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Discussion starter · #21 ·
BQ, we will keep going with this for you. I am glad were helping.
IBSer, Only seem to be more sensitive to the pain in there guts I believe, not in there bodies as a whole. Although everyone has different thresholds and there are other forms of pain.KaneSki, there is also a funtional D syndrome. Although discomfort perahaps on a more mild side would still be IBS. There are mild suffers, moderate and severe. But this is a funtional D sydrome as well.Just to look at on funtional syndromes. http://www.med.unc.edu/wrkunits/2depts/med...dc/romelist.htm The pain I had with IBS was severe on the 8-10 scale of a 1-10 scale with bursts of the chart sometimes sending me to the emergency room. One of the reasons I wanted to start this thread was to help people understand IBS pain and to find ways of deeling with it. It is hard to stop it when it starts sometimes, but it can be done I think more so with practice and some techniques. It can't always be stopped, but hopefully the severity can be reduced if nothing else.I hope this link works and I hope people take the time to read it. It is worth it. It is from Natural health Magazine and is thirteen ways to mange pain. It also has some excellent tips you can use as well as understanding some pain issues. http://www.findarticles.com/cf_0/m0NAH/1_2...jhtml?term=pain ------------------ http://www.ibshealth.com/ www.ibsaudioprogram.com
 
When a non-IBSer has D - do they usually feel pain or not?Most diagnosis of IBS require "discomfort or pain" - whats "discomfort" exactly and does it include urgency?To me, contractions describes the pain well, as i imagine child birth would feel like. It feels like there is pressure building up behind an obstruction. The waves of pain come and go for about an hour and that to me is an attack. I dont know if other people have a more constant pain.If there are actual, physical, conflicting muscle contractions/spasm/cramps, wouldnt we expect there to be pain/discomfort in ANYONE in that situation, regardless if viscerally hypersensitive or not?Kmottus, in your controller/local computer analogy are the local computers the ENS or the ganglion or plexus? Im unsure of how the ENS works and im curious. Interesting article i read on reseachers trying to find out why you cant tickle yourself. They had subjects tickle themselves via various devices and had other people tickle them with the subjects own hands etc. Long story short, the big factor was that people responded to the ANTICIPATION of being tickled by someone else. (i think this relates to the brain gut link you discussed)KaneSki - other than the odd attacks i have there is no pain, only almost daily urgency. This took me quite a long time to figure out that there are two different events here for me. The Rome Criteria, my journal and other members descriptions of symptoms forced me to realize that pain is fairly rare. This of course has me dizzy trying to decide if i have IBS and / or something else. The urgency is chronic but the pain attacks are sporatic (willy nilly?). I plan to start a topic thread on this later when i have my thoughts together. Hopefully the BBs "council of elders" will have some feedback.[This message has been edited by jcaf (edited 01-24-2001).]
 
Eric, I tried that health mag. article on the 13 ways to manage pain. I got to page 7 and couldn't get any further. I'll try again though. Interesting stuff. I was a little disappointed in some of the warnings for those of us who have hypertension though. (Wishing I could just Make my body "CHILL OUT" already!)BCG WOW figured that out finally. My husband would get a kick out of the fact that I didn't pick up on the initials.(He's a psychologist)He turned out to be a very helpful teacher to me tonight. He evidently took a course on those serotonin/receptor thingybobs. He puts his hand behind mine tells me he's HT4 and I'm HT3 and his other hand is the serotonin being delivered. Re-enacts what K explained and I had it there for awhile! He tells me there are a bunch of these receptors Throughout the GI tract. (Another surprise, I'm thinking they're in there all by their lonesome.) So from what I gather, its like conception, a helluva lot of things have to go exactly right, to have "normal" digestion and elimination. The body is a truly amazing thing. Even though I'm hoping for the day when GI transplants can occur,
, I have a greater respect for my poor bod and I'm trying to not think of it as the enemy. Big day, a little brain overload and tremendous gratitude to one and all!! BQ[This message has been edited by BQ (edited 01-24-2001).]
 
