When I was working in the software industry, the term “fully-qualified” entered my world in a marvelously exact way.
The specific programmatic terminology here is from the Java programming language. Don’t let it bother you – some things are just details.
Java uses an organizing category called “classes” for unique bundles of code that define all the features, characteristics, and actions that this bundle of code needs in order to do what its name says it will do. (Other programming languages may have other terms.)
Each class has to have all the parts it needs to know when it’s wanted, what it needs to look for, what it has to do, when it has to stop, and what (if anything) should happen next.
If a class is completely and properly defined in all these parameters (and sometimes more), then it’s called a “fully-qualified” class. It can be trusted and can be used across multiple regions.
Not all classes are fully-qualified. They’re okay for quick tasks and have a place in the Java ecosystem, but their usefulness is limited. Those classes, those hunks of code, usually have to be filled out to be fully-qualified or else deleted when the time comes to prepare a program for market.
Any robust program needs an awful lot of classes of many different types. It’s inefficient to have too many similar classes — you’ve got to have different classes to do different tasks. All that they have to have in common (besides logical coherence) is that they must be properly constructed so they can do their task — whatever their particular task is.
This diversity of classes is essential to good programming.
You’re starting to see the metaphor here, aren’t you…
Some people view all others as fully-qualified human beings.
Some people do not. Only a few meet their idea of fully-qualified — that is, complete and correct and fully able to function as they should. This, naturally, means that they have specific and limited ideas of what humans need to do.
When people beat on those who diverge from their idea of truly human (those targets are usually women or gender-bending or people with disabilities or people of color or poor people) they’re acting on the fact that they don’t see these other people as fully-qualified human beings.
The people doing the beating-on are hung up on the feeling that these people are not properly “written”, that they’re missing huge hunks of “code” that limits their function — and makes them fair game for being taken out, sidelined or deleted.
We aren’t all the same, and nor should we be. It’d be a terrible program if we were, and would quickly choke on its own redundancy, crashing itself and possibly blue-screening the whole show.
Maybe we should go back to the old CRT colors and make it orange-screening.
I’ve been chewing over something for awhile and recently realized that it might be time to apply that much mercy to myself. It’s a more coherent, whole way of thinking about what I discussed in some panic in my previous post.
Complex chronic spoonies tend to drive ourselves hard because we really have no option (the exhausting, but relevant, internal chorus of “adapt or die, figure it out or eff off, push through or give up, fight or fall” is inescapable) but does it need to be so ubiquitous?
A lot of these posts have been oriented on finding light through the cracks, on putting life itself into center stage somehow. I think I’m cooking up a new way of doing that.
The most basic of basics
Many years ago, when I was working as an emergency nurse, I realized that (despite the hype & excitement) our job was fundamentally simple: give people another chance to get “it” right.
Whether “it” was keeping up with their meds, staying off of whatever was poisoning them, choosing better company, finding the healing path that worked for them – whatever. There are fewer “its” than their are people working on them, which is why we are never the only one with our struggles.
That made more sense inside my head. Sorry.
People wind up in the ER because something bad happened, and usually human ignorance, stupidity, or violence was involved.
That’s not about blame. People don’t always get to choose their company or can’t always bear to be alive without some kind of buffer between them and their situations. Even if they did do something colossally daft (like the rich kids who decided to cut out the middlemen and drive 350 miles to buy their drugs from the distributor; 4 came down, 1 eventually went back), it’s not right to require mistakes to be terminal if they don’t have to be.
Of course people with heart disease should take their meds even when they feel fine, and get periodic blood tests to show that it’s working. Of course people with diabetes should keep an eye on their blood sugar and stay on their meds. Of course primary care when you first get symptoms is better than going to the ER when you start to fall to pieces… but it’s awfully hard to find a primary doctor these days.
Life is complicated and increasingly expensive. ER work really shows that.
Anyway, I saw our job not as holding back the sea with a broom (as some do), but as giving individual people a chance to figure out how to do things better. Lift properly. Drive sensibly. Stay off the hard stuff. Find an appropriate doctor who’ll listen – and then talk with them.
Nobody likes to be told, so reciting these mantras to them doesn’t often make sense. Oddly enough, it can be a lot more meaningful when you’re meeting their worried gaze as you administer the medication or fit their c-collar or go over the x-rays with them. Or tape and dress the wounds in their wrists.
There is so much we don’t control… sometimes we just have to remember what we could control, and how to put that in reach. It’s not easy, but it’s often very simple. When the universe is dropping its big hammer, where do I need to be when it lands? Under it? Or can I get off to one side? What will I have to let go of in order to get out of the way? Is it worth it?
The answers to this aren’t always obvious, and “worth it” to some is not the same “worth it” as for others.
What that looked like in practice
We had a lot of repeat customers. Some of them I wound up zipping into body bags, because what it took to get out from under the universe’s hammer was either too far out of reach or not ultimately worth the effort of letting go of what they were clinging to. They mostly didn’t want to die, but it wound up being too hard to do what it took to live.
I’ve got to respect that. It’s not for me to judge.
Some of them I saw come back just for ordinary bump-and-owie stuff, showing me the healing scars (inward or outward) of their old struggles. There are no words for the sense of sunrise I felt on seeing them. It made the rest worth doing.
It was all their work… but it was up to us to give them another chance to get it right.
