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One of these pains is not like the other; by Elizabeth Mitchell
Posted in Uncategorized at June 24th, 2007 / No Comments »
Elizabeth Mitchell, poet laureate of central pain.
The primary objective for this site is to get feedback from our online survey about central pain and people who suffer from chronic pain. Please take a few moments and fill out the survey if you are a victim of any type of chronic pain.
This site is meant to share information related to central pain and pain research. It should not be interpreted as medical advice. Always consult a licensed physician, not this website, for treatment.
All material on this site is copyright Kevin McHenry.
This site is meant to share information related to central pain and pain research. It should not be interpreted as medical advice. Always consult a licensed physician, not this website, for treatment.
All material on this site is copyright Kevin McHenry.
Injury leads to cell death caused by executioner enzymes, which also just happen to accelerate maturation of cytokines which produce reactive oxygen species, or free radicals as they are sometimes called. Free radicals are akin chemically to hydrogen peroxide.
There is very good reason for neurologists to ask “Can you feel this vibrating?” rather than “Can you feel this?”. “Feeling” is not the same thing as detecting vibrations.
These South Carolina experts are, as the English say, “spot on”.
Like a voice in the wilderness, we have begged psychiatrists to stop talking about placebo and to begin treating the very serious anxiety which severe pain causes.
Many have suspected that there is fast pain in the evoked aspect of central pain.
We receive requests for articles to inform doctors about central pain. The IASP publication is available in pdf format at the URL listed.
Because so much more research money is available in mental health and heart attacks, we continue to borrow from the literature in those fields, where neuroinflammation is a very big deal. Fortunately, such research is directly relevant to how neural plasticity (switching genes on and switching genes off in neurons) can lead to central pain.
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Stationary Explosion: by Elizabeth Mitchell
Posted in Uncategorized at June 3rd, 2007 / No Comments »
The author prefaces this work with the statement that, “Pain in my mind races so fast it masks the fact that my real thoughts may no longer exist; or at the very least form very slowly. I am dumbstruck with pain.”
Malmberg and Bley, Part II
Ever envy the benchwarmers?
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The TRPV channel, a book by Annika Malmberg et al. Part I
Posted in Uncategorized at May 22nd, 2007 / No Comments »
Dr. Malmberg is one of the former brain trust with Tony Yaksh at UCSD, then to UCSF, now to Elan Pharmaceuticals. We can genuinely say we hope they make a lot of money. They are the real deal.
Scientists like to have positive findings. The brave ones work hard for truth, whatever it turns out to be.
DT MRI can be peformed on a conventional MRI machine. It is used to study white matter tracts.
Maybe we can take a note from the Tour de France cyclists.
We very much regret that due to overwhelming spam, we will in the future require registration for email or comments. Please continue to submit surveys. They are so very important to research.
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Falling Off the Edge: by Elizabeth Mitchell
Posted in Uncategorized at May 13th, 2007 / No Comments »
Has central pain changed the shape of your entire world? Another contribution by a central pain sufferer.
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Can Central Pain be separated from peripheral activity?
Posted in Uncategorized at May 10th, 2007 / No Comments »
Central and peripheral, somatic and autonomic, thalamic and cortical, sensory and motor. These modalities merge in a confusing pattern in CP.
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Is this How Stimulation of Motor Cortex Controls Pain?
Posted in Uncategorized at May 8th, 2007 / No Comments »
Does one pain tract control another? The medial lemniscal tract is related to motor tracts in the posterior columns. The spinoreticular catches overflow burning from the spinothalamic. Who controls?
Ever wonder why what should be rewarding, ie light touch, is hugely punishing in central pain? What is regulating reward and punishment. What is in control of aversive learning. More on Witting et al in Pain. 2006 Jan;120(1-2):145-54.
Novel approach using chloride manipulation to silence neurons.
Donezepil is a cholinesterase inhibitor of the M2 variety.
An antagonist of NMDA receptors and a potassium channel blocker make an appearance in Germany.
Although one of the recent “golden boys” of neuropathic pain treatment, with many endorsements from pain clinics, lamotrigine is not proving out.
Often misread by neurologists as mere spasticity, the heightened flexor response has been noted in the surveys, but not reported in the literature until now.
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Is Ketamine Dangerous? Might it prevent sprouting?
Posted in Uncategorized at April 10th, 2007 / No Comments »
New results suggest caution in long term use of ketamine. It also raises the question of whether ketamine might be exploited to suppress sprouts at the cut ends of interrupted nerve fibers, which sprouts promote hypersensitization.
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All the Way Through: by Elizabeth Mitchell
Posted in Uncategorized at April 9th, 2007 / No Comments »
Confessions of Central Pain.
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Sprouty II and glial cells, inversely related
Posted in Uncategorized at April 3rd, 2007 / No Comments »
Short tech article
We are deliberately trying to keep these technical articles short for ease in reading, but that does not mean they are not important to you.
