I'm Still in Pain - Now, What Can I Do?

Copyright

I’m STILL in PAIN—Now, What Can I Do?

© Copyright 2023 by Cindy L. Morris, BSc, MD

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. Appropriate reference must be made regarding the above.

The content in this book are the opinions of the author and encompass medical and holistic practices. These resources are provided for informational purposes only. This book should not be used to replace the professional judgment of the individual’s physician or other allied clinical professionals. Consult trained professionals for your personal health evaluation and management.

Although every effort to ensure that the information in this book is correct at press time, the author and associates do not assume and hereby disclaim any liability to any party for any loss, damage, or disruption caused by errors or omissions, or from consequences from application of the book, and make no warranty, expressed or implied, regarding the contents of this book. Caution is urged when using any new medications or techniques.

All identifying information pertaining to the client cases presented in this book has been altered to protect clients’ identity and confidentiality. Additionally certain case content has been merged with other individual cases and summarized for illustrative purposes. Any perceived slight of any specific individual or organization is purely coincidental and unintentional.

ISBN: 978-0-947482-63-3 Paperback

ISBN: 978-0-947482-64-0 eBook

For more information or feedback email:

books@completecareclinic.bm

Or Visit:

www.completecareclinic.bm/books

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Dr. Cindy L. Morris, BSc, MD

Complete Care Clinic

P.O. Box HM1084

Unit #4, 7 Dundonald Street

Hamilton HM EX

Bermuda

Get Your Free Gift!

Readers who download and use the Pain Map will gain the best experience from this book.

The Pain Map helps readers to describe all their pains in one picture. This map helps patients to accurately, and consistently communicate with your health care providers.

A new map can be made before each appointment, to show how the pain is changing. You can store them in a journal to document your journey.

You Can Get a Copy by Visiting:

www.completecareclinic.bm/painmap

Chapter 1: Solving Your Chronic Pain Puzzle

If you have some pain that will not go away, or the doctors say, All the tests are negative – your pain is all in your head, this book will show you that it is not all in your head!  A pain that lasts more than 12 weeks, even after having medications or other treatments, is called Chronic Pain, and it may be a hundred-piece puzzle. Those puzzles can be solved as you find all the pieces and put them in place.

You will find I’m Still in Pain–Now What Can I Do? easy to read, yet valuable in answering your questions about why you are still hurting. I wrote it in the same way I speak to my patients—without medical language.

How This Book Came About

Many of my fellow locals and I had pain that did not respond to medications, surgeries, or other techniques. We were told there was nothing else that could be done to help us. Since we felt discarded, we had to develop our own solutions in an independent clinic that utilized my anesthetic skills, and medical and surgical knowledge, while incorporating hands-on treatments and home remedies that have worked for centuries. We did, and in 2022, it was time for me to share my knowledge.

This book was written to benefit the rural communities and other places that have limited resources, like my clinic, where many of their members suffer from chronic pain.

What Is in This Book

The reader can use this as a self-help resource when there is limited or no access to a health care professional. I have been trained to work safely, so I developed and used these techniques that create minimal problems for the patient. The person can even drive a vehicle after a treatment. I describe the four most common chronic pain complaints that I treat in my clinic, how that pain develops, how to figure out the source, and how to reverse the problem by understanding how that part of the body works. Advice is given about the use and misuse of prescription medications, alcohol, and other drugs.

As you read you will:

• Be shown how to communicate effectively and quickly with doctors about your pains by using a simple Pain Map and Pain-Disability Score.

• Find possible ways your pain began.

• Learn about changes in the body that can cause pain.

• Discover what you can do, in a realistic time frame, using simple instruments or simple medications and what must be done only by health professionals.

• Learn about the skills provided by several health professionals who can work together to reduce different aspects of our pain.

• Read the story of my typical patient with each of these common pain problems. In each case their pain had existed for years, but we gradually sorted and removed it. The names of the representative patients in the book are not those of any specific persons who I have treated or know.

• Learn what these patients did to prevent the pain from returning.

Health practitioners who are frustrated with their patients not getting better, pills not working, the surgeries and injections not working, or making the pain worse, will benefit from my experiences written here. I describe things they can do within their field of knowledge that may not be mainstream but practical, using simple equipment present in a typical physician’s office. Some techniques are not within the field of medicine but would be familiar to massage therapists, osteopaths, and chiropractors.

Many people who are familiar with the home remedies in their traditional cultures would be comfortable with what is described here. The nutrition aspects of my treatments are not normally advised by many medical practitioners but have been necessary for getting good results in my patients who had chronic pain.

I describe what can be done with the part of the body that is sending the pain signals so that you not only reduce the amount of signaling coming into the brain but also understand why the pain comes, how to tend to it, and how to relieve it. In addition, you will learn how your body heals as you restore the damaged areas. It may not solve all your problems, but at least you will learn what has worked for me and hundreds of my patients.

My techniques were designed to be treatments appropriate for the chronic pain patient’s complex body, its limitations and be simple enough to do daily without putting anyone in danger of falling or hurting themselves. Trained physical therapists, orthopedic doctors, and other bodyworkers may have their opinions on what this book describes. However, my patients complained about not being able to do the techniques as prescribed by these colleagues or gave up because it was not helping reduce their pain.

Following the guidance provided here can help you gain control over some parts of your life that have made you feel completely out of control.

If your doctor is unfamiliar with these procedures, show the book to them and encourage them to purchase their copy. They may need this information for their own pain problem. Let them enjoy an alternative view of what I as an experienced healthcare physician have provided with proven results in these chapters.