My chance
I absolutely love to work. Being useful and productive is the bomb! If it weren’t so important to me… well, I probably would not have come down with CRPS, which stemmed from relentless overuse injuries in my case. I could not take a break to save my life. Whatever it was, I had to jump in with both feet, arms flailing and shouting “incomiiiiing!”
I imagine I could be pretty tiresome that way. Belated apologies to my friends and colleagues along the way!
I’ve been wrestling – for years (how embarrassing) – with recognizing that having fun… recreating… seeking diversion instead of merely a change of work… I’m not even sure how to put it… but that loose, apparently useless, seemingly non-productive use of my time, is really good for me.
It lowers my stress levels. It reduces my pain. It raises my spirits. I don’t know if it gives me back any of my lost abilities, because I find it incredibly hard to do and have never been able to hang onto the easy-going vibe long enough to find out.
What with one thing and another (I’m an American living stateside in January of 2025; IYKYK) I have a powerful inward pull to go somewhere glorious – and affordable, thank you very much – and simply muck about enjoying the diversions. Play tourist for once in my life. Soak up pretty colors and different sounds. Be warm every single day.
And, if I get bored or don’t like it well enough, simply go somewhere else.
At this point, a lot of places are more affordable than the U.S. (more on that later) and, for all the challenges of travel in this body, I do plan on doing nothing but recover and enjoy myself for a good while afterward.
…It’s a weird idea, honestly.
Good thing I’m used to maintaining and cultivating relationships via the internet, after a quarter century of having to do so. It makes love more portable.
It’s still a weird idea. Wherever I go, I still bring myself along, and I know I’ll have to leave my compulsiveness behind with my snowboots. That’s unnatural, but I’ll learn.
Learning to let go of that deep attachment to being productive and useful is not the same as not being productive and useful – but it could give me time and space to heal my much-clobbered systems.
That might be the point.
Rest and play is widely regarded as essential. I think that’s the “it” that I need to work on getting right. Get out from under the falling hammer of overdriving a broken system.
Without descending into the morass of modern U. S. history and politics, let’s just say that I’d like the first months – up to half a year – of the new regime to happen with me being somewhere bearable, where good produce is a lot cheaper and the medical care both stable and affordable.
None of this is likely here, where my food prices rose about 30% during the harvest season and there is much loose talk and planned chaos around Medicare and the dole (which I depend on to stay alive) – not to mention the cost of everything rising by 15-60%.
The pundits and those who follow them tell me not to worry, because there are rules and procedures “they” have to follow.
Given the Mump track records regarding rules and procedures, all I can do is smile sweetly so as not to worry my loved ones, and let my mental gears turn more quietly.
Hot tip #1: a tariff is a tax. These get passed on to the consumers, not sucked up by the companies from countries exporting to us.
Hot tip #2: as we’ve seen so clearly over the past 5 years, industries don’t just raise costs in line with their own expenses, but jack them up to see just how much the market will bear. Given a captive market, this has gotten really ugly. Remember eggs last year? The sub-prime lending fiasco leading to the 2008-9 crash? Yeah, it’s an established pattern.
So anyway… here I am: if I stay in one place, I’ll be wrestling hard with un-meetable expenses (my dietary needs are simple, but not cheap) and a constantly-cycling urge to run away. That’s neither stable, healthy, nor fun. Been there, did that, threw away the t-shirt.
I didn’t grow up in one place, or even one country. I’m not mentally stuck here, and I don’t believe I have to put up with the scrambling anxiety or insufferable expenses to come as the Mump Regime and its trail of chaos gets itself through the initial reality-checks.
I’ve been toying with the idea that it’s healthful and good to be warm, stable, and happy. That takes adjusting to, because so much of what makes me feel anchored to the world is about work. I love to be productive. It makes me feel superbly grounded to be useful/helpful to others. This is very compelling… but as far as my daily choices go, doesn’t have a lot to do with being warm, stable, and happy.
It does have to do with abusing my eyes and attention with falling down back-lit rabbit-holes and trying to turn the swarms of information floating around in my brain into streams of relevant words, pertinent to the question I’ve just read.
But I’ve got serious limits and, as it turns out, I am much more useful and productive after I’ve been taking really good care of myself and playing and recreating and being happy outdoors – a lot.
This doesn’t sound like computer-gazing, which is how most of my work happens.
This focus on making myself happy is a weird concept, and I’m still working out a lot of the details. I mean, not even details – I haven’t settled on where to start; even my departure date is unfixed. Getting the right people in to keep my place clean & warm while I’m gone is kind of a big deal too. I’m not prepared to move and won’t sacrifice my sweet little home – not until I’ve got a much better offer in hand, anyway!
Anything could happen. I’m trying to keep breathing properly as I say that.
That last post, about acknowledging the shimmering sense of mortality I’ve lived with for nearly a year? Well, I kept meaning to post an update, but I’ve been having too much fun making progress elsewhere, and simply dropped the ball. I often think, “oh, I should post that on my blog,” and then – pain diseases being what they are – when I shift context to hop online, I’ve forgotten what it was and quickly get sucked into something else.
At the risk of using terms improperly, I found myself explaining this normality of painee existence as a sort of “acquired ADD.” As it happens, our brains get changed in the same places and pathways that ADD brains live in, so that our scans look amazingly similar. Those ADD-like symptoms are definitely not imaginary. I have found myself using adaptations very much like those I’ve read about in some of the terrific books on ADD. I recommend reading up on it. There’s a ton of helpful material on how to manage with and work around these attention issues.
