Introduction
Introduction Statistics Contact Development Disclaimer Help
_______ __ _______
| | |.---.-..----.| |--..-----..----. | | |.-----..--.--.--..-----.
| || _ || __|| < | -__|| _| | || -__|| | | ||__ --|
|___|___||___._||____||__|__||_____||__| |__|____||_____||________||_____|
on Gopher (inofficial)
Visit Hacker News on the Web
COMMENT PAGE FOR:
Why I left my tech job to work on chronic pain
butterisgood wrote 17 hours 3 min ago:
I mean… tech jobs are already there TBH.
bentt wrote 22 hours 31 min ago:
Are you familiar with Dr. John Sarno's work and if so, how does it
relate to what you'll be writing about?
heraldgeezer wrote 22 hours 50 min ago:
Weight needs to be mentioned more. Even in Europe 50% or so are
overweight or obese.
rickvidallon wrote 1 day ago:
Any pixel pushers out there experience PMR? aka Polymyalgia rheumatica
mieubrisse wrote 1 day ago:
YES! I'm experiencing a separate-but-related problem to do with myopia,
and my eyes perpetually getting longer (likely due to the long hours of
computer use).
I wish I could go back to completely undistracted building, but I
realize now that I was a bit addicted and that level of intensity was
hurting me.
Now what occupies my waking hours is, "How can I debug this failing
system?"
wysewun wrote 1 day ago:
Have had long term chronic pain. Think possibly due to a combination
of tendinitis and lack of movemen as a dev
Our bodies aren’t meant to be in one position for that long no matter
the ergonomics unless you know what you’re doing.
Lots of people mock tiktok for the dancing but in observing the dances,
I’ve grown an appreciation for full range of movement and trying to
increase range of motion in the joints
I was able to find some exercises that helped in this to decompress but
I can go into more detail if people want
alshival wrote 1 day ago:
I feel you. Used to work 16 hours a day. I quit my job and started
freelancing. These days, I only commit 20 hours a week to work. Still
make enough to pay my bills and live a little, but I won't be getting a
boat anytime soon. But with that extra time, I go to the gym, play
video games, or blast the neighborhood using my brand spanking new Eric
Clapton Pewder Strat.
I have 15 years in data, and 10 years in machine-learning. Back in
2016, I couldn't find a job doing machine-learning. These days, I don't
worry anymore about finding work. Things have improved.
bGl2YW5j wrote 1 day ago:
What a coincidence! I’m also in Australia and have just finished a
self-imposed 8 month holiday from the tech world BS you describe.
I started the holiday super jaded with the idea of working in tech
forever. I spent my time on everything but tech. Recently my passion
has been reignited and I’ve got more clarity around what it is about
tech and my career I enjoy, and what I want from my future.
Now, I’m working on a healthcare service for chronic disease.
halayli wrote 1 day ago:
Prolonged stress is often a major contributor to cp. The problem is
that after being stressed for a long period we no longer feel the
weight until it's fully lifted which requires taking some time off and
the majority of us are not in a position to do that.
ThinkBeat wrote 1 day ago:
He decided he could monetize his recovery by selling the
"the cure" on a newsletter basis and using organic
growth to make more money.
As he does point out he is not a doctor and his
solution is not backed by extensive medical studies.
He could just write a document laying it all out,
and letting people download it, easier for everyone.
(and try to get some researchers do the chekcing).
This is damn close to snakeoil.
glasscannon wrote 1 day ago:
I appreciate your skepticism.
> by selling the "the cure" on a newsletter basis and using organic
growth to make more money.
I am not selling anything, the information from what is happening ->
to how to recover (if it is relevant to you) is and will be freely
available on this substack. It is not paywalled and I'm not intending
for it to be.
Additionally where are you quoting "the cure" from? I will be sharing
information for people to use to self assess if it applies to them.
Recovery from chronic pain is rarely simple as your quote implies -
instead it requires daily concentrated effort.
> his solution is not backed by extensive medical studies.
Please read this study from 2021: [1] [2] > He could just write a
document laying it all out, and letting people download it, easier
for everyone.
Readers are more than welcome to download an offline copy from their
browser if they'd prefer to consume it that way.
> (and try to get some researchers do the chekcing).
This is a valid point and I'll see how I can integrate it into future
pieces, even if it's just collaborating with (legitimate)
researchers. Thanks.
Something to understand is until yesterday no one knew I was in this
space. Me DM'ing a researcher and asking them to vet my writing would
likely have at best resulted in them letting me know they're busy.
That likely isn't the case anymore.
> This is damn close to snakeoil.
Happy to discuss this in more depth. I don't see which part is
comparable to snakeoil.
[1]: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle/...
[2]: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34586357/
monkeyelite wrote 1 day ago:
Another post reflecting the aging HN population.
algo_lover wrote 1 day ago:
Why do all such articles never talk about the meat of the solution? Why
do I always feel like I'm being sold something.
Why is it so hard to explain the solution briefly, or directly present
it to me upfront. Why does it need so much of mystery around it?
In this article the OP does not even mention "Pain reprocessing theory"
which is what they seems to be talking about (based on the study they
have linked)
cousin_it wrote 1 day ago:
Hi algo_lover, I also noticed that about the post. The approach being
discussed is "pain reprocessing therapy". It was described in a book
called The Way Out, by Alan Gordon and Alon Ziv. Here's my short
summary of the book:
- Chronic pain is often generated by the brain, not any actual
injury. Not always, but often. Especially if it gets worse during
stress or high alert, and especially if the feeling of pain becomes
connected to your fear of that same pain.
- In periods when pain is high, you need to kinda nurse it. Lie down,
put warm water on it, whatever it takes. Don't try to power through
the pain. Avoid situations where you have to power through.
- In periods when pain is moderate or low, take short sessions to
examine it. "Ok, this isn't a threatening injury, this is just a
sensation. Where is it located? What shape? Hot or cold? More dull or
more like tingling?" Etc, etc. Don't hyperfocus, just explore the
feeling in a light and curious way.
hyperbolablabla wrote 1 day ago:
This sounds LLMlish
koliber wrote 20 hours 44 min ago:
I found that a lot of advice for working with LLMs is based on
asking good questions. This is also good advice for working with
people, and for working with yourself.
cousin_it wrote 1 day ago:
I'm a human and was just trying to write the most helpful reply
to parent, but now that you point it out, yeah.
projektfu wrote 1 day ago:
Don't feel bad, I've been failing Turing tests since MS
Messenger days.
Winsaucerer wrote 1 day ago:
I am also a fellow human.
williebeek wrote 1 day ago:
Me too, really...
rand17 wrote 1 day ago:
Chronic pain is complicated. There is no universal solution.
Sometimes there's no solution at all.
re-lre-l wrote 1 day ago:
Went hospital, took medication. No magic. That's the cause
delhanty wrote 1 day ago:
As someone who has been mitigating and managing chronic pain for 25
years, with respect IMO your expectation is unrealistic.
There isn't a "solution" - you're looking at a life-long mitigation
and management strategy that will not be "brief".
The time commitment typically goes up as one ages. I could spend 40
hours a week on nutrition, exercise and relaxation if I was trying to
optimize for chronic pain reduction.
But then nothing else would get done.
glasscannon wrote 1 day ago:
Hey algo_lover, OP here.
Just woke up and this post's traction has surpassed my wildest
imagination.
Similar to what pedalpete has said, I'm looking to release this in
parts to ensure:
1. I am not overwhelming people and losing their interest
2. Quality remains as high as possible (I invested only a few hours
into this last week as an experiment). I want this blog to be the
most easily accessible, engaging + factual source for chronic pain
sufferers. That requires sufficient time to nail (and it seems like
I've struck a chord so far).
3. Get signals from readers week by week and tailor to the audience
which is forming.
This will help me helpfully reach the most pain sufferers.
RE feel like you're being sold something. This series will cover what
is needed to recover from chronic pain and be offered for free. I am
looking to build a product eventually (why wouldn't I want help as
many people as posssible while building a career which does good - I
don't believe they're exclusive), but the information in this blog
will remain free.
RE not calling out Pain reprocessing theory/therapy - I'll go through
the post today and see if it makes sense to add this into #1 (or if
it's better for #4). It's not something I consciously omitted when
writting this post last week.
Thanks for the comment!
projektfu wrote 1 day ago:
TBH I couldn't tell what the condition was or what general kind of
treatment it was from the article without making big assumptions.
Chronic pain is a symptom, viz. pain that doesn't go away after a
short time. What was your disease? Or was it never given a name
but the pain was treated?
Then I had to click a link "a landmark study" to get an idea of
what the treatment is. Why not put the title of the treatment
there?
Finally, that article is about back pain. But you had tendon pain.
Obviously a psychological technique can be applied to multiple
diseases, but you might say something about that.
snozolli wrote 1 day ago:
Your reply seems disingenuous, like marketing-speak. You're
telling people "I have a solution to your chronic pain" and then
they read the article only to find out "tune in next week for the
next bread crumb".
Chronic pain drives people to suicide. You're toying with people's
emotions.
necovek wrote 1 day ago:
Thanks for wanting to help, but:
1. You've lost my interest with no "meat", as the GP stated.
2. There is no "quality" in using a couple thousand words of text
to say "I'll be writing about what helped with my chronic pain over
time".
3. Here's the signal: I am not in for "weekly" sessions. I do have
chronic pain, but what you want to be producing is utterly
incompatible with what I need.
Nathanba wrote 22 hours 52 min ago:
here is what helped reduce my chronic neck pain: red meat (beef)
with no side dish, eating healthy in general (and I mean truly
healthy, not "oh one small candy bar every two days is proably
okay..." no, it actually isn't. It's poison.) and exercise, a
foam roller, bench press. Also definitely don't eat leafy greens,
if you do that then you should stop in my opinion. I can't
emphasize enough how important it is to truly eat perfectly. You
can't make a single mistake or it will start the sickness cycle
again. Not immediately but even a single piece of chocolate will
make it so that the body is susceptible to further damage the
next day. Then if I eat another piece the second day I'm really
risking it and the damage left a hole in my health. I've had
multiple instances where I ate a piece of cake and a donut and I
was getting sickly with a hot head within 2h. I think it's hard
to emphasize enough how important health is, it should be your
top hobby to be healthy and eat healthy. It should be your nr.1
pasttime to research health and draw joy from doing health
related things.
asacrowflies wrote 2 hours 8 min ago:
What kind of "health" is just red meat and no green leafy
veggies???
pedalpete wrote 1 day ago:
I've been guilty of this myself for our neurotech sleeptech company,
and I still owe HN a better blog post clarifying our positioning.
I think there are a few reasons you see this in health/medical
community.
1) just helping people understand a different view of the problem is
often enough for one blog post. Stuffing new way to look at solution
and new solution together can sometimes be a bit much.
2) we have to be cautious from a regulatory perspective about what we
say, and sometimes in being too cautious don't give the people who
REALLY want to understaned the processes enough to go on. For our
company, I used to say things like "we can increase the synchronous
firing of neurons which results in reduced 15^% drop in early night
cortisol, and 14.5% increase in hrv....".
But prior to regulatory approvals, we can't point directly to
neurological or physiological processes, which means we kinda end up
talking around the solution a bit.
3) in marketing, they want to connect and build an audience, so they
are dripping more information over time. One post gets feedback and
interest from one group, then you do another, and another. It's about
building the community and connecting with people, not just a "here's
a problem, do the thing, thanks". If you are trying to build a
business, you probably need to get in front of people 7-8 times,
particularly if you're taking a new approach to a problem, to build
trust and brand recognition.
It's not the best, but it is the way the world works.