these kinds of threads really help me alot, i was just surfing around here looking for more answers, doctor's etc.. when i came across this. the reason it interests me so is because of the intense pain i had today with an ibs attack. I was so sick today i had to call the doctor only to get the run around about a new antispasmic med, he acted like he undesrstood ont he phone and said he'd call one in, so while i was "dying with pain" in the Bathroom my husband ran around everywhere to pick the new med up, which was not waitng because it was never called in! He finally came home with it and the spasms finally stopped, so ihaven't tried this new antispasm yet, i used to take Dicyclomine but today it just didnt work this new one is called Hyoscyamine, anyone heard of it, does it work fast and good?Anyway this pain gut connection is true, i believe in it because i have attacks with it and to try to explain it to people without this condition, it's useless because after four years of trying to explain tomy mother about why i had to quit work years ago, she saw how sick i was today and finally she understands, but as an old fashioned minded mother of course what she said after i described what i go through struck the same nerve it always does because i know many of us have asked the same thing...She said "and your doctor can't help you?....there is no cure..did they send you to a specialist?" i said, "yes mom they suggested one this week....they want me to see a shrink for the pain and anxiety" My mother walking out of the room shaking her head said "there has got to be something to help you with all this, a cure or something, do these doctors really think it's all in your head?................Well yes, sometimes they do think it's all in our heads, i have to clarify to many of them, no it's not all in my head it's all in my ASS!-cadia-------------------Cadia
 
jcafThere has been a recent review of the current knowledge of the ENS Wood et al. Entitled Fundamentals ofneurogastroenterology Vol 45 (suppl 2) pgs. 6-16.Here's some things I learned from that articleThe ENS ganglia (groups of neurons) are interconnected and integrate and process information like both the brain and the spinal cord. The first level is contained in the walls of the gut. These nerves integrate the contraction of the muscles, the production of mucus, transport across the mucosal lining, blood flow, and organized patterns of behaviour. The second level is the Prevertable Ganglion. These control peripheral reflex pathways and are influenced by preganlionic connection with the sympathetic nerve fibers in the spinal cord.The third level is the Parasympathetic and Sympathetic outflows that are determined by reflexes from incoming sensory input.The fourth level includes higher brain functions. It supplies decending signals that are intergrated input into level three.What makes some sense to me is that there are ganglia that control their local area. The neural net that connects them helps coordinate. But then you've got these levels above that. The problem can occur at any level. And what may explain some of the varied symptoms of IBSers is which level the problem is, and with local ganglia, or ganglia clusters, how many and where they are messed up.For me there were several discrete locations that spasmed. I think that there may have been some local damage there. I also seemed to have a too early and exagerated gastrocolic response. Some of that could have been from one of the higher levels being funky. A bad signal from the upper level set off the colon and certain local circuits responded badly to that signal.So Eat-5-10 minutes after beginning to eat (normally this reflex is 1 hour after eating or so) I would get urgency, and a few discrete parts of the colon spasmed sharply. The urgencywould pass after defecation, but the parts of the colon that were in painful spasms stayed that way for hours.It's sad when lunch no longer becomes the best part of a day at work.K.[This message has been edited by kmottus (edited 01-24-2001).]
 
Cadia, Hi & Welcome! That new med. you're on is the same one I was put on this week. Brand name, I believe, is Levsin. It is in the antispasmodic family of meds. If it's any help to you, it lowered the pain for me. I really hope it does for you too. The post"Good Description of IBS" by Eric is a great explanation of this whole mess that we go through. I believe it is posted above here in this post as well. Perhaps your Mom may be helped in her understanding of what is going on with you if she were able to read it. Also visit Eric's site; lots of good info there and also a brochure you can print out to give to family & friends to help them understand. It is called Molly's Brochure, I think. Good luck to you. BQ
 