I miss blogging. So, I hope to automate (or at least simplify) moving information here from social media. There are still interesting questions to answer, and I think that useful info we generate in pain groups should find its way to a more stable, searchable medium.
I have been sinking into this life, having acknowledged that inward message about its likely brevity. I’ve been here a year, and love my little flat more and more each day. I’ve been rearranging, creating more usable space within the same square footage. It’s delightful!
I keep the picture that reminds me of those who made this happen over the decorative fireplace, where it looks wonderful, and send grateful thoughts to its source/s – even when reaching out in real life only creates confusion and misunderstanding. We humans generally, and painees particularly, sometimes realize we don’t control how others receive us, but we can steer our own thoughts. So, I maintain this practice of gratitude, because that’s who I am and always have been, and wait for better times.
More health problems? Certainly! I will write about the gastrointestinal circus another time. I’m currently working on digesting a drink of water, and I’d prefer not to think about it until that’s done. This is the big, hairy, stinking follow-up to the first sign of trouble nearly 2 decades ago, which I wrote about (with disgusting toilet humor, inevitably) over at the post Intestinal Fortitude.
Apart from one misunderstanding and that additional body system, this life is amazing. Bit by bit, I’ve been getting a broader pool of professional and personal help and support. Bit by bit, I’ve been coming up with adaptations that bring more art, craft, and productive time into my weeks, although I have to be careful (of course) about changing tasks and changing position and managing time better than I really want to. For instance: “No,” I had to myself yesterday evening; “you don’t get to finish that row of adaptive crochet! I don’t care how pretty this is, or how soft the yarn. These helpful tools only improve my function, they don’t correct the problem! Put. The yarn. Down. Thank you. Now go do something else.”
So I did.
And then I treated my right forearm with everything in my toolkit. And then I made myself promise not to pick up those tools for at least two more days, because that’s what it takes to recover when I’m forgetful enough to do crochet on a couple of consecutive days. Change those tasks! Figuring out a crafty solution is not as important as protecting tomorrow’s ability. Or even tonight’s. I can use myself hard, but I’m not allowed to use myself up. I don’t count on a ton of recovery time.
I’m back to using dictation software, in order to make better use of my arm time. The stylistic difference is clear to me, but it probably doesn’t matter. This is a good compromise to make, although it’s not necessarily an easy one. Dictation is a strange, slow way of speaking, and it forces me to think in chunks rather than in thoughts and words. But hey, it works!
Times are changing. Whether or not the current American president behaves any better, whether or not the next American president has the moral courage for fundamental changes, whatever, times are changing. My own possibilities are opening up, and I’m not holding back. I didn’t even know I was, but boy, things have changed since I stopped trying to eke everything out! I’ve got things to do, and I’m not waiting any longer to do them.
If I were more self-conscious, I’d throw in a bumper sticker-appropriate remark here. I’m out of ideas. I’ve got other things to do now. Maybe next time. Maybe. 🙂
Take care of yourselves. When you can’t, take care of each other. When you can’t do that, take care of your world. It helps.
After talking with patients, doctors, and loved ones — and, as a trained observer, carefully noticing the changes in posture, expression, and tone as I’ve done so — I’ve arrived at the following conclusion. I realize it flies in the face of current accepted usage, but there are some things wrong with current accepted usage, and I don’t mind saying so.
/SeeYarP’Yes/ is not that hard to say.
No, it’s not proper to call it CRiPS unless you yourself have it. This is partly because “crips” is a term of abuse for disabled people and using the term for a particular set of disabled people won’t change that, and partly because Crips is the name of a violent organized crime group originating from Southern California. Neither is an appropriate form of address for those who have the most disruptive and intransigent pain disease known to science, and can’t perpetrate violence because of the devastation it wreaks in their own bodies.
Those who have this disease sure don’t need to be subliminally messaged with either association.
I understand that young docs are being trained to use the term in order to remind themselves that it is, in fact, a disabling disease. My view is that, if you’re smart enough to graduate from medical school, you’re smart enough to remember that disruption of the central nervous system can be pretty freaking disabling, in CRPS as in spinal injury or Alzheimer’s or anything else that disrupts the normal structure, chemistry, and behavior of the central nervous system.
The fact that the current name focuses on “pain” is a problem of nomenclature, which will change again as it often has since the year 1548 when it was first described by Ambroise Paré, father of forensic medicine and physician to the French court at the time. (Look him up — great guy. Prefigured that outstanding physician and gifted schmooze-meister Dr. Silas Weir by over 300 years.)
CRaPS, as in the game of chance, is not recommended. It sounds like a vulgar term for bowel excretions, which is — if possible — even more inappropriate. It’s certainly a “crappy” disease, but having said that, it’s time to move on and not keep reminding someone that they feel (and believe they look) like shit.
Of course your CRPS patients say they don’t mind. Check the power differential; their ability to bear to live is in your hands, doctor/loved one, so they’re highly motivated to be nice and go along with anything that doesn’t involve an immediate threat. They want you to feel good about them, so they will laugh along with you, however unreal it feels.
Have some decency — don’t call them or their disease CRiPS or CRaPS, even if they say it’s okay. They don’t need to feel any worse than they already do.
The CRPS patients can call it whatever they like, because only they know how bad it really is, and have the right — and need — to cuss it now and then.
/SeeYarP’Yes/ is not that hard to say. It’s only 4 syllables, like “pain diseases” or “really bad day.” It’s 20% shorter than the word “dehumanizing.”