762236 wrote 1 day ago:
As someone who has overcome chronic pain, and frequently foils acute
pain from turning into chronic pain, I started daily joint-mobility
exercises from Kelly Starrett's Supple Leopard book (and his MWOD
videos on YouTube) to achieve this. Physical therapy needs daily,
incremental progress, which you can do yourself.
specialist wrote 1 day ago:
Agreed.
Yes and: Kelly's freq collaborator Jill Miller (author of The Roll
Model, TuneUp Fitness, etc.).
anon1685212382 wrote 1 day ago:
Since I became 30yo, I suffered various health issues. I see people
much older than me including my parents who were in much better shape,
and I kept thinking what was wrong with me. I’m 37yo now and in
almost the best shape of my life, and there was so much I learned -
I’m sharing here in case it can help others.
First: With the exception of extreme health issues (e.g. Cancer), you
likely have a good chance of resolving your health issues. Don’t be
discouraged by your chronic pains and think you have to now live with
the pain or health issues for the rest of your life. Tackle your health
issues like any other engineering problem: understand the problem, make
a plan, execute, monitor progress, and iterate over this process (e.g.
revise your plans). If you do not take action, nothing will change.
Second: Stress is a killer. I’ve had to visit the emergency room
twice because I thought I either had a heart attack or I was dying from
high blood pressure. I was way too into my work (due to both passion
and commitment), that delays with my projects gave me high mental
pressure. Upon re-evaluating my life, I asked myself: which is more
important, my work or my health? Once I started prioritizing my health
and started pushing back on unreasonable timelines, my stress is gone
and none of the chest pain, headache, and high blood pressure issues
have come up again.
Last but not least: Your body is a very complex machine and you need to
learn how to use it correctly. I had a very sedentary lifestyle and
had many chronic pains, e.g. heels, ankles, knees, hip, elbow, wrist,
etc. My body was so weak that I even injured my neck and back once
just by sleeping in a not-so-great position. I found an awesome PT who
specialized in holistic physical therapy and he helped address issues
from my feet all the way to my neck. I am now able to resume all the
activities from my younger days such as DDR & tennis. There’s too
much to explain here but I have two key takeaways: one is my body was
extremely tight & inflexible and PNF treatment from my PT was needed
for recovery, and another is I just didn’t know my body and muscles
well. I did not know how various muscles work, how to use my body &
muscles effectively, and what exercises to do and their correct form.
Learning and doing the exercises properly and frequently changed my
life. Btw: I highly do NOT recommend all the YouTube fitness videos -
you simply just cannot tell if what they’re saying is correct and
whether their suggestion is even the correct remedy for your problem.
That is all. I wish everyone good luck in addressing their chronic
pain!
storus wrote 1 day ago:
If your pain stems from covid, try high doses of thiamine or
alternatively TTFD. Quite a few people reported feeling great for the
first time in ages after a single high dose and there seem to be some
studies showing pain disappearance in fibromyalgia.
keysdev wrote 1 day ago:
I highly recommend look at Susan Luschas web site. [1] She is also a
former tech person who is doing deep dive into debugging health. Much
chronic pain maybe dental and organ related.
1.
[1]: https://debugyourhealth.com/
amai wrote 1 day ago:
tldr; Pain Reprocessing Therapy: [1] As stated at the end, the authors
of the study have a lot of conflicting interests.
[1]: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34586357/
glasscannon wrote 1 day ago:
Thanks for sharing the link - this one goes into more depth: [1] I
can't comment on the conflict of interest as I do not know the
practitioners personally, but from additional/supplementary research
in this space as well as the massive amount of people this work has
appearerd to help recover (look at reviews/discussion for books like
the 'The Way Out') - it does seem to be having a big impact.
I'm aiming to link supplementary research in follow-on articles (e.g.
the relation b/w pain and injury where nociplastic pain is present,
the impact of psychological factors on pain etc) to paint a
comprehensive (yet digestible) picture.
[1]: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle/...
amai wrote 1 day ago:
You are sharing exactly the same article I already did. It has the
same information, it is just a different url.
pstuart wrote 2 days ago:
The mind/body part for dealing with chronic pain is vital to embrace,
but isn't always enough. Finding ways to "attack" pain would be a
relief to millions.
The best I've been able to find is kratom, but that's not without its
concerns -- drug laws are no friend to pain patients (let alone society
as a whole).
Pro tip: get a shingles vaccine if you are able to -- postherpetic
neuralgia is no fun.
mgz18 wrote 2 days ago:
When I was 34, I was laying in bed one night and noticed that muscles
all over my body were twitching. It didn't go away. A month later I
went to a neurologist in my hometown in the midwest for a workup that
culminated in a EMG-NCV study (the neurologist doing that study asked
if I liked the NY Yankees.. "I do not.. and I've definitely never heard
of Lou Gehrig.. so let's get on with it.."). Ultimately he
congratulated me on having no signs of ALS or any other
neurodegenerative disease and told me to "live your life." He hadn't
seen the widespread persistent muscle twitching I was experiencing
before. Six months later, I went to another neurologist, this time at
Stanford. She did another workup and said the same things as the first
guy, except she added, "yeah, we see this fairly often." The diagnosis
was "Benign Fasciculation Syndrome" (BFS), aka "we don't know what
caused everything to start twitching or how to stop it, but it won't
progress and kill you."
What really struck me was that 1) the midwestern neurologist seemed to
have never seen symptoms like mine, whereas the Stanford neurologist
had seen them often, and 2) the Stanford neurologist linked it to
poorly managed anxiety. At the time I was five years into a data
scientist role at a big tech company in the bay area (now it's two year
later - the symptoms improved somewhat but are still there). I
definitely had burnout and mental health problems and was in denial
about them ("I have all these great perks, how could my work be causing
my mental health issues?").
The best thing you can say about BFS is it isn't physically painful; I
am definitely not equating it with the chronic pain issues that others
have described on this thread, which seem much tougher. It's another
one of those things that has no known cure (diet / lifestyle / mental
health improvements help somewhat), is only vaguely understood ("your
nerves are oversensitive"), is linked to mental health issues, and
seems overrepresented in the bay area (maybe in other tech/urban
centers too, I don't know). Two years in, I don't have any answers,
just wanted to share in case it's helpful to anyone.
zermelo44 wrote 2 days ago:
Thanks for posting. I look forward to following along.
I have had chronic pain and other annoying functional neurological
symptoms for the past 4 years. It started about halfway throughout my
PhD.
I was born with congenital torticollis (fibrosis of the right
sternocleidomastoid muscle) and had surgery for this twice when I was
young. I also had 3 other surgical procedures for different reasons as
a child.
Because my pain started in my neck and shoulder, I was set on believing
that my previous surgeries were the cause of my pain. But as I learned
more, meditated more, did yoga more, and faced pushback (and lots of
confusion) from health professionals, it became clear that my symptoms
are mainly "mind-body" (I hate that dualistic term).
I'd be very interested in talking more.
xyst wrote 2 days ago:
Very odd pipeline from rank and file tech employee to wellness and
alternative medicine "influencer".
Ticks all the boxes:
- not a doctor
- not a physical therapist
- offering tips to solve your pain that somehow nobody could
- emphasizing a single "landmark" study with no other context
- results based off of personal experience
Guy is trying to become the RFK Jr of Aussie land.
godot wrote 2 days ago:
I'd be curious to follow along and read more. My experience is that
everyone's body is quite different and what causes chronic issues with
everyone can be quite different. That's not to say his observations and
solutions won't be useful to others, but it's another good anecdote to
understand and things worth trying for others having similar issues.
I myself for example have had headache and migraine issues for more
than 25 years. I understand deeply an incredible amount about what
causes my migraines, how they feel, how I help with it, and so on. I
understand migraines more than anyone else I ever know in my life
because I observe, pay attention, study, and try different things so
much. I understand it more than most doctors I talk to. But I also know
that everyone's migraines are a little different and not everyone gets
triggered by the same things (though there's a lot of overlaps) and my
solutions may not help for everyone. I'd totally write something like
this for migraines if I had the time (I don't :( ).
littlexsparkee wrote 2 days ago:
I dealt with mobility issues the last 2.5 years after turf toe (healed
after 1 year and then reinjured), didn't realize how crucial
strengthening was after losing muscle resting, then after research
found out how critical loading tendons is to having them repaired. I
left my stable job a couple of months ago to dedicate myself to getting
my life back. I'd let thumb RSI simmer for a long time too, even though
I got to the point where I could do most things with Talon (friction
made me get lazy occasionally). The hardest part is mental - the ups
and downs, isolation, not knowing what to do to fix yourself, feeling
like your body is betraying you and the lack of help from the medical
system besides some basic scans and generic advice. I'm glad that I had
a cushion so that I haven't had to stress too much taking time off.
To folks dealing with physical pain, I recommend:
Built From Broken by Scott Hogan, Rehab Science by Tom Walters.
For joint issues these may help: celadrin, pro-resolving mediators, red
mineral algae w/ aquamin, natural eggshell membrane, collagen peptides
w/ fortigel.
foobiekr wrote 2 days ago:
I have a pretty severe back injury - double pars fracture and
significant spondylolisthesis from an accident (not a car accident).
For many years i was in incredible pain, but it just kept going,
sometimes getting a lot worse. When this happened I would go get some
imaging done to make sure there weren't degenerative changes that
needed to be addressed - you should never, ever get back surgery if you
don't need it, so I am cautious about it. But I noticed something, all
on my own, and that is that it seemed to correlate with periods of
intense stress. I still have a ton of stress, but recognizing that
actually kind of made a tremendous difference.
I hesitate to add a link to this on the thread, but there is an
interesting story around chronic pain actually being psychological and
there are now some high quality studies coming out. [1] I especially
hate to link to LessWrong but this is an actually decent thread on the
topic: [2] I didn't know about any of this and had never been exposed
to any of it when I drew my conclusions and started to feel less pain.
Don't get me wrong, there are still things that will set my back off,
but now I probably go actual years without even thinking about it.
[1]: https://journals.lww.com/painrpts/Fulltext/2021/09000/Psychoph...
[2]: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/BgBJqPv5ogsX4fLka/the-mind-bod...
munificent wrote 1 day ago:
> there is an interesting story around chronic pain actually being
psychological
I think this is an incorrect oversimplification.
I had a pretty bad accident a year ago and am still dealing with
physical therapy and recovery from it. I have spent a lot of last
year traveling the land of pain.
It's not that pain (chronic or not) is psychological. It's more that
our pyschological state modulates how we experience pain.
If you hit your thumb with a hammer, the pain you feel is absolutely
not psychosomatic and entirely in your head. There are real nerves in
your hand sending your brain real pain signals.
But if you happen to do that on a day that you're really stressed
out, it will hurt worse. And if days after the accident you are still
hurting and you find your inner monologue saying things like "See,
you hit your thumb because you're such a stupid clutz." then you will
experience that pain with greater intensity and for longer than if
you had a more positive narrative around the injury.
Aurornis wrote 1 day ago:
> I hesitate to add a link to this on the thread, but there is an
interesting story around chronic pain actually being psychological
and there are now some high quality studies coming out.
This is a misinterpretation of these studies which is common
throughout this thread.
The research isn’t showing that chronic pain is a psychological
condition. It’s suggesting that some cases of nonspecific chronic
pain that specifically do not match the symptoms of typical
physically-rooted pain are psychological. The participants in this
study were filtered for this criteria.
For some reason, people see this idea and lose the nuance, concluding
that most or all chronic pain is actually psychological.
I think if someone matches the description used by the author of the
substack for this HN entry (he describes his chronic pain as random
and popping up all over his body) then pursuing the psychological
explanation would be a very good idea.
