Thank you for all the good information and encouraging words. The state or matter of the injury is not indefinite, that the body and brain has the capability of healing and has regenerative abilities. With the will be mobile is possible. Thank you for your available knowledge,service, kindness and optimism.
Spasticity ... Pain of tight muscles ... Affects balance ... Tight leg muscles ... Only cure I have found is prolong stretching and muscle relaxer (Zanaflex 1 mg 3 x daily). Stress, heat, exercise can trigger pain. Prior injury I would push through pain (as long distance hiker). I have learned that doesn't work with spasticity. Stretching works.
I take 1200mg Gabapentin 3 times a day and 20mg Oxycodone twice a day and sometimes Oramorph. I take them for a brachial plexus injury, in which the nerve root for muscle control in my left arm was avulsed from my spine. All the meds barely masks the extreme nerve pain that is always present, often I'm scared to move and simply can't breath it's so high. Although my arm and hand are paralysed, I do find squeezing and stretching my thumb and fingers helps, that's where I experience most of the pain. I also find a dark, quiet space with no stimuli helps me to quieten down the pain. The pain is like lightning and shards of icy cold and burning hot glass slicing through my fingers, hand and up through my arm, sometimes an intense crushing sensation, like a truck has parked on my arm and my forearm is about to snap.
Thanks for the video. Overall, my journey hasn’t involved too much pain, except in my right shoulder when I stretched it, in the first few months after my stroke. It can still be tight toward full extension, but not the pain it once was. The turning point was a medicated lotion that my doctor prescribed, which helped dramatically (until I developed a rash that was very itchy, but I was able to use it long enough to help). Thanks!
@@julierogers4473 It looks like it was diclofenac sodium topical (1%). Now that I think about, I also did a few days on Prednisone (or similar), somewhere around that time, but I always felt like the cream really helped (until the itchiness got to me). Thanks!
Awesome video! Unfortunately, I am on a pain journey but EVERYTHING you have talked about is so true. It's also fabulous to hear a PT talk about the cognitive side of pain. That's been one if my greatest battles.
Hi Stephanie! Thanks for watching and for sharing your story! I hope this helps. I plan to make several more videos about this topic. So stay tuned! You got this!!!
Hi you mentioned you did a video or mentioned cold as a treatment before, could you tell what it was titled as I am interested in the benefits or indeed negatives of cold showers. Thanks
There are so many directions we can go forward from this one video. Currently I'm investigating the relationship with learning new languages and expanding our mental & psychological awareness to include the mindfulness of being. I use the word languages loosely. I had mentioned before I found a great book called The Loom of Language written by a college professor back in the '40's which is back in print. In it Prof Bodner describes the various commonalities with English and the other four Romance languages. If those aren't your cup of tea, he does the same with the other four Teutonic languages. You see, English is one of several languages world travelers like to call a Lingua Franca, an alternative language people historically have used to bridge the gap in understanding between native speakers of two other languages. He does this to illustrate that it can be just as easy to learn several languages at the same time and a lot more fun, especially today, seventy-five years later when we can get foreign movies on Netflix, RU-vid and Amazon Prime. I can give you a dozen fabulous movies and television series you've never heard of, and they come with on-screen translations included if so desired. It's been a revelation in maintaining the mental state I like to call Andy's World for relieving bouts of boredom while dealing with spasticity, periods of intermittent fasting, exercises and controlled weight loss, and all the while improving my mobility, challenging my physical activity and just feeling good about myself. I fell off the wagon in May and ballooned up to 184. This morning, 167. No problem. How is any of this related to each other or our health and well-being? I could talk about this for days and it's one of the many reasons I gravitated to Tara's website. She never fails to surprise. She's always coming up with ways to rethink and improve ourselves. She doesn't let us dwell on what we can't do. She wants us to live our lives as functional, responsible adults who remain whole human beings still capable of doing pretty much anything we put our minds toward accomplishing.🥰
BTW, just started watching Boundless on Amazon in Spanish with English subs. 59% who watched this series gave it a 5 star rating. It's about Magellan's search for the passage to the Spice Islands. So far I agree, it reminds me of an old Errol Flynn movie. Most excellent.
My experience is that the combination of a positive mental attitude and thinking, multiple daily stretching and movement within the limits of the possibility is the prevention of the appearance of pain or its reduction. Our brain has tremendous possibilities, we just need to use them. It does not work quickly, but it is very effective and has no side effects. Have a nice week.
My doctor is a quack just wants to put me on an anti depressant doesnt do anything about pain etc other Doctor I have seen shrugs his shoulders , he is a quack also. No one wants to help just to medicate. Very hartd to deal with I am about to give up
You forgot to say addiction in the useless pain management habits. I was expecting more from this lesson because sometimes chronic pain from spinal/hip issues hurts with every movement & hurts even resting or laying down. Massage therapists can't even work on my muscles until they put me under a heating pad and have asked me to stretch before arriving. When they are finished after 45 minutes of nice massage (medical or Swedish, light or deep), I am so stiff that I can't move without pain even to get off their table. So I bear the pain. Sometimes laying down really DOES help though. One therapist showed me an exercise where you lean toward the pain with the relevant limbs, then put the limbs together (like at the hands), then focus on a spot 10 feet away while you rotate the limbs in a little circle clockwise 20 times then counter-clockwise 20 times. Afterwards, it takes me a few minutes to rest and unstiffen but then there is a lot of immediate improvement. He said it does something to the brain to unwire some pain. I was hoping for more info like that.
Are you familiar with trigeminal neuralgia? It’s a terrible disease that’s been coined the suicide disease. The pain is horrific. The pain medications they prescribe are anticonvulsant that barely work and come with so many side effects. But the effects diminish after a while. Then the next line of treatment involve surgery one of which is a brain surgery it’s just terrifying. You seem to be very knowledgeable with pain. Please if you see this comment I would greatly appreciate it if you could respond as this is something that is horrible to live with and very little is known about it.
Hi. Have you tried wearing a Sacroiliac (SI) Belt? I found it helpful and comfy to squeeze my hip bones.... while recovering from an awful, hard spill.
