I live with chronic pain and today has been really hard. I have a spinal injury, nerve damage, S.I. joint dysfunction, muscle spasms, and migraines. Does anyone else live with chronic pain? How do you manage?
I deal with chronic pain though itās not as bad as it used to be due to Frequency Specific Microcurrent (FSM) treatments. If you have someone in your area who practices FSM, I highly recommend it. That has helped me a lot. You can look here: https://frequencyspecific.com/frequency-specific-microcurrent-practitioners/ to see if there is one in your area. These are generally doctors, nurses, and chiropractors who have been trained in it. Iād make sure they have been practicing FSM for a while though so theyāll know what theyāre doing. Luckily nerve damage is pretty easy to treat with FSM. The biggest downside is that insurance doesnāt generally cover it and it can be expensive, and there isnāt a 100% guarantee on it. If you want to read more about it, this patient friendly book is a good read: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1623171105?tag=duckduckgo-ffab-20&linkCode=osi&th=1&psc=1
I also read some books by Dr. Joe Dispenza and I use some of his meditations, which I think has helped over time.
Besides that I use CBD cream, take warm baths with epsom salt, and try to take it easy on my worst days, though theyāre not greatly effective, but in general I highly recommend FSM if you can access it and if you can afford it. Honestly, thereās no way that I could even think about getting clean if I hadnāt found that. My emotional pain may have started my drug use, but the physical pain I dealt with in the last 4 years made it so much worse (I was hit by a large snowplow from the side. The driver was drunk apparently).
I hope any of this was remotely helpful. I have nothing but pure compassion for your situation. Chronic pain is so hard and anyone who has never experienced it can never really relate. I guess itās like being an addict. People who have never been there can never understand the struggle.
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Thank you very much. I have had chiropractic treatment, medication and doctorās visits. I also practice yoga, take warm baths, eat as well as possible, minimize stress and practice bed rest - but this is driving me crazy. I used wine to take the edge off. I was in a t-bone car accident in 2015 (not my fault) and my left leg was locked on impact. Nothing has been the same since. Currently I dont have insurance, but Iāll look into this.
Thanks again.
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@CapriciousCapricorn The magnesium suggestion is a good one! Was shockwave therapy helpful for you when you were doing it?
Frequency Specific Microcurrent may be something you also might be interested in. There are frequencies to help repair disks and theyāve had some success with fibromyalgia patients. The same book I recommended above might be of interest to you as well, just to take a look at what itās all about.
I know Iām risking coming off sounding like Iām preaching about this thing but I tried anything and everything under the sun to help my pain and this is the thing that made a difference for me. My case was a little unusual, so I will explain.
Itās kind of a long and complicated story so Iāll try to make it as short as possible, Iāve had surgery on my mandible, maxilla, and a C5/C6 disk replacement in my neckānot long after the neck surgery I started having even more pain and I started having symptoms that I didnāt even connect with my pain like memory loss, brain fog, shortness of breath, severe nausea, confusion, depression, and severe anxiety.
I had reached a point in my life where I wanted to get clean, but I knew I couldnāt get clean until I got rid of the pain I was feelingāneck tender to the touch, pain in neck, up into head, down arm, into the middle of the back. I was told I simply had nerve damage and nothing else could be done, but I refused to believe that because yes I was experiencing nerve pain but there was other pain too. It didnāt make sense. I tried everything under the sun you could think of to find healing (I actually went into a lot of debt during this time in an effort to get better), when I found FSM I had basically started to give up and honestly I think I would be dead right now if I hadnāt have found it. I had some success with it, but I felt like they werenāt treating the right thing, that if we could just find what was wrong, this could work.
I literally signed up for the damn four day class (which is for doctors, nurses, chiropractors, etcāI was the least educated person in the class but Iād had anatomy, kinesiology, etc., in the past), traveled out of state for it, and volunteered to be one of the āexample casesā. I wanted to be the neck example, but I settled for being the shoulder, which actually worked out because apparently a big part of the nerve pain I was feeling in my arm was coming from my shoulder and she fixed it within 45 minutes. My pain went from a 6 (on drugs) to a 3. I was amazed. But that night the pain in my neck and down the middle of my spine went up to an 8. It was so intense. Through a series of events the next day I was able to get worked on after the class. They thought I would be āeasyā to fix, but after about 45 minutes of one of the class techs working on me and nothing happening, the course instructorāthe woman who wrote the book I recommendedācame over and worked on me. There was some trial and error, and asking of medical history, then she treated me for something and my pain went from a 7 to a 2 within minutes. The relief was almost euphoric. When I asked her what sheād done, she said sheād treated me for āmetallic toxicityā.