However, it’s getting frustrating to see all of the reductionist
claims that “chronic pain is psychological”.
foobiekr wrote 1 day ago:
I did not say _all_ chronic pain. I would go back and edit that to
be "some" if I still could.
sd8f9iu wrote 1 day ago:
I agree. I lived with chronic pain for over a decade due to a
specific medical problem that, though I could never get a precise
diagnosis, was not caused by stress or my mental state. It was
incredibly frustrating to deal with family and others who had read
articles like this one and insisted all chronic pain was
psychological in origin and needed a mind-body approach. I am happy
for the author and am sure this approach works for many, but I'm
not sure why they think that all chronic pain is common in cause.
There are a host of chronic pain conditions that are physiological
in origin and not psychological.
Quekid5 wrote 1 day ago:
> However, it’s getting frustrating to see all of the
reductionist claims that “chronic pain is psychological”.
It's incredibly frustrating and disheartening... For obvious
reasons, I'm not going to go into too much detail, but chronic
(non-visible) pain is the worst of the worst. People will either
think you're "faking"[0] or it's "just psychosomatic"[1]. I
actually relish being able to work for a good long day because I'm
lucky enough to actually enjoy making computers do stuff.
[0] Yes, I love to miss lots of family occasions, just because.
[1] I'll just will myself better. Nevermind the MRI scans and all
that.
EDIT: I should add... the cognitive biases at work are
understandable because they've probably been around since
proto-humanity, but that doesn't change the outcomes.
gleenn wrote 1 day ago:
"You should never, ever get back surgery" sounds like that easily
could be wrong. It's annoying to have to always caveat but talking to
a (good) doctor is important when making such decisions and not
relying on tech forum advice necessarily. I know someone who said
they went in for back surgery and walked out feeling permanently
cured from the specific problem they had and the pain was completely
gone. Details matter. Always consult experts when possible.
matwood wrote 1 day ago:
You left off the 'if you don't need it'. Even back specialists will
tell you that surgery is typically the last resort because of the
risks of not fixing the issue and/or making it worse. It's not like
fixing an ACL.
polishdude20 wrote 2 days ago:
Along those lines is this excellent website:
[1]: https://www.painscience.com/
varispeed wrote 2 days ago:
Why this has so many upvotes? This is very much a wall of text with
just waffle and very little substance.
The "mind-body" thing is a great tool for doctors who are into abuse
and take pleasure in having power over their patients.
"You are still having chronic pain, because you are not working hard
enough!"
"No, I will not prescribe you medication. The pain is in your head!"
Oh and abusive partners also love this crap. You have a flare up? No
you don't! You are just a lazy slob who doent't want to work and is
whinging like a little baby. Stop imagining your pain!
GTFO with this crap.
xyst wrote 2 days ago:
It has many upvotes because HN loves to think of itself as "against
the establishment." The alternative medicine folks tend to think
this.
In reality , nothing more than grifters. I wouldn’t be surprised if
there’s a book or "masterclass" pitch at the end of this series.
srshihab wrote 2 days ago:
Hi
srshihab wrote 2 days ago:
No idea
doddpronter wrote 2 days ago:
It's crazy how much your physical health is tied to mental
happiness/lack of stress. I had a friend that during his most stressful
period as a 24 year old in Investment Banking had strep throat 4 times
in 2 months.
Several doctor visits concluded that it was the long hours and insane
amount of stress that was severely crushing his immune system.
Moral of the story is love what you do and take care of yourself:
nothing is as important as your own health and happiness
noident wrote 1 day ago:
> I had a friend that during his most stressful period as a 24 year
old in Investment Banking had strep throat 4 times in 2 months
He may need his tonsils out. I got mine out in my 30s. It was 3
painful weeks to recover but my quality of life is a lot higher.
godot wrote 2 days ago:
I think most people underestimate how much of their immune system
depends on their sleep. Sleep quality, amount (hours) of sleep, time
in bed, all of it -- they matter.
In stressful periods, it's likely not stress crushing the immune
system, it's the indirect relationship that stress causes bad quality
sleep and low amount of sleep, that in turn crushes the immune
system.
If, even if under stress, you manage to work out a system/habit that
allows you to get proper sleep, you'd likely be ok.
hiAndrewQuinn wrote 2 days ago:
Did your friend leave IB after this diagnosis, or did he tough it
out?
To me that's the real question. I think either option is defensible,
depending on what one values in life. I've known certain people who
pulled 80 hour work weeks for years only to give away double-digit
percentages of their salaries to charity, because that was what was
important to them, and I don't think they were wrong for doing that,
just making choices at a margin I would find intolerable far earlier.
ck2 wrote 2 days ago:
Low‐Dose Naltrexone aka LDN
not a cure and barely a treatment but it's one of the only tools in the
toolbox
Modulates endorphin receptors (by blocking them for a little while)
Not only causes the body to produce more endorphins to reduce pain but
is actually proven in studies to make the ion channels work better if
dysfunctional [1]
[1]: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Low-Dose+Naltrexone
[2]: https://reddit.com/r/LowDoseNaltrexone
nico wrote 2 days ago:
For people on the spectrum here, just want to add to the thread the
term Fibromyalgia
It seems to be relatively common and under diagnosed. Also somehow
controversial and not fully understood
However, looking into it might shed some light on some issues of
chronic pain and potential ways to address it
paulcole wrote 2 days ago:
This should be a show HN.
kianN wrote 2 days ago:
“As pain becomes chronic, it is increasingly associated with activity
in the affective and motivational systems tied to avoidance and less
closely tied to systems encoding nociceptive input” [1] I’ve been
on the slippery slope of chronic pain. Minor post surgery issues caused
me to change my routine and avoid certain activities which only
exacerbated the issues, which led to more avoidance. Eventually I
couldn’t walk.
The American medical system is very focused on avoiding health issues
that show up on mri, rather than quality of life health. But quality of
life issues quickly become serious.
I think the middle ground of activity: not all out intense as if you
are healthy, but also not avoiding movement is so challenging to find
for many people but also so crucial. A lot of chronic pain for myself
and I suspect for many others could be avoided with short and quick
combination of therapy and daily movement. So simple but so challenging
to effectively identify and allocate resources.
Not suggesting this is the total solution but it’s the pathway that I
took to return to activity and I’ve seen it help a number of my
friends as well.
[1]: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8482298/
ericmcer wrote 23 hours 25 min ago:
Your method is how I treated pain and it served me well for many
years (including broken ankle, countless elbow/wrist/finger
injuries), as soon as I could I started movement again, and for
tendon injuries even decent intensity seemed to help trigger healing.
That all changed when I tore my achilles, the pain/recovery/etc.
process had me doubting everything I knew about recovery and now 14
months later I still question if it needs more rest or more activity
or the whole thing is in my head. Ankle/foot injuries seem to have an
entirely different approach because standing and walking are so
fundamental that you might overdo it just by deciding to make eggs or
something.
rand17 wrote 1 day ago:
You are not wrong in my opinion - at least all my doctors share the
same idea.
littlexsparkee wrote 2 days ago:
I learned this the hard way, got achilles/ankle tendon issues trying
to rest from a joint problem instead of ramping up activity which
would've made me more resilient.
glasscannon wrote 2 days ago:
> used me to change my routine and avoid certain activities which
only exacerbated the issues, which led to more avoidance. Eventually
I couldn’t walk.
Anecdotally, I had a phase where pretty much the same thing happened
to me with the Achilles (+ calf/ankle) flare-ups I was having (during
this part of my chronic journey). Eventually got through it by doing
small walks around my home, then outside but keeping the frequency
high each day (i.e. instead of 1 "long" walk, doing 3-4 short ones).
I.e. Desensitisation / daily movement
kianN wrote 2 days ago:
Splitting up activity to bite sized chunks was critical for me as
well. It prevents over straining but I think more importantly it
also prevents you from being stagnant for an extended period of
time.
anticensor wrote 2 days ago:
Pain is a legitimate diagnosis, though.
nradov wrote 1 day ago:
Make friends with pain.
zdragnar wrote 2 days ago:
Pain is a symptom. There's a strong psychological component to pain
avoidance which can lead to behaviors that make it worse. Physical
therapy isn't going to feel good, but it plays an important role in
lots of recovery scenarios, and I think should be more often
prescribed after surgeries.
I deal with fibromyalgia pain. When I first developed it, I pretty
much avoided doing anything, and really that was the opposite of
what I should have done. There's no "recovery" and really no
avoiding it; all I ended up doing was letting my physical condition
weaken to the point that even normal activities were painful, so I
was hurting for two reasons.
Treating the underlying cause of the symptom, and training to avoid
behaviors that exacerbate the symptom is the real key.
kccqzy wrote 2 days ago:
> Minor post surgery issues
My wife has had two surgeries and each time she had a minor post
surgery issue. One of them was an area that was tender to touch;
another was chronic pain. Neither was mentioned as a possible side
effect of the surgery by the surgeon. The main takeaway even if a bit
extreme here is avoid all surgeries unless absolutely necessary.
SoftTalker wrote 1 day ago:
Any time you have surgery, especially anything to repair a bone,
joint, muscle, or tendon, do the post-op physical therapy
religously. Do not skip it. It will be uncomfortable at first, but
stick with it. If you slack off or don't do it, you may end up with
persistent pain and mobility issues.
TaupeRanger wrote 2 days ago:
Vasectomies are never “absolutely necessary”, but the risk of
chronic pain (very small) vs the risk of unintended pregnancy, risk
to the partner, or potential financial hardship, can make it a good
decision. It’s never black and white in medicine.
Retric wrote 2 days ago:
Surgery is a bigger deal than doctors make it seem, but after
surgery care can make a huge difference.
I had a surgery asked for more pain meds once on day 5 or 6.
Instead the surgeon had me come in to look at the wound, made a
tiny incision a blob of pus came out and things felt fine the next
day. That’s the kind of thing that could have easily resulted in
major problems, but just the right treatment at just the right time
fixed it.
theshackleford wrote 2 days ago:
> Instead the surgeon had me come in to look at the wound
I'm surprised this is not the standard for any surgery involving
a significant incision. In my country it's been the standard for
instance for all three of my cervical spine surgeries, including
the one I just had.
At the 7-10 day mark I must go to my normal GP who performs wound
review and checks for signs of infection or other anomaly.
Retric wrote 2 days ago:
It was standard to have a follow up. He called me in early, the
same day they called. And he looked to it himself rather than
having a GP do so.
theshackleford wrote 2 days ago:
Oh ok that makes sense, for a second it just sounded like it
would have went I caught otherwise and I began wondering if
maybe this wasn’t as much of a standard as I thought it
was.
zdragnar wrote 2 days ago:
Depending on the underlying issue, delaying a surgery could easily
lead to needing an even more invasive or extensive procedure, with
worse complications or side effects. A blanket avoidance of all
surgeries is a great way to be even more miserable.
Anecdotal case: My wife broke her arm some 10 years ago or so. She
was really upset about potential recovery time, insurance
copayments and such, especially since she was (at the time) a
single mother. The doctor suggested setting it and letting it heal
on its own, which was absolutely the wrong call. Had she gotten
surgery straight away, she would have recovered by the time she
actually ended up getting surgery.
I've often wondered if there wasn't a malpractice case that could
have been made, but it was before we met so that's lost to time.
quicktemp42 wrote 2 days ago:
I’ve been struggling with chronic pain for almost eight months. It
started when my orthodontic treatment caused the root of one of my
teeth to break—it had already been weakened from a previous injury.
The extraction was straightforward and only took 10 minutes, and I had
an implant placed (with a temporary crown attached to my braces).