This moment of intellectual — and emotional — honesty has been brought to you by a nightmare I woke up with this morning. My nightmares are a direct result of my disordered central nervous system, which can no longer process things normally and has to roil around and tear up the pavement in between the constant push-back and re-organization that takes place in my waking state.
It’s pretty crappy, not to mention crippling. But I rise above it, yet again, as I intend to do every day until the day I die. I sure appreciate anything others can do to avoid making that harder.
Those of us with crazy-bad illnesses appreciate the stroke of genius from Christine Miserandino, who originated the Spoon Theory to explain what it takes to get through the day.
For the most part, though, we shouldn’t have to explain much. Wouldn’t it be nice if everyone could get that memo?
With her permission and kind support, I’ve revised her article to reflect the realities of the chronically or severely ill. Please feel free to print out/pass on, with credit to her embedded as it is in this text.
Here’s my version…
Health Management Choices – Boundaries
A long time ago, as a developing patient educator, I found many chronic patients uncomfortable and frustrated with unsolicited advice – or inadvertently soliciting advice and then feeling uncomfortable with the discussion that followed.
Eventually, I read this great article on boundaries that eventually become known as “The Bean Dip Response”, “Pass the Bean Dip”, or even used as a verb: “bean dip” someone.
I rewrote the article from the perspective of a chronically ill, alternative-using or drug-disabled patient (one who can’t use common meds for the condition because of uselessness or devastating side-effects) – but the principles are transferrable to any constellation of health management choices.
The Bean Dip Response is best used when you don’t need to defend or don’t wish to engage with a person over a health management choice. If you are discussing issues with a person and you welcome their feedback, the Bean Dip Response is not needed.
I’ve found that chronic patients may confuse boundaries while trying to convince someone of the rightness of their choices. The best thing is to assert your boundary, rather than defend your choice. Your choice needs no defense.
Health management choices should be on a “need to know” basis. Most people don’t “need to know”. Since medical information is highly confidential, it’s NOT incumbent on you to explain yourself to those who don’t need to know. Those who need to know are essentially you, your doctors/providers, and your designated decision-maker for when you can’t make your own decisions.
If anyone else asks, "How are you sleeping?"
Answer: Great! Thanks for asking! Want some bean dip?
"Are you sure you should get picked up every time your legs flare?"
Answer: “Yes! Thank you! Want some bean dip?"
"When do you plan to wean off those meds?"
Answer: "When it's time. Thanks! Want some bean dip?"
"You should use my aunt's hairdresser's physiotherapist's product. It cleared up her [symptom du jour] in two weeks."
Answer: "That's great! I'm happy for her. Want some bean dip?"
Now, with some people you will need to set firm boundaries. The offer of bean dip won’t be sufficient to redirect them [I can’t imagine why not. -ed.] They either don’t respond to gentle redirection or they have emotion tied to the issue and a desire to “go there” more deeply. You may be able to anticipate this – if it’s a pattern of intrusion, for example, which you’ve seen in other circumstances.
In such a case, a stronger “Bean Dip” response may be needed. In these cases, the redirect will need to be backed up with action (like hanging up, leaving the room, or even unfriending them).
Remember, boundaries are not about forcing another person to comply. You cannot “do” that. Boundaries are about what YOU will do or not do. You are the person you own. You don’t own them and they don’t own you.
Practice kind but firm responses: "I know you love me and want to help. I am so glad. My health choices have been researched and made. I won't discuss it again.”
Don’t confuse setting boundaries with trying to convince someone of the rightness of your choices. It’s a common (and understandable) desire to present the same information that led you to your choices. The problem with that in dealing with a person who has boundary issues is that engaging with content invites discussion. (Also, different people’s minds work in different ways, so your train of thought may make no sense at all to them. Wasted effort all around.)
Chronic patients often struggle with this.
The boundary is that no one else has an inherent right to tell you how to take care of yourself.
You set boundaries by doing the above: acknowledging what they said and redirecting.
Where the chronically ill may invite problems is by citing authors, studies and sites to “defend” themselves. Each time you do so, you create more time for discussion and rebuttal and send the message that your decisions are up for debate.
Don’t defend your choices beyond generalities, and then only once or twice. “My doctor is in support of my choices. Want some bean dip?” Or maybe, “Well, this is my decision. Want some bean dip?”
If necessary, look them in the eye and say simply, “I want us to have a good relationship. I want to enjoy my time with you. I’ll take care of me, so that we both can make the most of our time together. Let’s not discuss this anymore. If you bring it up again, I will have to ask you to leave.”
Finally, an important corollary to the “Bean Dip Response” is reciprocity. Once again, the content of your choices should not dictate the interaction.
You may be totally, and correctly, convinced that you should be able to determine your own activity, medication, and supplementation regime; never be left to “cry it out”; and should be allowed to follow your own weaning path, if any.
But, if you post those opinions on Facebook (or communicate them in other ways), you invite (and therefore solicit) feedback and advice. Post accordingly and respond to comments with that in mind. You need to give the “other side” the same respect that you expect to receive.
For those of us who are chronically ill, there are people we DO need to explain ourselves to. However, these are mostly highly educated people with specialist training, and that makes it a short list indeed.
Our loved ones may believe they want to understand, but, as my mother finally admitted, “I don’t think I really do want to understand what you’re going through. I couldn’t stand to know how much pain you’re in and how rotten you feel all the time. It would drive me crazy, knowing that.”