It turns out I was (and still am) being poisoned by the metal parts of my disk replacement. I have what is called āmetallosisāāchromium and cobalt poisoning. Itās mostly heard of in hip replacements. There are some documented cases of it from disk replacements, but not a lot. Unfortunately, no surgeon is going to remove that piece of hardware unless itās a matter of immediate life or death, so Iām stuck with it, so I have to treat myself several times a week, though at first I treated myself twice a day. All the other symptoms I mentioned before started to disappear after several days.
Now like I said, my case was very unusual. Most people donāt need to constantly treat themselves, and if you have to do so, you canāt just buy the machinery because itās medical equipment so the doctor youāre seeing can sell it to you but they pre-program it for your specific needs. But if youāre able to find a practitioner in your area and youāre willing and financially able (some practitioners figure out a way to bill insurance for it, but I know a lot donāt) to do it, I recommend giving it a try.
@Jayms1989 Youāre welcome. As I just mentioned above, some practitioners are able to figure out a way to get insurance to pay for it, but a lot of insurances wonāt or the practitioners donāt even bother with it, so not having insurance wouldnāt help much anyway in this case. It kind of hurts my soul knowing how corrupt our āhealth careā system is that even if you did have insurance, that it wouldnāt be covered because it doesnāt benefit the medical corporate machine. If itās not drugs or surgery then it must not work. Itās rubbish, but thatās our world right nowā¦ Iām so sorry to hear about your accident and can sympathize with you when you say that nothingās been the same since.
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Wow! What a story. I am so glad you got the help you needed! Metal poisoning is no joke! I used to be so active, and I just couldnāt ever imagine losing my quality of life until I was there. I was 26 at the time of my accident. I am 30 now and growing pretty weary. My pain makes me fearful of exertion and old age. I do my best to listen to my body, and know my limitations, but sometimes it is so damn disheartening. I agree our āhealth careā system is rubbish. I am all for alternative non-invasive treatment, but my pain runs so deep. I try to remember I havent lost control of my digestive track yet, so Iām thankful for that. It could always be worse.
Thanks again for the info!
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Yeah youāre telling me. Itās nice that I have something to treat the symptoms, but I know that if a situation happens where I canāt get batteries or my unit gives out and I canāt get another one, Iām pretty screwed. Iām a bit older than you, but at the time of my accident I was pretty active as well and Iām only now just starting to be able to be more active, having to take it much slower than Iād like, but I can work out again as long as I listen to my body and understand Iāll never be able to do what I used to. I can only imagine how disheartening this must be for you, but itās true that it could be worse and you never know what treatment youāre going to come across in the future that might give you some of your life back.
@CapriciousCapricorn Oh god no. FSM is nothing like neurofeedback therapy. You can rest easy on that one! Iām sorry to hear about your experience with shockwave therapy. That sounds awful! Frozen shoulder is no joke. Iām glad to hear that itās gotten 80% better at least.
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Thank you for the encouragement. Physical exertion scares me now, but I know there is value is strengthening your body to combat chronic pain. Slow progress is still progress.
@CapriciousCapricorn Frozen shoulder sounds awful!
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Is FSM the same as TENS? I got diagnosed with ME about 6 months after I got sober, which causes flu like symptoms, joint pain, muscle pain, brain fog and chronic fatigue.
I donāt know when I go to sleep what Iāll feel like when I wake up itās just take as is and deal with it.
But the worst pain is from an injury which happened 35 years ago and when it happened I was strangely sober, the accident resulted in 2 compressed lumbar discs L3 & L4 and Iāve got an L6 same as 5% of the population which doesnāt help. The discs started to bulge and are now trying to completely compress my Sciatic nerve. This causes pain all down my right leg and as well as the back pain, Iāve also got hip pain caused by compensating for the back pain. Luckily Iām on Tramadol SR which does work for the back hip and ME, and, Pregabalin for the nerve pain which isnāt as effective.
Thatās where the TENS machine comes in, and after playing about with the intensity, wave length and repition Iāve found a setting that works for me and reduces the pain down to a manageable 2 and in conjunction with a heated back brace I can just about manage life on lifes terms.
But donāt get me wrong it isnāt a panacea some days nothing seems to work and Iām laid up in bed for weeks at a time, if it wasnāt for my wife Iād be well and truly buggered.
Iāve been living with the pain for 18 years now and it doesnāt get any better, the back specialist said they wonāt intervene until I canāt walk 
So I wait 
but Iām still sober which keeps me going 
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I was diagnosed with trigeminal neuralgia in 2014, it has been going on since 2013.
I tried medicine and even thought about surgery, but these days i just deal with it. No prescriptionsā¦
Sometimes when itās especially awful I use lidocaine and warm rice compression (uncooked rice heated in a sock thatās specifically used for this)
Sending you strength 
I also deal with migraines and have had gallstones and an ulcer from over medicating with Excedrin to ease the painā¦thatās why I try to stay away from prescriptions these days