Healing went smoothly, and the CT scans looked fine.
But soon after, I developed constant headaches that never went away. At
first, I assumed they were related to the procedure, but everything had
healed well, and multiple check-ups didn’t reveal anything. Since
then, my braces have been removed, but the daily headaches persist.
Occasionally, I also feel a strange “foreign object” sensation
around the implant site.
A follow-up CT scan of the implant showed perfect integration with the
bone. I’ve also had other tests done, including a head MRI.
Medically, everything appears normal.
It’s getting really hard to manage—painkillers don’t help at al…
Has anyone experienced something similar or have any idea what to try
next? I’m even considering having the implant removed, despite there
being no medical reason for it.
accrual wrote 2 days ago:
Not a physician but how long have you had symptoms for? I've had
dental work that took much longer than expected to heal.
The pulp in the teeth are quite sensitive and can inflame easily, and
that inflamation has nowhere to go (being bound by the hard sides of
your teeth and jaw), which can lead to constant pain. I once had a
routine filling that took about 3 months to stop aching and I had to
take ibuprofen every day during that time to be able to focus. Per
the dentist, constant aching pain = it's slowly healing, leave it
alone. Sharp intense pain = pulp is dying, need root canal. Granted,
this is pain the mouth and not in the head like you described.
If it's been a while and it's still bothering you, I'd definitely
consider having it removed too. It would suck to remove it and still
have the headaches, but at that point you can start looking at other
causes.
quicktemp42 wrote 2 days ago:
It has been eight months and there is no tissue damage. Allergic
reactions to implant materials are rare and usually stop an implant
from fusing with the bone, but mine has integrated perfectly. I
would consider removing it, except it is my upper central
incisor... I kept waiting for braces to be removed etc but I'm
running out of options now.
accrual wrote 2 days ago:
Painful! Definitely seems long enough to fully heal, plus you've
already done the imaging (CT, MRI) which would be a best next
step. Maybe you could try another specialist, though it sounds
like you've already done everything correctly and in sequence. I
hope you can find relief.
quicktemp42 wrote 2 days ago:
Thanks, it's not as bad as for some ppl but made me really
rethink what's important in life and I'm 42 lol. Random event
you can't control can be life changing. I have 3 more things
on the list to try:
- diagnostic temp nerve block around implant
- bite / occlusion specialist
- some blood work for those rare allergies (super unlikely but
why not...)
ChrisMarshallNY wrote 2 days ago:
I was just talking to a friend of mine, yesterday, about what happened
to me.
In 2017, I was laid off of my job (of almost 27 years). I immediately
started looking for work. Since the company I worked for, was a
marquee-name company, I assumed that it wouldn't be hard.
Boy, was I in for a shock.
I almost immediately learned that no one in tech, is interested in
hiring a 55-year-old, regardless of their pedigree. I could have gotten
a job, but those companies made it clear that I would be treated quite
badly.
So I made the decision to just throw in the towel and retire. I had the
means, but I would have liked to have at least another ten years of
salary. I have never had any intentions of stopping working, though. I
love developing software. It's a hobby and a personal passion; not just
a job.
I was really pissed off at the treatment. I suffered great butthurt.
But in the long run, it's the best thing that ever happened to me. I
never realized how much stress I was under, while working. I sincerely
believe that, if I had kept working, it would have killed me. I have no
intentions of returning to the rodent rally; even though I'm quite good
at what I do, thanks to all the learning that I've done, in the last
eight years.
I now work every day (my GH Activity Graph is quite green), and do a
fairly good job on my chosen projects, but I no longer feel that awful
weight on my soul.
Sometimes, the only way that we learn how much pain we are in, is to
stop suffering it for a while.
pregressicko wrote 1 day ago:
>> I almost immediately learned that no one in tech, is interested in
hiring a 55-year-old, regardless of their pedigree.
My comment is off topic but I have to chime in: while I'm sad to hear
of your bad luck, this is YOUR experience, and it is not universal.
At 54, I got my highest paying job ever in tech after being walked
out of a "marquee-name" company after 24 years. This was three years
ago. There is a tremendous need for senior engineers in smaller
companies. The main reason is that all the A+ engineers (clearly I am
not one!) have retired from decades of fat equity compensation, and
those of us at the B+ level (or me who financially screwed up) are
actually now a rare commodity.
So hang in there, greyhairs are still valuable to smaller companies.
ChrisMarshallNY wrote 1 day ago:
Fair point.
I should say that I wasn't particularly interested in a
"good-paying" job. I was set, already.
I wanted something that I found interesting.
The places that would hire me, had crappy work.
The places with the interesting work, had no interest in hiring me.
Saying that it's because oldtimers are expensive, is a red herring.
I would have happily taken half of what they pay people with half
my expertise.
In any case, it's all good, now. I have no interest in returning to
work. I'm having way too much fun, working harder than I ever did,
without managers pissing all over my work.
tossandthrow wrote 2 days ago:
As someone who will, eventually, hit that age, I would love to hear
more about that treatment?
My own impression is that the software industry is one of the
industries where experience and qualifications are completely
divorced.
So from my perspective one is really always back at square 0 when
looking for jobs - including the need to prove oneself and stay
humble.
ChrisMarshallNY wrote 2 days ago:
Well, I found that independent recruiters were the worst. They all
ghosted me. A couple actually hung up on me, as soon as they
learned my age. In-house recruiters and managers were much better,
but the interview process generally derailed, as soon as one single
tecchie got involved.
I actually had one refuse to look at my [extensive] code portfolio,
because "I probably faked it." One of the luxuries that I had,
which I am eternally grateful for, is that I don't have to eat
shit.
If reacting badly to that kind of treatment is "not humble," then
guilty as charged.
I should add that I am a high school dropout, with a GED, and no
matriculated education. Despite that, I ran a "skunkworks" team,
employing some very good engineers, and was kept on by a very
demanding Japanese corporation, where I was given an insane level
of trust.
I'm pretty used to having to prove myself. I've spent almost my
entire career, looking up noses. Someone with my background won't
make it far, unless I know how to work well with un-humble people,
and deliver the goods. I never was given much latitude. I wasn't
really allowed to fail.
Adrig wrote 2 days ago:
I've dealt with chronic illnesses for the past 10+ years now. It's such
a hard path.
I recently found out after a violent burn-out that a significant cause
was chronic stress and its psychosomatic symptoms. It made me have a
hard look at the topic, and I'm gradually adjusting to solve the issue.
If I get better, I'm tempted to do as OP and spend more time working on
this issue for others. It seems so much more impactful than grinding
the tech / startup life.
accrual wrote 2 days ago:
> I recently found out after a violent burn-out that a significant
cause was chronic stress and its psychosomatic symptoms.
Thanks for sharing. I am walking down this path as well. In my
experience I can tell I'm deeply out of alignment and it wreaks havoc
on the body. My soul says to X but my mind says do Y, it's safer,
maintains a stable status quo, income, and relationships, etc., even
though it's slowly killing me.
Adrig wrote 2 days ago:
It's definitely a difficult time to deal with these issues,
especially when the world appears so unstable. But we eventually
have to face the music one way or another. Best of luck!
glasscannon wrote 2 days ago:
Feel free to get in touch if you'd like to chat Adrig (my contact is
in my profile), wishing you the best of luck.
aspbee555 wrote 2 days ago:
I felt like I was dying at 35 years old, my body was completely
betraying me, exhausted, constant pain, no life as absolutely no energy
on days off and still exhausted starting the next week. Even years in
the Army never left me feeling like that
I had no idea it was the misery of the IT job that was causing most of
my pain and suffering, and it had nothing to do with the job itself, it
was the endless insanity of everyone else around me doing exactly what
they were informed would cause problems instead of having discussions
with people that actually knew how shit worked. I was endlessly
picking up everyone elses mess and treated worse than a pile of shit
all because people were incapable of having a speck of respect for
other people since all their hatred for computers fell on me
I GTFO of the career of misery and took half a decade to finally start
feeling better
I have now spent years and countless hours working on software and I
greatly enjoy doing this work again and find I get even more done than
I used to simply by doing life the way I need to instead of how some
backwards/abusive control freak "needs it done"
baby wrote 1 day ago:
BTW I can relate but to me this was the savior:
- taking sport seriously
- regaining control over my life (which I did by creating a startup)
- moving to a city that cares about walking pedestrians and social
life (moved from SF to New York!)
sizzle wrote 1 day ago:
I was thinking Lyme disease caused fatigue from the lead in sentence
andai wrote 1 day ago:
My grandfather said he experiences stupidity as physically painful. I
suppose pain is an indicator that some kind of damage is actually
occurring.
That's my experience at least, that it's not healthy to be in
environments like that for any length of time. In such a place, my
regret is always not leaving sooner...
SkyPuncher wrote 1 day ago:
I ended up in a similar situation last year. Amazing job, but typical
startup stresses combined with some situational stuff in my personal
life (moving, new jobs for partner, kids, day-care changes, etc, etc,
etc) left me completely broken. I ended up leaving my job to take
care of my family (thought I was done with my career, but it ended up
being a sabbatical - back at the old job and doing great now)
It took about 6 months for the brain zaps to start fading. Then
another 6 months for me to start feeling capable of really doing my
job well. I'm 18 months into "recovery" and I still think I have
another 6 to 12 months before I feel like my old self again (so about
2 to 2.5 years in total).
Time is really the only solution. You can't just think your way
through it. You have to left your body's rewards systems re-adapt and
re-learn how to be a healthy, happy human.
nicbou wrote 13 hours 27 min ago:
Brain zaps?
trts wrote 1 day ago:
experienced something very similar. thought I would leave my field
permanently out of frustration and despair. I like my work now, but
faced with that burnout again do not think I could power through it a
second time.
Apropos, I had chronic pain throughout this experience. I thought it
was just aging, irreversible, and something that compounded my
hopelessness. It's very surprising to be 10 years older now but feel
20 years younger. Books like "The Body Keeps the Score" or "Healing
Back Pain" used to seem woo to me, but now I am convicted that health
comes from within as much or more than it does from without.
kalkaran wrote 1 day ago:
I had sciatica for years and inflation in my hips so bad I could
barely walk 500 meters while in college. Basically only kept going
by iboprufen, naproxen and paracetamol. I tried everything.
Acupuncture/LSD/ultra sound/kiro/physio/yoga had mri’s/xrays/you
name it
I had dr. Sarno’s healing back pain for 2 years on my shelf
before I took a holiday and read the whole thing in one go. Fell
asleep for 4 hours and woke up pain free for the first time in 7
years. Started to come back a few times but I would just read the
book again and go for a run. Been smooth sailing for 10 years now.
johannesberlin wrote 17 hours 40 min ago:
what exactly was in the book that relieved it for you? I’m
curious
mdavid626 wrote 1 day ago:
Can you tell us how you recovered?
aspbee555 wrote 1 day ago:
overall it took time away from all that to recover, I also changed
careers for a while to more fulfilling part time work
I have always had a passion for computing so I eventually found my
way back with a project of my own
reactordev wrote 1 day ago:
Sometimes it requires taking a step back to move forward. Healing
takes time. There’s so many odd jobs, side hustles, or simply -
working a no-brainer warehouse job, for you to find yourself
again.
c0brac0bra wrote 1 day ago:
I'm kind of in the middle of this phase. Chronic stress and
pressure leading to autoimmune disorder, insomnia, etc.