Thanks eric!My pyramid of pain on a severity scale goes like this:Muscle pain from CFS - worst2nd degree burns on handsLigament tears from ankle injuryIBS stomach painHead pain from sinuses - leastSo basically, the IBS is very painful, but not as bad as others. Becuase I can grade it that way, I reckon I perceive levels of pain correctly because I have things to compare it with, which I know I perceive correctly - i.e you know you're right in thinking it's severe pain when the doctor gives you morphine.As to the origin of IBS pain: well, it's cramping pain, so that means its the intestines moving about. Non-cramping pain: hypersensitivity.I think!Kmottus - thank you for that description of why itching is always worse at night. Have had a sleepless few nights recently due to itching and couldn't work out why, if I didn't have probs during the day.susan
 
Hi everyone,My threshold for pain right now is at 10. If it gets any worse I might visiting the ER tonight. Hopefully it wont come to that for tonight's pain is very aggressive to whereas most movement cause's sheer agony to my stomach. Depending on which movement I'm doing is the location of the pain. Fortunately I have nothing that has to be done tonight. Unfortunately I do have to breath and that hurts as well. I agree with everyone it really depends on the person and their perceptions when it comes to pain. I also believe that when someone has multiple pain problems one can over shadow the other to whereas the if it was just one thing it might be more difficult to withstand. As for the negative response against nerves. In this day and age so many people want a quick fix. Either through operations or a cure-all pill. I suppose they don't really understand that this isn't a disease and it won't kill them. Although it's a life changing condition. Actually am wondering as I write this and it has crossed my mind lately how many people have off'd themselves cause of it....
 
In regards to pain, I seem to have more discomfort than actual pain - BUT the discomfort feels just like the stomach-flu and we all know that is not a fun day. Mine seems to be more nervous stomach-like pain (and nausea) vs. excruciating emergency room pain. But as someone very aptly said, (especially now during flu time and I have 2 small children/germ centers) I am always wondering "now is this the flu? or my IBS?" It takes up a lot of my "thinking time"!
 
I wasn't going to post to this, because I rarely have pain from IBS anymore, except around my period when I have cramping. But my diverticulitis is acting up, and, darn it, I'm going to complain about that!
For those of you who aren't familiar with it, they are weak spots, or pouches, that form in the intestines, most of the time as a part of aging, but sometimes, as in my case, from constipation which put a lot of pressure on the intestinal walls. So I developed it early than a person normally would.Sometimes these pouches become inflamed and infected, and they do cause IBS like symptoms, which can be confused with IBS. Another good reason to get yourself diagnosed by a doc. Because, unlike IBS which, even though it's painful does not cause damage, diverticulitis infection can be serious if not treated.So, several weeks ago I had food poisoning, which eventually got the divert acting up. I am on 2 antibiotics, bactrim and flagyl. Today things are easing, but for the past week, everything I ate or drank, even a sip of water, would get the normal digestive process started, and within 15 minutes to 1/2 hour I would start with sharp pains. The same as someone who has severe IBS, except it is the inflammation in my colon.It doesn't matter what you eat, if the colon is going to spasm, it's going to spasm.
The ole digestive process gets started and nature takes it's course. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the IBS doesn't kick in, and, so far so good.Well, I've had enough rambling now. I don't often do this, so bear with me.
JeanG
 
I just thought I'd add my two cents here. When I was first diagnosed with Ibs about 4-5 years ago I had tremendous pain in my abdomen almost all the time. The Doc gave me anti-spasmodic pills which only seemed to make the pain worse. Someone I worked with, who also had Ibs, told me to increase my fiber, which I did by taking Fibercon. That helped tremendously for about 2-3 years. I still had occasional Ibs-d attacks (1-2 times a week), like always, but most of the time the pain was gone. Basically, I lived a fairly regular life during that time (getting out, socializing, traveling, etc.)even though I knew the possibility of having an attack at a bad time, but since the pain wasn't really there I didn't really pay any attention to my Ibs until an attack. Now, in the past year the effectiveness of fiber has diminished greatly, hence I've been feeling pain in my abdomen daily. Now I really hesitate to do any of the types of things I mention above. I guess what I'm getting at is that, at least in my case, it seems that the pain effects my brain (my brain is reacting to the nerve impulses).......not the other way around. I resent the whole idea of catagorizing (and I'm not refering to you here) all people with Ibs as emotional disturbed in some way. I'm a very upbeat and happy person and am almost never depressed. We shouldn't have to live with this pain, but until they stop coming out with the latest study about things that can trigger Ibs attacks and pills or diets to try and lessen them, and actually focus finding a cure I guess we're stuck with it. I think your first posting was more on the mark.......there "had to be a structural reason for it as it was so severe". It's not in my head, it's in my colon.
 
