, New Jersey Medical School, 30 Bergen Street, ADMC 14, Newark, NJ 07107, USA. raphaekg@umdnj.edu

Evidence of the relationship between childhood abuse and pain problems in adulthood has been based on cross-sectional studies using retrospective self-reports of childhood victimization. The objective of the current study was to determine whether childhood victimization increases risk for adult pain complaints, using prospective information from documented cases of child abuse and neglect. Using a prospective cohort design, cases of early childhood abuse or neglect documented between 1967 and 1971 (n = 676) and demographically matched controls (n = 520) were followed into young adulthood. The number of medically explained and unexplained pain complaints reported at follow-up (1989-1995) was examined. Assessed prospectively, physically and sexually abused and neglected individuals were not at risk for increased pain symptoms. The odds of reporting one or more unexplained pain symptoms was not associated with any childhood victimization or specific types (i.e. sexual abuse, physical abuse, or neglect). In contrast, the odds of one or more unexplained pain symptoms was significantly associated with retrospective self-reports of all specific types of childhood victimization. These findings indicate that the relationship between childhood victimization and pain symptoms in adulthood is more complex than previously thought. The common assumption that medically unexplained pain is of psychological origin should be questioned. Additional research conducting comprehensive physical examinations with victims of childhood abuse and neglect is recommended.
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  #8  
Old 05-01-2005, 10:42 PM
Linda Linda is offline
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Lisa,

Thank you so much for your informative post. It would appear that you have a lot of the same questions I have.

Linda
__________________
Linda

10-02 - ProDiscs L4/5 and L5/S1 - FDA study - disks placed incorrectly which
caused problem at L3/4 and L2/3
01-05 - ProDiscs at C5/6 and C6/7 in Germany - seems to be working fine so far
Bedbound from 09-06 until 10-08 due to severe pain and weakness
09-08 - Had Fibrin sealant done at L3/4 and L2/3 After 6 weeks - much success!
Hoping and praying that the lumbar revision surgery that was scheduled with Dr. Regan
can be indefinitely postponed
Reply With Quote
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