Completely getting away from software dev will make it hard to
support a family.
e40 wrote 2 days ago:
Stress is so damaging to our bodies. Glad you got relief!
foobiekr wrote 2 days ago:
What do you do for a living post-escaping the IT career?
aspbee555 wrote 1 day ago:
I did part time work as a mentor which was way more fulfilling than
the IT work. I eventually found my way back to programming my own
project
soVeryTired wrote 1 day ago:
Roaming a labyrinth and savaging young Athenians might seem like
a positive change in the short term, but ultimately it’s
probably just as unfulfilling as corporate IT.
refulgentis wrote 1 day ago:
Do you have any more universal stack ranking / ruling out re:
career paths? Bonus points for more epic phrasing: it didn't
really hide that the subjective opinion is objective fact, but,
I think there's a better chance I'm fooled into living someone
else's life if you do it again.
aspbee555 wrote 1 day ago:
The mentoring was amazing when I started, but unfortunately the
company was bought/sold and things unfortunately went downhill
from there (corporate profits rarely coincide with providing
actual help and is more designed to make paperwork/justify
spending the precious numbers. I was great at the actual job,
sucked at the medical paperwork)
I am thrilled I got to help some kids in need of
help/understanding/acceptance at least and seeing the
joy/results first hand is something I will never forget
vertigolimbo wrote 2 days ago:
So you went back into software development after 5 years? Maybe you
had a burnout and just needed to rest
aspbee555 wrote 1 day ago:
I have worked with computers for decades, I love it, and for me to
not even want to look at a computer was impossible for me
I made it through the Army (decades ago), I ran my own company,
handled employees, etc.
I have no problem with hard work and stress. My joy for computers
was destroyed for a while, and it had nothing to do with the work
itself, it was due to targeted intentionally malicious
discrimination from the top
imhoguy wrote 2 days ago:
I read it that OP has left IT and rested then got back to some
freelance/co-op/own softwate development.
I am on the same fence, just on my notice period in the shit show
called corporate IT where there is 90% time spent on toxic
politics.
Now dreaming to burn some savings, detox and then play with
Raspberry Pi projects.
Aurornis wrote 2 days ago:
> For the next 4 years, I continued to accumulate weird and persistent
pains in different parts of my body.
Anyone who is accumulating weird pains in random, different locations
should definitely pursue some of these alternative explanations.
Another sign that these techniques are appropriate is if the pains come
and go depending on your mood or situation (worse when working,
disappear when doing something fun) or are prone to suggestion (someone
talks about their back pain and then you have back pain for the
following days or weeks).
However, I’m also getting tired of the people who benefit from this
techniques deciding that their explanation for chronic pain covers
everyone. It’s a huge trend in parts of tech Twitter right now to
apply these theories to all chronic pain. A small number of people who
had unexplainable pain and addressed it through meditation, therapy,
and similar techniques are now pushing it as a far more universal
explanation. It really needs to be applied to the appropriate
situation, not used as a universal treatment for chronic pains.
This parallels similar trends with topics like PTSD, where a smaller
group of people have benefited from therapy that addresses past trauma
and now they’re trying to export the theory that past trauma and PTSD
is the explanation for all psychological ills. Again, matching the
right treatment to the condition is critical and being open-minded is
important, but beware of people who are preaching that doctors are
misinformed and you should subscribe to their app, blog, newsletter, or
course instead.
bravesoul2 wrote 1 day ago:
r/cfs ... those are the wise sages. They've heard it all. They know
what to do. They know the BS. They warn each other about it.
smj-edison wrote 1 day ago:
That they do. I've been working through chronic fatigue for six
years now, and I spent two years thinking it was somatic. No amount
of meditation, therapy, socializing, antidepressants, or
supplements made a dent. Thankfully I found my way to r/cfs which
has fantastic advice on dealing with long-term chronic illnesses.
It's a little depressing, but also freeing to accept that there
truly is no cure to these horrible illnesses (there should be, but
there still isn't). I'm glad I ruled out somatic symptoms so I'm
sure that it's not that, but I'm also glad that I now understand
that a lot of chronic fatigue is 100% biological. If I ever recover
I plan to go into biochemistry to help all of these people who
truly cannot be cured with today's technology.
glasscannon wrote 2 days ago:
On your first point, the moving of symptoms is not uncommon in
patients with chronic pain - and yes definitely a sign something not
normal is going on!
On the second, I've mentioned it elsewhere in this thread (on a
different comment) that it's critical to determine if a structural
cause is at play (i.e. tissue/nerve damage or something else causing
inflammation). It is unfortunate however that many doctors are not
familiar with modern pain science so I'm hoping spreading awareness
via patients (and some practitioners) will change this.
In the next few blog posts this very thing will be discussed (i.e.
exploring when it's likely something is mind related vs the body
[though I will focus primarily on the former in this series] - as
you're 100% correct sometimes it's the body and sometimes it's the
mind, and sometimes it's both!).
mattgreenrocks wrote 2 days ago:
I’ve been dealing with chronic reflux for about 8 mos now. On PPIs
and they don’t seem to do much. But once I get away from my typical
routine of work/dadding then all the symptoms vanish, even to the point
of being able to eat foods that are not good for reflux: spicy things,
tomatoes, a bit of coffee. In my case, this is absolutely a downstream
symptom of something mind-body. Already been scoped and got a diagnosis
of visceral hypersensitivity, which is medical speak for “nerves in
esophagus are too sensitive.”
The question of why is out of scope.
In this case, docs just don’t know why. (I think it kinda pisses them
off not know, tbh). And finding out is not really in their wheelhouse.
I’ve made some life changes (new job) to see what happens here. But I
also have to be prepared for the possibility that it doesn’t fix it.
Been working through The Body Keeps The Score as well.
Looking forward to seeing what the author discusses here.
Chyzwar wrote 1 day ago:
For me intermittent fasting after 6pm and small diet changes fixed my
acid reflux. PPI were not helping and making things worse. I actually
took Betaine HCI supplements to fix digestive issues after PPIs.
amai wrote 1 day ago:
Sleeping on a inclined bed can help with GERD:
- [1] -
[1]: https://www.healthcentral.com/digestive-health/acid-reflux-e...
[2]: https://www.refluxguard.com/the-acid-reflux-game-changer-sle...
snozolli wrote 1 day ago:
I had terrible acid reflux at night when I was in my 20s. It was
awful. I was getting a couple of hours of sleep per night, then
waking up in terrible pain, stuffing down plain yogurt under a
doctor's orders, and sitting up on a sofa for the rest of the
night.
Putting my futon on a sheet of plywood with two concrete blocks
under the head completely solved the problem within a few days. It
takes a while to adapt to sleeping on an incline. I kept it up for
about a year, then went back to a flat bed. I've never had acid
reflux again.
globnomulous wrote 2 days ago:
Just a sidenote: GERD can lead to Barrett's Esophagus (precancerous
changes in tissue), and erosive damage to the esophagus can
accumulate over time and abruptly become life threatening. After
decades of terrible GERD, my father nearly died from exactly such an
undetected gastric bleed, losing 11/12 of his blood (which doctors
replaced as it coursed out) before an emergency-medicine team finally
found and sealed the rupture.
He almost certainly suffered minor brain damage during this episode,
and later, after about a decade of taking anti-protonic medications
for reflux, developed exactly the abnormally rapidly growing
abdominal cancer that patients who take anti-protonics apparently
develop at a higher rate than similar GERD patients who don't.
I don't mean to give medical advice. I can only describe what
happened in my family (which has a heritable deformation in the
esophagus, leading to severe GERD). Take it with a grain of salt (and
an antacid) as what it is: an anecdote from some anonymous nonexpert
on the internet.
Anyhow, good luck. I'm glad to know you're working actively on the
problem, not ignoring it as my father did, and I hope you find some
long-term relief and peace.
wincy wrote 2 days ago:
All of my reflux went away last year when I started tirzepatide via
my Zepbound prescription. I was having horrible heartburn daily and
it’s just completely gone. I used to take tums and omeprazole
literally daily, now it’s basically never.
PixelForg wrote 2 days ago:
[1] This exercise fixed it for me. I was diagnosed with GERD last
year, I already had it for 2-3 years before that, but it got worse
last year. I got ppis for a couple of months and when I finished all
of them it came back worse. Fortunately I found this article, and I
started doing the exercise daily morning after I woke up(and still do
it). I can now eat tomatoes, food with mint, spicy food etc etc :)
I have shared my experience with others and it helped them too
Edit - Changed the link, had posted something else by mistake
[1]: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9550520/
rendaw wrote 1 day ago:
That looks interesting, and can't hurt. So you do 1 set of 10 reps
(swallows) a day in the morning? I'm surprised that just swallowing
10 times can provoke any sort of physiological change...
vjk800 wrote 1 day ago:
How did you implement this? I can't figure out what these
instructions in the article mean: "Exercises of dry swallowing in
the bridge posture lasted for 4 weeks and were performed ten times
per day (Fig. 2). The exercise was performed with 10-s intervals
between swallows."
Does this mean that total number of daily dry swallows in bridge
position was 10 or 10 times 10 (100)?
PixelForg wrote 1 day ago:
You get in the bridge position. And then swallow, wait 10
seconds, and swallow again. So total of 10 times, I'm not sure if
I could have kept up with it if I had to swallow 100 times :)
ProllyInfamous wrote 2 days ago:
[1] Since reading the above HN comments, I have lost ten pounds
and (mostly) stopped drinking carbonated beverages. My GERD is
vastly reduced.
¢¢
[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42528399
grep_name wrote 19 hours 40 min ago:
I don't see anything about carbonated beverages in those
comments? I've had good results with some of the exercises
mentioned there, but since then have been in a rut unable to make
it stop (my only symptom of GERD is a small persistent cough,
which sucks more than it sounds like). I drink a lot of sparkling
water though. Do I need to give that up too?
mattgreenrocks wrote 2 days ago:
Thanks for this, will add it to the experiment queue while I work
on losing the slight dad bod I have going on.
jrgoff wrote 2 days ago:
Thanks for this - it looks interesting, I'm planning on giving it a
try for my low level reflux that's been bothering me for over a
decade (but always had other health issues that seemed higher
priorities to try to address).
ruthvik947 wrote 2 days ago:
I had this for about a year, and it really only went away when I quit
my job. It wasn't even a particularly demanding job, but I guess the
lifestyle + the fact that I felt I was wasting my life away might
have played a role. Nothing else is really different.
mattgreenrocks wrote 2 days ago:
I have had near-debilitating non-GI physical symptoms when it was
time to leave a job in the past. I might just be bad at responding
to those before it gets to be a five alarm fire.
Worth mentioning is I got the same symptoms (tendinitis) a few
months prior to this, but went to PT and got them resolved.
Bodies/minds are fun!
anonymars wrote 2 days ago:
Most people are familiar with the Peter Principle where it talks
about people rising to their level of incompetence.
But I think there's still plenty more that makes it worth a read.
For example, something along the lines of, sometimes a man will pop
an antacid and lament that their illness is negatively affecting
their work, when in fact the causality is exactly reversed
qzw wrote 2 days ago:
> I think it kinda pisses them off not know, tbh
Oh definitely. Some doctors are physically incapable of uttering the
words “I/We don’t know.” I know a few doctors, and have asked…
couple of them about this. In private, they’re very frank about the
limits of modern medicine. But in front of patients, they’re afraid
any sign of uncertainty will lead to patients concluding that some
other quackery is just as good as actual medicine. I can definitely
understand their perspective, but it does sometimes make them come
across as arrogant know-it-alls.
rendaw wrote 2 days ago:
I'd be fine with that if the posturing didn't go along with
unnecessary medication and the lack of suggestions to search for
treatment somewhere better equipped.
qualeed wrote 2 days ago:
>But in front of patients, they’re afraid any sign of uncertainty
will lead to patients concluding that some other quackery is just
as good as actual medicine
This, but also in particularly litigious countries like the USA,
they have to be extremely careful of opening up lawsuits.