But, hoo boy, does she ever respect my boundaries! That’s worth the world. It makes everything open and clear between us, and our current relationship reflects that.
When someone confesses their limits to me, I take it as a gift. They have told me how to protect our relationship and how to move forward with it. I appreciate that. With that subject opened, we can move on to discuss how, or if, they can connect with me in a way that works for us both. This is priceless information. I’m glad my mother had the courage to open that can of worms, because then it got very manageable very quickly.
For an ever-changing kaleidescope of visual delight, check out my Mom’s photography from all around the world at http://jldtifft.com/
Older Brother and his wife, Aunt Krusty, sent me a fabulous little doohicky from a medieval town they visited. It’s a brooch of a common design element used in the Middle Ages: a tabby cat with two tails and fabulous eyebrows offering a mouse, with the legend, “visis mu” — “here’s the mouse.” Close inspection shows both letter “s”s to be upside down. I’ve known a few artisans, and they like making people twist their heads around. Besides, that’s relevant. You’ll see why.
The enclosed card contains the usual wonderfully vague, semi-academic wording saying that animals with two tails (no mention of fabulous eyebrows) are signifiers of evil forces at work, but beyond that, nobody really knows what this means.
I thought some academics kept cats…?
My lovely polyglot friend Sylvie does. Sylvie is a CRPS compatriot who lost a frightening percentage of weight late last year, from which she’s still recovering. Her cat Nala has become a serial killer of the entire species Rodentia, bringing her grisly accomplishments to lay at Sylvie’s feet — or couch, or pillow — with startling frequency. Naturally, they aren’t always quite dead. Not Nala, but a kindred spirit. Photo Tomasz Sienicki @ Wikimedia Commons.
Cats don’t have thumbs, so they don’t really get it about cooking and cupboards. All Nala knows is that Sylvie obviously needs to work on her hunting skills, but in the meantime, Nala can at least help her fatten up.
Also, cats tend to gatomorphize, just as those of us who are close to them tend to anthropomorphize. Nala has no idea that mice, gophers, shrews, and moles do Sylvie no good at all; that, on the contrary, they’re upsetting, messy, and potentially infectious. Nala thinks they’re good, and Nala cares for Sylvie, so they must be good for Sylvie.
She honestly believes that, with all her furry, loving little heart. “Visis mu! Have this great mouse!” So the slaughter continues.
Sylvie’s garden blooms, but her house is an abattoir at times. This is not a bad metaphor for explaining one of the more difficult aspects of being under a doctor’s care.
Most doctors really mean well. Becoming a physician takes an enormous amount of work, which requires great commitment to complete. It’s a hard job with ridiculous hours, especially for the first few years.
That doesn’t mean they’re all bright or gifted or even humane. It just means they believe in the value of medicine and surgery, enough to spend a decade or more learning to do it. There is much care and dedication among many doctors.
Doctors are intensely, let’s say, socialized to stay within the parameters of accepted practice. It keeps them out of trouble, although it may also keep them from true excellence at times.
Mostly, they love those parameters. They love having guidelines. They are truly, madly, deeply convinced of the value of the meds and procedures that they’re trained in. It doesn’t help that, if they put a foot wrong outside of those parameters and things don’t go well, they can lose everything. They are heavily incented, so to speak, to stay inside whatever they understand their parameters to be. And, of course, the peer pressure is enormous.
Now, this is tough for CRPS patients. There is so much variation from one CRPSer to the next, that there are NO established treatment parameters that meet the medical gold standard of being consistent, repeatable and reliable over a majority of patients.
None. Nada. Zilch. There is not one thing that consistently works well for most of us — at least nothing that comes from a bottle or an operating room. Activity, rest, hydration and nutrition all seem to be key, but even their benefits are hugely variable, and you rarely hear about them from physicians.
For a while, it was thought that COX-2 inhibitors combined with membrane stabilizers, came close to being a semi-magical bullet. (Gabapentin/ Neurontin, pregabalin/Lyrica, and so on, are known to most patients as anti-seizure meds, but many healthcare providers call them membrane stabilizers.)
Then it turned out that the Dr. Scott Reuben, the physician who popularized that treatment, was making the numbers up (here, reported to his colleagues and here, reported to science fans.) He was so busy being a puppet of the drug companies paying him, that he forgot what it means to be real.
COX-2 inhibitors were given a general thumbs-down over cardiac effects (which many people with chronic CRPS have enough trouble with anyway) and, as peri-surgical meds, did not live up to Reuben’s promise that subsequent chronic pain would be less.
Ironically, it had already been established that 500 mg of vitamin C two or three times daily for 3 months after surgery does have significant demonstrated benefit, reducing the incidence of CRPS – the most intractable and severe form of chronic pain – by 35-80%, depending on the extremity, extent of injury, and probably the degree of compliance. Moreover, vitamin C is very cheap, as well as very effective. (See extensive links list below.)
The anti-seizure meds, unfortunately for pain patients, did not get removed from first-line treatment.
By then, unfortunately, whole nations (Great Britain and the Netherlands, take a bow) had adopted Reuben’s corrupt recommendations for first-line treatment. It takes a lot more effort to undo that level of adoption than it does to hoodwink an entire sub-economy of peer reviewers and medical specialists, apparently.