This is part II of our noting of anticancer steps that should have benefit for nerve injury pain. The work is preliminary at this point, not in human trials for pain.
We have said before that given the much larger amount of money available to cancer and heart disease, and due to the recently recognized link with inflammation in these conditions, that central pain might well be cured as a spinoff. Here is a new drug that stops Protein Kinase C.
It is a lot harder to see pain than anyone guessed.
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Lack of Structure in Life with Central Pain
Posted in Uncategorized at March 30th, 2007 / No Comments »
After some comments by a physician who consults occasionally, we decided to have a round table discussion about the lack of structure experienced by those with central pain. You may find some of the opinions interesting.
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Is Enough Attention Paid to Muscle Pain in CP?
Posted in Uncategorized at March 29th, 2007 / No Comments »
So many in the survey have muscle pain as part of CP, we wonder that more has not been said about it. “In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. But, in practice, there is.”
You need to come up with some bad habits better than smoking. How about chocolate or something? This article will prepare you for another one in the future so read through the introductory material on acetyl choline.
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Part II. Agonists of the nicotinic acetyl choline receptor and pain
Posted in Uncategorized at March 25th, 2007 / No Comments »
An “agonist” mimics or promotes the action of something else. Several new NAChR drugs are coming onto the market to treat neuropathic pain.
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Survival in Harsh Conditions and Central Pain
Posted in Uncategorized at March 25th, 2007 / No Comments »
You have read the stories of explorers. They had to face difficult travel and endure all kinds of unpleasant sensory experiences. Sound familiar?
A role may appear for the use of WIN 55, 212-2 in treating central pain.
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Central Pain Is…. by Elizabeth Mitchell
Posted in Uncategorized at March 19th, 2007 / No Comments »
Here is another contribution from one of our favorite poets
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Overcompensations part II: Reverse Speciation
Posted in Uncategorized at March 19th, 2007 / No Comments »
How do you scream bloody murder without “murmuring”.? (someone reminded us murmuring is wrong, as per I Cor 10:10). You ask the hardest questions. We are not up to providing the answers. Here are our opinion pieces, no more valid than your own. These are some thoughts on what to do if the emotional Mr. Hyde seems to have replaced your natural self and you think maybe you are the anti-Darwin. Living split apart is not far from what some describe in central pain.
Know thyself. Introspection is good for the soul
Let’s do a little to educate the medical profession about central pain and help ourselves in the process.
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Deep Brain Implants Not Helpful for Central Pain
Posted in Uncategorized at March 9th, 2007 / No Comments »
The history of brain surgery and stimulation for pain is long and too frequently disappointing.
Idaho is a good state to be private in. No one remembers it is there, except that we are nearly all printing our messages on Hewlett Packard printers, along with some other pretty Idaho things. We just forget. Sort of like pain. Hardly noticed, but there.
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Buy Canavero’s New Book, “Central Pain Syndrome”
Posted in Uncategorized at March 2nd, 2007 / No Comments »
Ever wish you could shut mouths or open hearts in those who observe or speak to you. The words are very hard to come by. This book can help. It can help a lot. However, its main purpose, to educate you, is even more important. You need this book.
Based on the theory that the right hemisphere “smooths” input and the left hemisphere detects discrepancy and Harris’s speculation that pain represents discrepancy, doctors at UCSD are conducting clinical trial by caloric (thermal) stimulation, aimed at a response in the inferior insula/parietal cortex. They are asking for those with thalamic stroke pain (Dejerine Roussy syndrome) to contact them. This is central pain following stroke.
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Do Males and Females Experience Central Pain Differently?
Posted in Uncategorized at February 20th, 2007 / No Comments »
The literature have solid evidence that men and women experience pain differently, but do they experience CENTRAL pain differently?
Relatively benign viruses can be used as a vehicle to bring materials into the nervous system, by infection with viruses into which has been spliced the genes to manufacture certain molecules. Viruses incorporate themselves into the DNA of the neuron, making it possible to manipulate gene expression.
What is Central Pain, at the basic level? We know it is acids around the neurons, which drive current successively through voltage gaged sodium 1.3 and calcium 2.2 channels, and ultimately, the TRPV-1 receptors, but what does it mean to the thalamus and cortex, which must lens it all into a sensation? The following are excerpts from a discussion conducted with one of our pain consultants, Dr. K McHenry, who had collaborated with our founder, Dr. Patrick Wall, in times past.
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Asking for Help from the Director of the NIH, the House and Senate
Posted in Uncategorized at February 16th, 2007 / 1 Comment »
The National Institutes of Health decides how research money is allocated. Here is the way to contact the director, to request funds for basic research on central pain. The vast majority of morphine addicts begin by using it for legitimate pain and then become hooked. This would not happen if we had better medicines. The cost in rehab savings, endless paperwork by nurses and bureaucrats of morphine adminstration would almost disappear. Savings in crime and law endorcement alone would justify the costs of research. And for conditions like central pain, where opiates do not work, we should put an end to America’s Auschwitz.