A doctor saying "I don't know." followed by a bad patient outcome
has a pretty high chance of being a lawsuit.
eddythompson80 wrote 2 days ago:
> In this case, docs just don’t know why. (I think it kinda pisses
them off not know, tbh). And finding out is not really in their
wheelhouse.
Chronic reflux as a symptom is almost always initially treated by
PPIs because the cause among white collar workers is assumed to be
chronic stress[1]. Since doctors can't "treat stress" only its
symptoms, they will just tell you to try and manage stressors in your
life yourself. Maybe suggest counseling but in general they are
limited in what they can do. What they can do, if you are persistent
in the complaint, is to just run through all the other less likely
causes of it.
I was lucky omeprazole worked for me the first time. I knew exactly
what was stressing me out 24/7 and the acid reflux and frequent
belching combined with the "pit in my stomach" feeling was all too
common and connected around my main stressor. In my case, it started
8 months after accepting a role shift from engineering into
management. I was cautiously excited initially, but it just soured
very quickly. I would feel physical angst parking at work every
morning trying to remind myself of all the web of political
infighting "what our team is hiding from this other team", "who we
can discuss what with", "how that other team is actively undermining
us and their other downstream partners, but how we are circumventing
that" how to 4d chess maneuver yourself in the most counterproductive
ways possible. It was illuminating on where a lot of those special
"business requirements" come from sometimes, but it just wasn't for
me. Cutting that out was a massive relief
[1]: Stress and glucocorticoids have well documented effects on the
digestive system. I recommend the "Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers" book
chapter on stress and the digestive system.
mattgreenrocks wrote 2 days ago:
> it started 8 months after accepting a role shift from engineering
into management. I was cautiously excited initially, but it just
soured very quickly.
Thanks for the edit that added this. Very similar experience as
this.
It's BS that IC ladders top out at quasi-management roles, but
perhaps part of the issue is believing that professional growth is
as tidy as a FAANG career ladder (since most companies just copy
them wholesale), and that not reaching those rungs reflects on me
in any way.
It feels a bit taboo to say, but I believe not everyone can flex
into management easily, even part-time. I'm alright at it, but it
clearly isn't long-term sustainable.
eddythompson80 wrote 1 day ago:
This was years ago now and I came to complete peace and
acceptance with it. I don't view it as complete BS tbh. Here is
how I look at it:
First of all, there ARE more steps on top of the IC ladder. They
are really really exclusive though in our industry. A large
company needs thousands of managers, but only a dozen or so those
positions. Half those people are really smooth talkers, and the
other half are truly remarkable human beings. You can set it as a
challenge to yourself to shadow and follow in that direction. It
might take you another 10 or 20 years and it might never happen.
The reason I don't view it as BS is because there is a limit on
the amount of value a single person can generate. At the end of
the day "managers" are viewed as force multipliers. Their job is
to direct and control the output of 10 people. A great manager
can 2x or 3x the productivity of their team compared to just 10
aimless people with no accountability or structure. Paying that
person 2x or 4x is justified. Your entire career in management,
from M1 -> CEO is all about trying to convince the one above you
that you are a bigger force multiplier than others in your
position. That's basically your job.
As an IC, you need to be someone who has had a track record of
founding and delivering multiple highly profitable
products/business/features/etc. Otherwise, you did, in fact, hit
a ceiling of sorts.
From FAANG prospective, for an IC there is a sweet spot between
their technical seniority, output vs burnout, and their
compensation expectations/asks.
qzw wrote 2 days ago:
Western medicine “can’t treat stress” but Eastern medicine
definitely claims to be able to. But then so do various nebulous
“alternative medicines”. Another comment mentioned deep
meditation as being effective, and I believe there are a number of
studies that have shown it to have actual effect. I’ll add
another tried and true stress cure but with a twist. Exercise has
consistently been shown to help reduce stress, but I find that you
have to pick an activity that’s different than what you normally
do, e.g. if you’re a runner, try swimming or tennis. The goal is
to actually raise the stress level while exercising by doing
something unfamiliar and therefore more challenging. In my
experience, if the exercise is too relaxed or routine, it doesn’t
allow your mind to disengage from the other stressors that are
causing symptoms. Of course, all this is pure anecdata from an
internet rando.
Aurornis wrote 2 days ago:
> Western medicine “can’t treat stress”
This is false. Therapy is designed to do just this and it’s
readily available in different modalities that have been trialed
and studied. You can book an appointment with a therapist today
and start working on techniques to build stress resilience and
stress handling techniques
> but Eastern medicine definitely claims to be able to. But then
so do various nebulous “alternative medicines”.
Much of the allure of so-called Eastern medicines is the feeling
that it’s ancient, semi-secret knowledge that is mysteriously
superior to modern medicine. There are a lot of herbal medicines
that kind of do something, but the effects are small and often
prone to rapid tolerance build up and side effects. A large part
of the efficacy is getting the patient to believe that the
medicine and/or practices are a cure for their ills. Feeling like
you’re tapping in to a mysterious ancient solution to stress
will encourage a very strong placebo effect, which can actually
reduce the stress.
Similarly, when we do randomized trials of medicines for
depressive disorder it’s incredible how much the placebo group
improves. When people have been told they’re receiving a
treatment, it usually helps to some extent even if the treatment
does nothing at all!
sampullman wrote 2 days ago:
I don't think the allure of Eastern medicine has much to do
with a feeling that it's ancient or secret. It's pretty normal
here in Taiwan to go to a TCM clinic here in Taiwan for various
treatments, including stress. The practitioners have degrees
and certifications for it.
I can't say how much is placebo, but there isn't really
anything mysterious about it.
Aurornis wrote 2 days ago:
The ancient and mysterious part is the idea that it’s based
on wisdom passed down through generations and herbal
concoctions, as opposed to synthetic medicines tested in
RCTs. This is precisely what draws a lot of people to it, and
why it falls in the category of alternative medicine.
It’s actually very interesting that many of the herbal
compounds they use do have some quantifiable biological
activities. So it’s not all placebo, but you’ll also
discover that many of the herbs being sold don’t contain
the ingredients they claim, don’t contain enough active
ingredients to do anything, or might even be contaminated.
I once asked some doctor friends what things they’ll never
do after seeing the consequences in their patients. One of
the most surprising answers, to me, was that they avoided TCM
and Avurvedic medicines. Apparently they see a lot of people
come in with elevated liver enzymes or signs of kidney
problems and discover that some TCM or Ayurvedic herbal
remedy is causing the damage. Discontinuing the supplement
can stop the damage. This happens with megadoses of other
supplements too, especially some of the things peddled to gym
bros. However, TCM and Ayurvedic supplements seem to catch
people by surprise because they assume it’s safer.
nickspacek wrote 2 days ago:
Lots of anecdotal cures here, but I'll add Aloe Vera gel to the mix
since it seems to help* both soothe/recover/prevent the return of my
reflux symptoms for long periods of time.
mattgreenrocks wrote 2 days ago:
Gel, as in, applied to your skin?
I love smoothies with aloe Vera juice and freshly grated ginger.
I’ve never felt such a powerfully calming sensation from
ingesting something before. Can’t tell if it’s the
ritual/association or the ingredients.
glasscannon wrote 2 days ago:
The link between the gut and brain (especially in the case of dietary
intolerances) is an interesting one! Keen to see if others have come
across good research in the space
Micanthus wrote 2 days ago:
FYI, The Body Keeps The Score is full of misinformation, and is
alternately ignored and criticized by other psychiatrists
> The most consequential problem with BKS is its promotion of a large
number of treatments, outside of EMDR, that have limited to no
evidence (e.g., massage, acupuncture, yoga, community theater, and
neurofeedback), according to the latest treatment guidelines by the
International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies (Frank et al.,
2020), while simultaneously ignoring or criticizing PE and CPT, the
two treatments with the highest quality evidence (Sakaluk et al.,
2019).
[1]: https://web.archive.org/web/20250120164320/https://journals....
amelius wrote 2 days ago:
I had this for years. Then I took vitamin K2 (about 50mcg per day I
think), and after a few months it went away. No idea why, though.
Anyway, happy that I can drink coffee again :)
xgb84j wrote 2 days ago:
Hey, I just wanted to let you know that I have the _exact_ same issue
as you since 2 years. It was much worse than what you described 2
years ago. Now it's just very annoying.
The diagnosis I got from my therapist is PTSD from my chikdhood due
to the strong connection between stress and body.
The only thing I found that alleviates my symptoms short term is lots
of Buddhist meditation (1-2 hours per day).
I wish you all the best and thank you so much for sharing.
ansc wrote 2 days ago:
How'd you get started?
xgb84j wrote 1 day ago:
If you mean the Buddhist meditation: I joined a local group a few
years ago. I wasn't super serious about the practice until I saw
how directly it can improve my life. Even now it's hard to find
this much time every day.
This is a book that helped me getting started:
[1]: https://www.amazon.com/Roaring-Silence-Discovering-Mind-...
fossuser wrote 2 days ago:
For me, the two big things that help are losing weight and reduced
anxiety. When either are high the problem is noticeable when both are
low it’s gone.
Foods make it worse, but it’s rarely an issue if I’m in decent
shape and not stressed.
johnisgood wrote 2 days ago:
Have you tried H2 blockers?
And as you have said, avoid anything that increases stomach acid
production (such as caffeine or even tea, along with spicy food).
You might also have success with Venter[1] (Sucralfate).
[1]: https://www.medicinesfaq.com/brand/venter
mattgreenrocks wrote 2 days ago:
Yep. I track which foods affect that and try not to stack them. In
addition, I take famotidine in the evening with two different
antihistamines.
I suspect I have a histamine intolerance behind it all, as it tends
to be comorbid with ehlers-danlos.
johnisgood wrote 23 hours 54 min ago:
I have never heard of Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. Does it really
cause histamine intolerance? You may try 1st generation ones.
In any case, good luck and I hope you can find something that
makes it manageable at the very least.
justinrubek wrote 2 days ago:
I seem to have something very similar going on. I'm on the early end
of trying to understand it. Coffee was the first indicator because
it'd ruin my day to drink some. I hope the best for us.
superb-owl wrote 2 days ago:
related:
[1]: https://x.com/mxslk/status/1940832698366619681
sydbarrett74 wrote 2 days ago:
Thank you for sharing your story, and congrats on your endeavour.
NoTranslationL wrote 2 days ago:
I make an app called Reflect [0] that’s designed to track things like
chronic pain and help you get to the root cause with self guided
experiments. I’ve used it for my own pain symptoms, especially joint
pain. Happy to answer any questions. Wish you the best on your journey.
[0]
[1]: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/reflect-track-anything/id6463800...
glasscannon wrote 2 days ago:
Amazing, I'll take a look at it.
Thanks!
pbronez wrote 2 days ago:
Another option for this is Bearable. I used it for headaches a
while ago and it worked well: [1] Here’s an actual peer reviewed
study evaluating a pile (over 1000!) symptom tracking apps,
including Bearable.
[1]: https://bearable.app/
[2]: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2452109...
Jonovono wrote 2 days ago:
I've been using Bearable too. It's great and price is awesome,
but data entry is so slow
glasscannon wrote 2 days ago:
Awesome study - thanks for the link!
nwienert wrote 2 days ago:
As someone who had years of undiagnosable pain and after many years
(and more than one doctor trying to suggest it was all in my head) I
just want to say to anyone reading who has it -
Don’t let yourself be gaslit that it’s all mental. It seems some do
have that, but there are also many hard to diagnose and completely
valid physical health conditions that cause terrible chronic pain. And
don’t give up on trying to find out what they are. Once I did, I was
able to largely manage mine, and more importantly, to stop constantly
questioning my own sanity.
matwood wrote 1 day ago:
> Don’t let yourself be gaslit that it’s all mental.