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Other Pain Problems That Can Be Helped

• Trigeminal Neuralgia

• Chronic Headaches

• Chronic Pain Due to Medication Side Effects

• Chronic Pain After Sexual Assault

• Pain From Cancer

These pain problems are not explicitly covered in this book, but the principles and suggestions found here can also help reduce the suffering of people with these problems.

Rural Communities and Their People

In 2018-2022 public health articles were published about decreasing numbers of health care professionals in several communities, combined with several people losing their access to health insurance, and months-long wait times for any appointments for care. This prompted me to share my techniques in a book that could assist these people to reduce their pain gradually while waiting for advanced care.

It can assist the frustrated health practitioners who have incorporated compassion into their diagnosis for people in pain. Most of the physicians do not know about the skills provided by the allied health professionals. This book describes how each can assist with care that would be considered acceptable to their patients.

People in drug rehabilitation cannot be prescribed the usual pain medications, so these methods have been acceptable to their health professionals and were appreciated by my patients. It greatly enhanced their success in graduating this group of my patients from in-patient rehabilitation to surviving well in the community.

Most of the knowledge that I gained from several health care sources and utilized successfully has been briefly written here. I have incorporated information up to the year 2022.

My hope by writing this book that it will inspire people to learn how to repair their bodies through education in the physical and biochemical sciences. It is very rewarding to be able to help yourself or someone else in your family or workplace within minutes with minimal equipment. These techniques could be very helpful in the community and appreciated by the nurses, physiotherapists, and doctors, even to be incorporated within their clinics.

Where I Wrote This Book

Bermuda—a set of beautiful islands in the North Atlantic Ocean, 1036 miles (1667 km) northeast of Miami, Florida, USA, and approximately 840 miles (1336 km) east of Virginia, USA. We are said to be living on top of an extinct volcano*.

The Complete Care Clinic is my small independent pain clinic in the City of Hamilton. Although it has the reception room and one clinical room, we accomplish a lot there.

* When you find Bermuda on Google Earth or Apple Maps, no other nearby sea mountains or tectonic plates exist.

What is Not Included

This book does not describe all the possible pain problems, all methods of reducing pain, or provide medical explanations in an academic fashion. Furthermore, it is not a comprehensive plan for any person, as it does not consider other diseases the reader may have besides pain.

Your Safety

As with anything in the do-it-yourself category, you are the only one responsible for what you do to your body. Talk with another trusted person about what you plan to do. Consider what to do if something goes wrong and be prepared to correct that problem. Have the antidote or instructions present and people around who can help when you act on your plan.

For example, some of the listed pharmaceuticals may amplify or counteract the activity of the life-sustaining prescriptions you are already taking. Check these possibilities in the drug interactions section on the website www.drugs.com to help guide a discussion with your pharmacist and your decision-making.

Have a plan for what to do next for each possibility that can occur after starting a new treatment.

What I Cannot Do

I cannot assume the responsibility of being your physician. I encourage you to ask your doctor to explore the suggestions written on these pages for your benefit and develop your treatment plan as they apply to your situation.

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Legal Disclaimer

All descriptions in this manuscript are for educational purposes and may not apply as a medical treatment for any specific person. The author, Cindy L. Morris, BSc, MD provides guidance only and expects the reader to consult their health practitioner to discuss methods and therapies that would benefit their specific medical and physical needs. The author will not be liable for any changes, problems, or complications with the person’s current medical, psychological, or financial standing due to applying any or all the methods described in this manuscript to themselves or others.

However, the author welcomes credit for providing an alternative way of diagnosing and figuring out why the pain is occurring, and for exposing the many factors needed to reverse the problems that led to the development of chronic pain.

Let Us Begin Solving

Your Chronic Pain Puzzle!

Chapter 2: The Language of the Nerves

Pain is part of the language of the nerves; so is itching, hunger, burning, sadness, grief, and anger. All nerves have a connection to the brain. All body parts and almost every cell has a nerve fiber nearby. I will briefly explain what happens.

We are taught in medicine that when a person has pain, we the physicians need to make the nerves quiet by giving medicine or having an injection, burning it, or cutting out the area containing it.

This can help temporarily, but for more effective long-term pain relief, the other parts of the body need to be examined. This will help to find what may be causing the nerve to send that message and treat those other parts of the body.

The following is a very simple picture of the nervous system:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_nervous_system#/media/File:1201_Overview_of_Nervous_System.jpg

Types of Nerves

The nerve cell has the round portion called its body, short fibers extending from it to its neighbors inside the spine or brain, and a long extension (neuron) that travels to the part of the body that is assigned to it.

Its body is usually near the spine, and its neurons travel with several other nearby neurons through the cable called a nerve, out to the other parts of the body, until it reaches the cells that it ends on. Each neuron has a specific job and message to communicate. 

The nerve is the cable that contains all the fibers that connect each part of the body to its part of the brain and spinal cord. This picture shows what is carried through each nerve. Notice that it is fed by a few tiny blood vessels to keep all the fibers healthy and working well.

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Peripheral Nerve Anatomy - courtesy of Myoscience

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Peripheral-nerve-anatomy-image-courtesy-of-Myoscience_fig1_304365497

Nerve Trunk

• Epineurium — Thick layer of insulating material around the entire bundle, contains the blood vessels, lymph, and lubricating fluid.

• Perineurium — Thin layer of insulating material and blood vessels around a few bundles of neurons that serve one set of muscles and their overlying skin.

• Blood Vessels — Red is an Arteriole. It carries oxygen and food from the heart. Blue is a Venule. It carries the waste matter from the cells back to the heart.

• Endoneurial Fascicle