Nice to know
doctors can identify patients' pain at MIND center
By Barbara McKee / Tribune
Columnist
April 5, 2005
When
I read Tribune writer Sue Vorenberg's article
("Physicians find a new way to study their
patients' pain," Tribune, March 30) about the
discovery of certain physical changes that take place in
the brain when people suffer pain, I was elated.
Like most great medical breakthroughs, this one came
by accident.
At the University of New Mexico's MIND Imaging Center
not long ago, a woman was getting a brain scan, and her
ear was accidentally pinched so hard that she wanted to
scream. She didn't want to ruin the test results, so she
said nothing, until it was over. Luckily, the doctors
had taken a look at her brain changes during the test
and found that two chemicals that help combat pain -
glutamine and glutamate - had been released. Studies of
that chemical reaction have been going on for a year and
have now been published.
During my first 20 years being disabled, I suffered
from severe, debilitating pain that had no apparent
physical origin. I had no idea why my legs felt like
liquid fire or why my left arm would have shooting pains
that took my breath away. If I missed work, I didn't
have a doctor's excuse, because hundreds of X-rays taken
to learn why I suffered showed nothing. I managed by
taking as many over-the-counter painkillers as I could
stand.
In 1998, I met a man who suffered as I did. He is a
spinal-cord-injury wheelchair user who also experienced
pains that didn't have an evident explanation. He said
it was like being dipped in battery acid to the waist,
then set on fire. After his injury was technically
healed, his brain kept thinking his injury was fresh.
Therefore, it sent excruciating pain signals constantly
- like a skip on a compact disc.
Doctors at Stanford University called it
"central nerve pain syndrome." He offered
himself up as guinea pig in many controlled experiments
to find out why this syndrome occurred and how to
alleviate it. He was prescribed methadone, but his pain
is still unmanageable. Twenty percent of all people with
spinal-cord injuries suffer from central nerve pain
syndrome.
If someone suffers from pains such as these that -
until now - have no physical attributes, they too often
are ignored or labeled as hypochondriacs or drug addicts
using fake symptoms to get a fix.
I was relieved to finally put a label on what I tried
to explain to numerous doctors over the years. The
downside was by the time I found out about central nerve
pain syndrome, I had already developed several chronic
diseases that could physically document my pain. I found
out about the syndrome on the Internet and took the
information to my doctor. I was prescribed the
appropriate pain medication to keep from boring a hole
in my stomach with mega-doses of aspirin.
Hats off to Paul Mullins and his team for thinking
outside the box. Finally there's something tangible to
show the phantom pain suffered by thousands is real.
Ironically, it is in their heads.
You can e-mail Barbara McKee at chairgrrl@chairgrrl.com.
Her column runs on Tuesdays.