This is a big problem women have around menstrual cycle pain. "It's
normal" is what many doctors say - particularly men. A woman I know
was basically bed ridden for a couple days/month until she found a
doctor who believed her and addressed the problem.
Aurornis wrote 2 days ago:
> Don’t let yourself be gaslit that it’s all mental.
I agree, though this is a very difficult subject. Often, the people
who would benefit the most from psychosomatic interventions are often
the most resistant to accepting those explanations. Meanwhile, many
of the physical chronic pain sufferers I know have desperately tried
various mind-body programs (without success) because they will try
anything that might help.
If people match the description of the author of this post and blog,
where the pains are widespread, vague, and popping up around
different parts of the body without explanation then you really
should explore psychosomatic explanations like this author did.
However, I’m growing weary of the trend of people who fit this
description starting newsletters they want you to subscribe to (like
this one), writing apps they want you to download/buy, and making
comments implying that they know better than doctors about chronic
pain (while putting an obligatory “not a doctor” disclaimer
juxtaposed to their comments complaining that doctors don’t know
what they know). I think it’s great when people share their
experience, but it’s getting tiresome to see it productized and
generalized as a more universal explanation.
EDIT: Another trend in this space is to productize by building an
audience (please subscribe to my Substack) and then introduce the
monetization plan later: A subscription app, an e-book, a partnership
with some product. It’s possible this person organically decided to
quit their job, sell their house, and focus on writing a no strings
attached Substack blog series to share information. However, I’ve
seen this play out across enough health influencers that I recommend
everyone stay cautious about people who claim to hold some
information that will change your life but they need you to subscribe
first. Be careful.
glasscannon wrote 2 days ago:
> and making comments implying that they know better than doctors
about chronic pain (while putting an obligatory “not a doctor”
disclaimer juxtaposed to their comments complaining that doctors
don’t know what they know).
I am not claiming to know better than doctors whom are proficient
in pain science/medicine.
Rather, that most doctors are not adequately educated on this
topic. If you ask the average doctor they will tell you how little
it is taught in most medical education programs. Case in point,
most pain sufferers will tell you how many doctors they had to
bounce between before they finally got some answers/direction (if
they were lucky).
FWIW I was preparing for two months this year after I left my job
to sit the Australian med school entry exam. Ultimately, I decided
I would be able to help more people today, with tools readily
available (including a computer and substack) than spending the
next decade of my life preparing for a medical career.
I would consider amending that part of my post to say something
more narrow like "Not a pain doctor", but it seems more
straightforward as it is now.
glasscannon wrote 2 days ago:
Thanks for sharing this.
Very much agree it's critical to get an accurate assessment, ideally
from a doctor who understands pain science to rule out a structural
cause. In saying this, I recognise many practitioners are not fully
across this so I'm hoping this series will help increase awareness.
This first blog is meant as a quick intro to the series - blog post
#2 will break down the different categories of chronic pain (i.e.
broadly including tissue, nerve damage and pain due to brain
plasticity - what the series is primarily focused on).
mkoubaa wrote 2 days ago:
Technically it is an experience that is internal to the nervous
system... but a doctor telling someone that it's imagined because
they can't identify the root cause is criminal!! If we have to make
something up about it we're literally better off calling it a demon.
CoastalCoder wrote 2 days ago:
Would you mind sharing a little detail about what the physical malady
turned out to be, and why it took so long to diagnose?
Sounds like an interesting medical mystery.
nwienert wrote 2 days ago:
Combination of two autoimmune conditions, one Ehlers Danlos.
Actually EDS is interesting because it became a fad I guess on
TikTok to claim you had it like Tourette’s, further exacerbating
the above issue.
It’s got a wide spectrum. My dad had it so lightly he was just
considered “double jointed”. I gained a further thing from
mom’s side, which seemed to interplay poorly. Spent 19-26
basically having extreme nausea and vomiting episodes every month
or two, often having to go to the hospital to stop it. Had other
weird symptoms and pains before that and during too.
Did every scan, met tons of specialists. Kept getting referred down
the GI side, had gallbladder removed for no reason.
At one point I was convinced it was psychological. This was after a
second doctor suggested it. It sent me down a dark path for a few
years of trying to figure out what was wrong with me - didn’t
help my mental state was terrible from all the uncertainty, and I
had developed anxiety about eating since basically any meal could
end up in hours of extreme pain. I was a total wreck. Then it just
cleared up finally at 26.
It wasn’t until years later I got the EDS diagnosis, and then a
genetic test showed the other immune condition. When looking at the
two lists of symptoms it was such an intense moment in my life,
finally having closure.
theshackleford wrote 2 days ago:
> At one point I was convinced it was psychological.
I ended up thinking the same thing after a prolonged period of
symptoms that didnt make sense. I 100% began to think I was
losing my mind and imaginging it. Turns out I had a spinal cord
injury. The problem is, not knowing that for as long as I did
ultimately did impact my mental health in other ways.
It was nice to find out ultimately that no, I was not just going
insane.
fu-hn wrote 2 days ago:
What were your symptoms?
theshackleford wrote 1 day ago:
It started as just pain. Mild at first, mostly in my arms and
shoulders, like someone had yanked them out of their sockets.
Over time, it got worse. Not constant, just... random, brutal
spikes. One minute I’m fine, the next I move slightly wrong
and I’m yelping like a dog, unable to lift my arms, turn my
head, or function at all.
I’d go to doctors, and try to explain. "Look, I know I seem
okay now, but yesterday I literally couldn’t move etc etc."
Time after time they would just respond with some variant of
"Patient is stressed, stress is inducing pain, patient should
stress less." or "patient is overworked, should do less work,
etc".
This went on for over a year. I kept having these episodes,
days at a time where I was barely functional. The pain, the
immobility, completely real to me, but apparently all in my
mind according to my doctors. "Take
painkillers/antidepressants/rest etc etc." As a result
eventually, I began to wonder if maybe I had just gone
insane. Maybe this was all in my head and I was just
imagining being in pain.
Then things got worse. I suddenly had to pee all the time. My
hands started losing dexterity. I began bumping into things,
losing my balance, subtly at first, but unmistakably. It was
no longer just pain, my whole body was going off the rails.
After I woke up one day, completely unable to move, I was
rushed to the hospital. Same story: they told me it was
stress, maybe anxiety. I snapped. I told them if they
discharged me without finding out what was going on, and I
was later to find out that something had in fact been wrong,
I’d sue everyone I had interacted with that day. I don’t
even remember exactly what I said, but I must’ve hit the
right nerve, because they finally agreed to do an MRI, not to
help me, but to shut me up.
The scan finished. I never saw the general staff again.
Instead, the next person who walked in was one of my
country’s top neurosurgeons. He asked, very calmly, if
I’d please come to his office for an urgent (and free)
consult, because the imaging contained some pretty serious
findings that we needed to act upon immediately.
Finding out I had not in fact being going insane...I burst
into tears as the news was delivered. For so long i'd just
been left to think I was going mad and here I was finding out
that there were in fact very real reasons for everything I
was experiencing.
nwienert wrote 2 days ago:
Cheers brother, not many people know that specific nightmare.
Glad you’re over it.
marcinzm wrote 2 days ago:
Not OP but similar story with someone I know. Five years of many
specialists that always ended in "all the tests are negative so it
must either be fibromyalgia or psychological." Doctors never helped
but eventually they empirically found that abilify and rexulti in
very low doses (ie: half the minimum) made it just go away.
Empirically based on the reaction to various medications it was
probably some type of dopamine imbalance or issue. There's other
case studies of similar reactions to abilify and chronic pain but
not many.
Extra fun fact, a deep research AI nowadays will actually suggest
this as one of the treatments given a few paragraphs of information
on the symptoms/medications tried/etc.
nwienert wrote 2 days ago:
Dopamine can help autoimmune issues - if they haven’t seen a
rheumatologist I’d recommend it.
ekianjo wrote 2 days ago:
> Before moving forward - I’m not a doctor. Just a bit of a nerd with
a blog. Please do not sue me or use these posts as a replacement for
medical care.
unnecessary disclaimer here. when it comes to chronic pain treatment
doctors are mostly useless or even harmful, proposing surgeries or
drugs that will do more bad than anything else because they have no
interest in learning how to customize their approach and will parrot
and prescribe what they heard from medical representatives. Remember,
the opoids crisis was enabled by doctors in the first place.
linhns wrote 1 day ago:
I think he has to put that to prevent any crazy things from the law
side. You have a great point on doctors there, no wonder why people
lose trust in them after so many wrongs.
xyst wrote 2 days ago:
It was enabled by doctors but they were deceived by Purdue Pharma and
Sackler family. They also deceived the (understaffed) FDA, paid off
researchers to get their exact wording approved. Purdue used their
wealth and influence to launch a nationwide campaign and lobbyist
group advocating that mistreatment/mismanagement of patient pain will
lead to litigation.
Those stupid pain face charts you see at hospitals, physician
offices. Purdue marketing, nothing else.
Everybody is shitty here. This is what happens when a market has
loose regulations.
ekianjo wrote 1 day ago:
> it was enabled by doctors but they were deceived by Purdue Pharma
and Sackler family.
it was enabled by doctors accepting kick backs for the
prescriptions (legal ones but still kick backs). And lets not
forget that medical professionals are supposed to have eyes. When
most of your patients get strongly addicted to the drug you are
prescribing, you are supposed to ask questions not blindly follow
what a company tells you.
qualeed wrote 2 days ago:
It's not unnecessary to tell people you aren't a doctor when people
may reasonably believe you are a doctor in the absence of such a
disclaimer.
ekianjo wrote 2 days ago:
I was not focusing on the 'not. a doctor' part, rather the 'seek
medical care' as being bad advice when dealing with chronic pain
glasscannon wrote 2 days ago:
Heavily agree much destruction has come from overprescription. With
this note I'm just seeking to cover my bases and be transparent with
readers who don't know me.
incomingpain wrote 2 days ago:
>Pain Reprocessing Therapy
I asked chatgpt to explain this to me and it did a poor job.
Generally speaking in my friend group. Chronic pain used to be opiods;
though long ago medical cannabis came along. I couldnt tell you how
many people i know who arent stoners who got into the cbd thing and
fully got off opiods. 1 addiction for another, but at least cannabis
has far less negatives.
>If you don’t have chronic pain and you’re just here for vibes and
to see some cute brains, I really appreciate you .
The problem, CBD never fixes the pain. ~8 hours later you need more.
There's no business case for solving chronic pain. Here's my take.
1. There can be cases where there's something legitimately physically
wrong causing chronic pain. In detroit I had a friend who got shot with
birdshot, a tiny pellet was in his spine that surgeons didnt want to go
after but there's no getting away from that pain. If this is the case,
you're not seeking explanation.
2. There's stress/emotional pain. "The body keeps the score" by Bessel
van der Kolk. He's big on EMDR and yoga. Your achilles pain and such
absolutely could be, Probably something like 'change or abandonment'
one of my favourites for yoga: [1] Do that 23 minute video and see if
it helps.
3. Mindfulness meditation. Get into the most comfortable position
possible. Dont move; and far more difficult dont think. Your mind will
wander. If the pain is in your achilles. The only thing you're doing is
monitoring the pain. What's the exact shape of the pain? Is it 4 inches
long or is it only 2 inches? Is it sharp like a knife, or is it round
in shape? Do you have any taste, smell, or sound from it? You need to
wait as long as you have to, maybe it only makes a sound every 2
minutes, you have to wait and your focus is only on waiting for the
sound and nothing else.
