Re: Bringing detailed info page to new Dr. - myofascial pain?

Dear Dragonfly,

Myofascial pain is a real catch-all. They get real big on "trigger points"
which are just places on the back that hurt. It doesn't mean a whole bunch,
but these "trigger points" give them a place to do injections.
The Fascia is kind of a weird part of the body to explain. It runs all over
wherever there's skin pretty much. Think back to the old days, before you
could buy boneless, skinless, chicken breasts. If you were getting health
conscious around then and removing the skin from your chicken by yourself,
you'd notice once the skin was off, there was still this kind of slimy film
that was clear that you had to rinse off. That's the fascia. It can move
around under your skin, get bunched up, start rubbing things it shouldn't.
Electronic stimulation like a TENS unit can sometimes (along with
stretching, exercise, etc, etc, "get the wrinkles out", but it's basically a
catch all. Push for real testing at least an MRI.
If it is Fibro, they just approved a drug that's really an anti- depressant,
but it supposedly works so well on Fibro pain, the FDA gave it the Ok.
Miracle drugs often aren't, but it's worth a shot. It's called Lyceria.
I don't know how big a help it would be for you, but it sure couldn't hurt,
is to keep a "pain journal" or diary. It can point out times of day that the
pain is worse and activities you do that really kick the pain in to high
gear. The problem with most of journals is you just pick a number from 1-10
to describe the severity of the pain at certain times. That's it. But
there's a real good place for starting one where you can really get as
detailed as you want or not, define what a #6 feeling is like to you and
what made it change to a #8 and what that feels like to you. 1-10 is really
meaningless to a doctor, and after you check this out, you'll probably see
it's pretty worthless for you to define it that way, too. Check out this
site, I suggest printing the instructions as well as the journal pages:
http://www2.rpa.net/~lrandall/painscale.html

Good stuff, but you still have to remember to fill it out, but maybe just a
few days will lead you to some more definite conclusions or suspicions.

Best of luck. Give a shout we can help.--og





"Dragonfly" <snow_fires@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1185066228.294519.4270@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
So a few years ago, I had a friend help me write up a "New Patient
Info ***" where I listed what I had been diagnosed with, what I had
self-diagnosed, meds, vitamins, herbal supplements I was taking (and
exactly how much and when and how often), meds I used to take and why
they were stopped, tests that had een done and results, and then a
list of my symptoms with detained descriptions of what exactly it felt
like, how it restricted my daily life, and which I was able to
tolerate and what was unbearable.

Now that I got diagnosed with fibro (less than a year ago), I found in
looking up fibro info that bringing such a list could greatly increase
my chances of being seen as a hypochondriac drug-seeker.

But ... I have severe memory and concentration problems, hence the
list. If I do not bring the papers, I'll forget most of it and be
unable to provide the new doctor an adequate description of how I'm
doing and what I need, and I won't remember even what drugs I take
every day, much less what tests were done months ago...

Anyone have any experience with something similar? Any suggestions?

I'm not an addict, never have been, I just really really want less
pain, maybe even a few pain-free days. Even just one pain-free day a
year would be worlds better...

Ohyea, and one of my "self-diagnosed" things is myofascial pain, but I
have yet to find any website that lists the actual diagnostic criteria
for it.. Anyone know?

*Dragonfly*

http://dragonflychaos.deviantart.com/
http://glitterychaos.livejournal.com/



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