The arrogantly reputable journals that accepted his work, and subsequently published other work which was based unquestioningly on his false results, are still trying to live it down. What’s interesting is that other doctors couldn’t replicate his results, so he was the only one publishing these great data… yet journals and physicians continued to publish and follow his recommendations. I do hope the journals revised their “peer-review” process to include more actual, I don’t know, reviewing, perhaps by peers. It took a lot of people to permit and perpetuate Reuben’s false reports. They are not innocent.
It could take decades to undo much of his damage, and meanwhile, the advancement of treatment has been down the wrong track for years, while other more appropriate avenues of treatment have been ignored or even forgotten.
So, millions of CRPS patients are being first-lined with truly obnoxious meds with iffy benefits and ghastly side-effects, rather than being examined as individuals, and assessed as to whether:
neurotransmitter support, most provably with antidepressants, would be more appropriate, given disease-related onset of affective symptoms (antidepressants), sleep problems (tricyclics), or dysautonomia (SNRI);
a short, hard attack of narcotics and aggressive PT would answer in the case of a hardy, active, or young person;
a proprietary or tech-based treatment, like TCMI or Calmare, are indicated for those who show active neuroplasticity or respond well to electrical stim; or
this person is a good candidate for ketamine protocols of one kind or another, some of which are no more toxic than membrane stabilizers.
it might be reasonable to try a more experimental approach which has demonstrated significant promise, notably magnesium infusions, immune globulin therapy, or temporary immune suppression.
Oops… Doctors, as a group, forgot to look at the patients in their excitement to have a designated treatment protocol. “Visis mu! Take this mouse – it’s government approved!” If you’ve worked with government agencies, you know why they’re laughing.
But the doctors doing the offering really think this is a great idea. That’s what the guidelines say, after all, and they are evidence-based – except that that evidence was cooked.
While anti-seizure meds do work very well for some, starting with them reflexively is not reasonable: the cost-benefit profile is worse than most of the other potential first-line alternatives, due to high rates of side effects and comparatively unimpressive rates of usefulness.
Using them as a first-line treatment delays more effective, lower-cost treatment for many people in horrific pain, and, between the delay and the cognitive and neurologic side effects of this class of drugs, causes greater impairment (with higher associated costs) in far too many. It should be a second or even third line treatment, if you go by the evidence that has remained credible – taking a back seat to less fraught (not perfect, but still less problematic) therapeutic agents and interventions.
But the docs who lean on it really think it’s great. “Visis mu! Visis mu! Look – it’s a great mouse!”
Reminds me of my previous pain doctor, a competent technician with a bedside manner directly related to the patient’s appearance. He has a good reputation in his area – which tells you what a lot of rubbishy practitioners there were in the area.
He wanted to shove into the neck of my spinal column a couple of widgets which were the size of Starbucks drinking straws – you know, those really fat ones that you could suck a steak through, if it’s tender enough. Two of those, jammed into a six-inch length of a space that didn’t have enough room for one, and which – as we now know – was already inflamed in much the same way that the spinal cord of someone with a spinal cord injury is inflamed.
He liked it because shoving surgical hardware into other people’s bodies is what he does best, and these widgets have embedded electrodes which could zap the pain signal at the spinal root of my arms and he thought it would work really well and I had the right psych profile for it and this was the greatest thing since sliced bread. “Visis mu! Visis mu! This is a truly excellent mouse which I am shoving smugly up your spine!”
It was a nice idea, and, again, this particular thing works spectacularly well for some people. For me, not so much. In fact, it was a disaster. It was truly worse than the CRPS pain, which takes some doing. The equipment trial still gives me spasms due to the mere memory of the staggering physical trauma it entailed.
Truly, each of us is unique.
Once he realized that I couldn’t accept his mouse, his whole manner changed. Just like a sulky cat, nursing his disappointment seemed a lot more important to him than finding something that would help me.
How could I be so callow and blind that I couldn’t appreciate this great mouse he wanted to give me? There’s just no helping some people! His neglect and disaffection was so damaging I had to fire him and move on to the excellent Dr. Richeimer at USC Pain Center, 4 hours’ drive away and worth the two-night stay in the armpit of LA.
Another dear friend, the angelically kind M, has roughly 3 dozen anaphylactic reactions a year. She is so hyper-reactive to so many things that driving past a town with the wind in the wrong direction could be the death of her. 3 dozen anaphylactic reactions a year, and she’s in her fifties now. Yes, amazing.
She saw a young cardiologist, who did what young cardiologists do: he threw upon her a huge, bloody gopher, covered in prickles and gore. “Your heart is dicky! This could kill you in a year! Visis mu, I can save you! Isn’t this exciting?” I processed this image out of respect for X’s exquisite sensibilities.
Personally, I think the appropriate thing to do is to pick that gopher up and shove it down his throat, but when a patient does it, it’s assault and battery with a biohazardous weapon.
The cardiologist, naturally, is doing exactly what he was trained to do and is wildly excited to have such a thrilling case and such interesting news. She, who already faces death on a weekly basis, should clearly get wound up about this because it might kill her if she doesn’t.
“Visis mu! This is a glorious mou — er, gopher! Check out those charming teeth, those tiny claws, that helpful expression! Awesome!“
A brickbat? A muzzle? What do you think? Words simply fail. All I can think of is applying to him the kind of cat that has nine tails. It’s not a good way to model compassion, let alone tact, however.
As for me, I have to pick a primary doc for myself. My old one retired from private practice, and I miss him, because I could just walk in and look at him and he’d know.