4. Yoga nidra or progressive muscle relaxation. Start at your toes, you
try to flex the muscles to the maximum and hold for 5 seconds, release.
then do your feet, ankles, legs, every muscle has to have been flexed
and held for 5 seconds. Then when you're done, you simply do nothing at
all. dont even focus on anything; maybe your breath at most.
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XhJ63OQ7Ww
theshackleford wrote 2 days ago:
I find CBD about as useful as a sugar pill for pain treatment.
THC amongst its most minimal side effects increases my pain, not
decreases it.
I would suggest everyone try everything that is open to them, but
cannabis is not a miracle cure for every ailment.
incomingpain wrote 1 day ago:
>I find CBD about as useful as a sugar pill for pain treatment.
Same.
>THC amongst its most minimal side effects increases my pain, not
decreases it.
I had green card before canada legalized and thc was my main go.
Higher potency just meant less smoking needed.
Alcohol was what increased pain for me.
>but cannabis is not a miracle cure for every ailment.
For me, I cant do cannabis at all anymore; but you'd be surprised
how effective it is as a medicine for a lot of people.
theshackleford wrote 1 day ago:
> but you'd be surprised how effective it is as a medicine for a
lot of people.
Nah, I mean even for me, it had some positive impacts, again,
allowing me to eat for instance. So i'm not blind to its capacity
to be a positive force for many conditions.
The problem is that it's really not a miracle cure without side
effects for everyone which a lot of people are not willing to
entertain. There are people who simply refuse to accept that
cannabis is not always the best, or even a workable choice.
In my case for instance, despite the positive of an increased
appetite, it increased my pain, it gave me heart palpitations, it
gave me sinus tachyardia, etc. Despite this, cannabis users will
argue with me and tell me I "must have been doing it wrong" or
various other statements along those lines, rather than accepting
that like any drug, the reaction and utility of it is down to the
individual.
cracoucax wrote 2 days ago:
I've always found strange all the talk about using cannabis to
manage pain.
I've smoked alot of weed, well before all those talks promoting THC
for this.
It was my experience, and common knowledge in my circles at the
time that THC made pain way, way worse, at least in resin form.
Probably simply because you'll tend to isolate things and focus on
them very strongly when under the influence, it makes you notice
pain more. I remember toking some days after a knee surgery and
regretting badly having done it. So much pain I hadn't noticed...
theshackleford wrote 1 day ago:
> Probably simply because you'll tend to isolate things and focus
on them very strongly when under the influence, it makes you
notice pain more.
This is a very strong contender for why it increases my pain I
think, and possibly why it induces some other side effects. I'm
ok with my injury and how its changed my life for the most part,
but when using THC i'd laser focus in on the pain, then from the
pain to the cause and from there to "how unfair it is etc."
Its hard to explain, but the work i've done to be ok with this
disability is undone when I go near THC for some reason, and is
when I tend to break down and lose my ability to be "stoic" about
it for lack of a better word I suppose.
varispeed wrote 2 days ago:
Are you talking about THC isolate? I found high THC full spectrum
oils to be life changing. They don't "cure" pain, but fade it into
the background noise. You can still feel it if you focus on it, but
pain no longer consumes your attention. I found this to be the most
debilitating problem, not being able to do anything because pain
just constantly grabs your thoughts and imprisons you. Medical
cannabis removes that aspect almost completely.
Now, I found oil to be individual thing - I had to go through a
half dozen of them before I found one that is actually working for
me. It was discouraging at first, but I still had hope and once I
found the one... I got my life back!
I've been taking it for many years now. I don't have any side
effects. I don't feel "high" etc.
theshackleford wrote 1 day ago:
> I got my life back! I've been taking it for many years now. I
don't have any side effects. I don't feel "high" etc.
That's fantastic! It's pretty much the goal for all of us right?
Haha, so glad to hear it. I'm still on that road a little myself,
but it is what it is.
> Are you talking about THC isolate? I found high THC full
spectrum oils to be life changing.
I have tried it in pretty much all its forms. Flower, oil,
lozenges, wafers, vape etc. If it has THC in any form, pain goes
up. But it's not just pain, it induces within me sinus tachyardia
and heart palpitations, no matter the strength or presence of
other cannabanoids.
However I have just had surgery again, which should relieve some
pressure on my central nervous system, so it's likely ill try
again at some point in the future. There has been some suggestion
that my nervous system has been misinterpreting the affects of
cannabis as a "threat" effectively. But i'm very early in the
stages of recovery so probably not going to diddle with it for a
while.
glasscannon wrote 2 days ago:
> The problem, CBD never fixes the pain. ~8 hours later you need
more.
100%, medication plays a great role in providing comfort and support
but it can be ineffective (and often harmful) if relied on solely for
recovery from (neuroplastic) chronic pain.
> There's no business case for solving chronic pain
It seems some parties may be incentive aligned (e.g. insurers in
Australia) - though I'm still navigating this space to find an
approach which makes solving the root cause viable. Keen for your
thoughts.
> 1.
Sorry to hear about your friend. This is often referred to as a
structural diagnosis - i.e. where a knowledgable/proficient doctor
has diagnosed there is legitimate tissue (nociceptive) or nerve
(neuropathic) damage.
> 2.
Yep! This is what the series will be targeting, data points to a
substantial percentage of chronic pain sufferers solely (or partially
in comorbidities) being impacted by psychological disorder (otherwise
known as neuroplastic pain / TMS / and a few other names!). There are
a lot of causes and factors which have been shown in research to
date, but largely it's adverse childhood experience, stress,
personality traits, and more.
Will check out that vid!
> 3.
Related to this, there is an exercise called somatic tracking which
has helped many people (including myself) - during it people often
notice pain shifting throughout your body. This was a big turning
point for me seeing how my mind behaves in real time.
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lw1D_UvzIDA
__turbobrew__ wrote 1 day ago:
> 100%, medication plays a great role in providing comfort and
support but it can be ineffective (and often harmful) if relied on
solely for recovery from (neuroplastic) chronic pain.
Medication can help you get out of a local maxima, sometimes with
pain the issue is that your nervous system is hyperactive and just
constantly firing which feeds back into itself in a positive
feedback loop. If you can take pain meds and/or nerve blockers it
can help break that loop and let you do things like go out and
walk, exercise, live a life where pain is not always on the
forefront of your consciousness. That in turn can let you get into
a better state and break the local maxima and then you can wean off
the meds.
If however, you do not change your lifestyle/condition when on the
meds things will not get better long term as your body will lose
responsiveness to the meds.
I am not a doctor.
incomingpain wrote 2 days ago:
>It seems some parties may be incentive aligned (e.g. insurers in
Australia) - though I'm still navigating this space to find an
approach which makes solving the root cause viable. Keen for your
thoughts.
Ive been sort of part of this sort of approach before. I was
sysadmin, not a suit. These do tend to work out.
This is also the mechanism for how they squash and hide stuff that
would cut into tylenol sales. Dont sell it, license it for periods
of time is my recommendation.
Or you seem to agree much with my post. Put it together. The
chronic pain fixer upper place that takes in patients and explains
these things and trains them. You hire the emdr and yoga folks.
>Will check out that vid! Big fan of the body keeps the score.
It helped me for sure. I really need to try EMDR but never have. Id
bet it works great. Adrienne is one of my favourites, but the
science actual says slow yoga is more effective; whereas she needs
to go quicker for video length.
>Related to this, there is an exercise called somatic tracking
which has helped many people (including myself) - during it people
often notice pain shifting throughout your body. This was a big
turning point for me seeing how my mind behaves in real time. [1]
3000 year old religious ritual :)
Its very interesting to me how science when i was young called this
all hoo-haa pseudoscience but is now giving it a new name and
saying it works.
You know what's interesting, my post is pretty heavily downvoted. I
wonder what people disagreed with.
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lw1D_UvzIDA
twodave wrote 2 days ago:
Life is pain, highness. Anyone who says different is selling something.
mkoubaa wrote 2 days ago:
Buddhist?
MarkusWandel wrote 2 days ago:
Dread Pirate Roberts
twodave wrote 2 days ago:
Yes, and honestly probably the deepest line in the film (though
plenty others are often quoted in my family).
I think there is a lot of strength that comes from waking up and
doing the “hard” thing, whatever that is. I’ve had
injuries, unexplained health issues, mental health issues, high
stress, etc. I have found that for me, at least, refusal to let
these things break me and meeting them head-on has been a
positive overall for my quality of life.
To abstract it away some, I grew up hearing a lot of family
members say things like, “I can’t do X anymore because of
Y.” I just refuse to allow any of those damn Ys to kill off my
beloved Xs, as far as I am able, despite whatever temporary pain
or difficulty it may require me to go through. Sometimes telling
the Ys to shut the hell up makes them go away completely. And
when it doesn’t, sometimes I just have to be okay “embracing
the suck” in order to prevent the Ys from bossing me around.
RickJWagner wrote 2 days ago:
Prince Humperdinck: First things first, to the death.
Westley: No. To the pain.
tdn291 wrote 2 days ago:
Great article, will watch your developments with great interest!
glasscannon wrote 2 days ago:
I recently decided to go all in on addressing chronic pain - a
condition which affects an estimated 1/5 adults in the US[1] and nearly
the same proportion in my country of Australia.
This is the first of several blog posts exploring this invisible
condition.
If you're passionate about this space feel free to reach out, thanks!
[1] [data from 2021]
-
[Edit] Thanks so much everyone! Excited to get the next article out
soon!
[1]: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/72/wr/mm7215a1.htm
go_elmo wrote 1 day ago:
I did a 10 day insight-meditation retreat and experienced how pain is
triggered by the mind first hand.
This is impressive to me and id be curious what your perspective is
agumonkey wrote 2 days ago:
Hi, thanks for the thread, what are the websites you follow the most
to read about this topic ?
Sometimes I wish there was a medHN
glasscannon wrote 1 day ago:
agumonkey I love this - maybe it's about time a wellness/health
"HN" was started. We're living in a time of chronic health
dysfunction and lack of clarity. DM (and/or anyone else) if you'd
like to jam
For my recovery my reading/listening was focused on people like Dr
Schubiner, Alan Gordon and some folks in Aus like Lorimer Moseley.
I'm engaging more in linking research studies in now as I
experienced a lot of people (often not practitioners) making claims
without links to evidence (likely to keep things simple), which
made my logical brain skeptical orignally and slowed my entry to
this field
agumonkey wrote 1 day ago:
Thanks for the answer, I'll ping you.
j_bum wrote 2 days ago:
Hi Dan, I wanted to share a few links to articles on pain and
circadian rhythms that I wrote during my PhD. Would love to connect
if you have any questions.
[0] Circadian rhythms and pain: [1] The disruptive relationship among
circadian rhythms, pain, and opioids: [2] Circadian rhythm disruption
exacerbates pain behavior in male mice:
[1]: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01497...
[2]: https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/neuroscience/articles/1...
[3]: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03064...
glasscannon wrote 2 days ago:
Would love to connect/chat. Will read over these in the meantime.
eloycoto wrote 2 days ago:
Awesome!I had two tumours in my hip and I lost around 90% of a few
muscles. Pain is my friend since I started this journey, and I need
to say, that learn how to deal with that should be the first
treatment!
I'll read this blog with love!
Thanks
<- back to front page
You are viewing proxied material from codevoid.de. The copyright of proxied material belongs to its original authors. Any comments or complaints in relation to proxied material should be directed to the original authors of the content concerned. Please see the disclaimer for more details.