I’m just thrilled at the prospect of training someone new, who will be a generalist treating the peripheral issues of someone with an incredibly peripheral-intensive disease. There will to be many rounds of “visis mu”, as he comes up to speed. And, since it’s all well-intended, I have to find a way to accept one or two mice as graciously as possible. One can only recoil so often before they decide they can’t treat you. “Visis mu! I care for you, so let me do this wildly inappropriate thing, because I’m too rushed to think things all the way through!”
They mean well. They really do.
I never have figured out what to do when a cat, with every evidence of caring attention, brings me a mouse. I try to be nice about it, and that’s the best I can do.
Obit
Sadly, Sylvie’s furry little caregiver, Nala, departed this earth for the Happy Hunting Grounds. By a series of flukes, Sylvie wound up with a rescue cat, Filou (meaning roughly “brat” or “mischief-maker”), who has taken over her care with great enthusiasm — and much less bloodshed.
I’m shielding my friend M for safety reasons, but I can point you to a blog on managing immune suppression and chronic pain with few drugs and much natural care: http://www.tamingthebeast.ca/
Relatively useful treatments for CRPS:
Most suggestions are pulled from the current IASP recommendations for diagnosis and treatment of CRPS or the pivotal work of Dr. R. J. Schwartzman, Dr. van Rijn, and Dr. Breuhl (part of the team that developed the IASP guidelines), with updates from recent science available on PubMed.
The authors have their blind spots and biases, of course, so researching any therapies that sound interesting is a good use of time.
The National Library of Medicine at the National Institutes of Health (U.S.) is an outstanding clearinghouse of articles from peer-reviewed scientific journals: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=complex+regional+pain+syndrome
Just add the term of the treatment you’re interested in to the MeSH term, “complex regional pain syndrome”, to maximize useful hits.
TV flickers at a rate guaranteed to put the higher cognitive functions to sleep. LINK It is literally, and specifically, hypnotic. Anyone surprised?
Some people like that, although I don’t. Some people need that, at least in some measure.
Every waking hour when you’re at home? There’s a problem there, even when you don’t share a house with someone with longstanding CRPS.
I learned to hear the words behind the words when I was an ER nurse. I had to be able to know the truth from the lies to the self, the lies to others, and the lies to the universe. I had to know when people didn’t care if they were lying or not.
Our brains can split the channels of verbal communication, so that the literal meaning of the words goes into our brains via one logical branch, the subtext and connotations of those words go into another, the emotional load the person is trying to convey goes into a branch that analyzes conscious manipulation, and the emotional load the speaker feels about what they’re saying — or if they’re even paying attention to it — goes in via a subtler branch. I learned to parse it quite specifically.
Some people thought I was reading their minds. I was just hearing their speech.
Now you know why, much as I loathe and despise the modern Democratic party, my outraged contempt for the modern GOP (and all its wacky little offshoots) is even greater. The sound of all those relentless, delusional lies is unbearable to me.
My mostly lovely partner, J, has TV again for the first time in a couple of years. Like the Scot that he isn’t, he wants to get the most out of his monthly investment — or that’s his excuse. In any case, he has perfected the most effortless way to get me out of the house: keep the TV on.
Every.
Waking.
Hour.
There are only so many times you can argue about the same thing before you realize you’re utterly screwed, and the most important person in your life is just going to torture you until something breaks.
No wonder I can’t get any work done. It’s too darn cold to be outside for long, so I have no choice but to have my brain beaten into a pulp day after day.
I can’t get the message through to him about what it does to me. He thinks I’m being dramatic or controlling, “because that’s how women are.” (Yeah. I know. Living with someone with CRPS is hard, and he uses the “woman” excuse to think about something besides the fact that this is such a hellacious disease. Moving right along…)
It’s not how *I* am. I’m a weird woman, I readily admit it, but I am not interested in interfering in someone else’s self-medication, as long as it does no harm to others.
That’s a major freaking caveat.
My ears have been ringing for days now. Early hearing loss runs in my father’s family, and the absolutely relentless natter of evasions, irresponsibility, bad acting and recreational conflict are doing significant damage to my hearing mechanisms, not to mention what’s left of my capacity for reason.
And J wonders why I’m getting more unhappy and short-tempered.
Dad protected his hearing and commented on his symptoms and how he treated them. He swore off music and TV for days when his ears started ringing. Moreover, as heads of the family, he and my mother limited TV time to two hours a day.
Lucky cuss.
When J and I leave this area, he thinks we’re going to live in a trailer or something as we wander around the country. While 90% of that is a fine idea (as long as I’m strong enough), we are definitely going to have to solve the TV problem. Personally, I’m preparing to “accidentally” drop something heavy on all the TVs in the vicinity, and apologetically give him a small laptop set that doesn’t even have speakers, just a headphone jack.
I think I could just about live with that.
P.S. It’s worth noting that, every time I write a post about J, I read it to him before posting. I don’t sneak around behind his back at all.
His comment halfway through: “Okay, I’m prepared to split this 50:50.”
His comment at the end: “Okay, I’m just off to go kill myself.”
Cross Y. was a friend of mine. He wore his heart on his sleeve — there was no deception about him, no malingering, no lying, no selfishness. Selfishness was something he needed more of, and tried to aspire to, because he forgot his own needs in the face of others’. His kind and loving heart poured forth upon his CRPS kindred and those he loved, often in scintillatingly original and muscular words.
He was injured at work. You’ve seen the news about corruption in New Jersey. Add to that the corruption of the Worker’s Comp system, and try to imagine for one minute what that might be like.
July 8, 2013
The truth will set me free,
Kill your dreams,
have nightmares for the rest of your days,
Welcome to New Jersey,
we stand our ground,
unite and become one sound,
The truth will set me free,
technology,
paper trial was the beginning,
soon the end,
your dark tunnel will remain,
Yes this once holy man,
once believed,
now a fucked up memory,
many joined,
happily crucified,
only one will remain,
your future is in vain,
your lies you cannot hide,
you may run,
change your name,
DNA will remain.
The truth will set me free,
Kill your dreams,
have nightmares for the rest of your days,
Welcome to New Jersey,
we stand our ground,
unite and become one sound.
Cross Y 7/6/13 1.21pm
He was a good-looking young Middle Eastern man, so of course, the New Jersey cops figured he was dirty from the get-go.
Then his brother, who didn’t believe he had this disease, became a cop, and things got worse still.
I watched his family dynamics transform as his marriage with a green-card seeker fell apart, then his beloved family started to fail him, and then he spent the best part of a year fighting to survive in an increasingly hostile and impossible hail of abuse, predation, invasion, and brutality.
The system failed him. His lawyer failed him. His family failed him. The original newspaper articles, based on interviews with his family, trivialize and brutalize still further the brightest mystic-poet I’ve ever known.
I’m grieved. More than that, I’m furious.
I had to watch as his extraordinary resilience was pushed and pushed and pushed until every strand of rubber broke.
I had to watch as his stumbling command of English prose was used to throw away the meaning behind his words. Judges and doctors alike could hardly be bothered to listen, and certainly couldn’t be bothered to believe him. Those of us who knew him had to watch as his posts wove between intelligent determination and raging despair, as time after time after time he was thrown back from what properly belonged to him.
His wife stole $30,000 of disability checks. His wife dumped him as soon as her immigration status was assured. His wife pushed him down off his weak leg.
Guess who went to jail? It wasn’t his wife. Try to imagine cold, sharp steel cuffs snapping tightly on CRPS wrists. You can’t. The world isn’t supposed to be large enough to hold that much pain.
August 6, 2013
The color of my eyes have become
the mountain I cannot climb,
the west brings the rainy days,
the east brings the heat,
So I wait,
I’ll give you my night,
I’ll give you my site,
I’ll give you my last breath,
The color of my eyes have become
the mountain I cannot climb,
Realities exist,
Unwinding occurs,
Petals unfolding,
Protecting what’s remaining,
Adapting each day,
Earth is distributing,
New sign,
New rhythm for humanity,
Being Bold,
Voice your feelings,
Full moon of greatness,
Hidden lights reflecting,
Fire resurrecting,
Slumbering beliefs,
Illusions of the underground,
Transformation of natural field,
The color of my eyes have become
the mountain I cannot climb.
9.42am 8/6/13 Lost soul
His brother’s police pals broke into his room (or were let in by his parents), stole his thumb drive, plowed through his poetry and his belongings, took his personal belongings, hacked his hard drive and his accounts. When he said he was going to install a spycam for evidence, his parents got him involuntarily committed to a public psychiatric hospital in New Jersey. They did not treat his CRPS, which was, after all, all in his head. They treated delusions that didn’t exist and a paranoia that was a perfectly rational response to his ghastly situation.
He got in line for emergency housing, but the wait list was at least 6 months long — for emergency housing. A combination of Governor Christie and Hurricane Sandy saw to that. The emergency housing and homeless shelters in New Jersey have been utterly gutted.
Three weeks ago, his father attacked and strangled him at a barbecue, in front of others. He posted a picture of himself afterward, with a bleeding bruise under one eye and big red welts around his neck, with the distinctive engorged look around the eye-bones (remember this is a former Emergency nurse writing this.)
His mother stood by and watched.
Someone called the police.
The partygoers disappeared.
His mother told the police that her husband had not attacked Cross, but that Cross had attacked her — with a knife.
Guess who got the handcuffs…
In private, she later apologized, and said she’d write a statement retracting the police report and her statements behind the psychiatric report.
She reneged.
He was living with people who were actively trying to destroy him. His work was being invaded and stolen. His life was in danger. Not even his dog’s life was safe.
He had a sign posted in the rear window of his car: “We burn until there is a cure for RSD/CRPS.”
With perfect logic, he burned his car, before jumping to his death in the most beautiful part of the state. Of such indelibly poetic actions are myths made.
For him, there was no cure.
July 7, 2013
They Murdered me, I never
committed Suicide….
This disease is not imaginary. He was not crazy. He was perilously sane. He was a warm and loving soul with a shining gift of a mind, trapped in a fatally tightening spiral.
All he is now is a tragically truncated memory. What’s left is what we can scrape together of his work from our online conversations.
They keep saying he died of suicide. That’s not true. He died of torture: CRPS, institutional murder, and child abuse.
I. Am. Furious.
Cross, however, is finally at peace.
Reaching the Universe
Silence the past,
Silence the worries,
Silence the outside,
Silence the future,
Silence the self,
Silence the noise,
Silence the people,
Silence the voices,
Everything has left,
Faith in the now moment,
Faith that I am present to myself,
You are stripped,
You are Free,
You are Pure.
You are reaching the universe.