Discussion starter · #33 ·
Good Bump Eric. Ok folks now that you have read my "IBS 101" education
I wanted you to know that I'm currently on day 61 of Mike's Hypnotherapy Audio Program. I have seen an almost unbelievable reduction in my pain symptoms. Yeah I feel a little funny having my "ignorance" re-visited by this bump, however it presents an opportunity for me to stress once again how important I think educating oneself on IBS is.There are no dumb questions, really. I would encourage you all to keep reading posts, asking questions & keep learning. I'm beginning to think that is truly what helps the most. BQ
 
I have a very high pain tolerance but I am like BQ, I tend to hide it. I think I can handle it more when I know where the pain is coming from. I get really bad fissures that bleed and the pain can be unbearable but I know what it is from and that it will pass. I used to get pain from bloating and gas after eating then I would get diarrhea and the pain would pass. I got used to handling that pain as well. It was when I got pain in the middle of the day for no apparent reason that I actually went back to the Dr. I am not sure why I waited so long before going back to the Dr. Maybe it is the weakness thing I do not know but it does puzzle me now that I think about it. I even sat through the pain of a bowel obstruction once thinking it was just because I had an internal infection. Man I could have died, what kind of mind/gut reaction is that? Maybe just plain stupidity?
 
I had the interesting experience of seeing my own colon during a barium X-ray (actually fluoroscopy).What I saw was as follows: The colon is a fairly lumpy looking tubular organ that wraps around the periphery of the abdomen in a rather irregular way.In the lower left portion of the colon, there was a region that was completely squeezed down. (Like the twist in a long clown's balloon that gets twisted into the shape of a dog.)In this same area I had been having nasty abdominal pain, along with your standard alternating C & D symptoms.The next step of the X-ray process is called "air contrast", where the barium is expelled and the colon is filled with air. Two things come to mind about this unusually fun procedure: It takes very little air pressure to make for very high discomfort; and, the air pressure eventually popped open the squeezed in area. (And I went "YOWOOOOF!".)Just having this done relieved my symptoms for several weeks. The squeezed-down area was in spasm, and the spasm is only broken when upstream portions of the colon squeeze down even more forcefully, creating enough pressure to force the spasmed portion open. Hence, lots of pain.It doesn't require a fouled up perception of pain for this process to hurt a lot.If you call the pain from smashing your thumb with a full force hammer blow a "10", then I would rate my IBS pain at anywhere from 2 to 8, depending on location and that particular day's situation.
 
This is a great thread. I've learned more here than in the past two months of reading this BB. Thank you, Eric.Before my IBS-C got bad, I used to have a very low tolerance for pain. In dealing with the discomfort and pain of IBS every day, I somehow developed a high threshold for pain. This had an almost fatal side effect. I had what I thought was a bad case of hemorroids last January and by the time I found out it was actually a huge perirectal fissure, the infection had spread to the point that I almost died from a blood infection. Is there some kind of adaptation our bodies make to chronic discomfort and pain that increases our pain threshold?------------------***Gail
 
Discussion starter · #38 ·
Gail, your very welcome.Here is some more info. from Clinical Psychiatry News and medscape. Notice the date is 1998 and they have learned more since then.PET Scans Pinpoint Pain in the BrainBy: Sherry Boschert, San Francisco Bureau[Clinical Psychiatry News 26(1):12, 1998. � 1998 International Medical News Group.]New lessons from brain imaging provide clues to the nature of pain that could lead to betterdiagnosis and treatment of silent ischemia, inflammatory bowel disease, and poststrokeneuropathic pain.Researchers have begun mapping the parts of the brain involved in processing various kinds ofpain using PET scans.The PET studies have generated an excitement that's part of a "renaissance" in pain research as awhole, said Michael J. Iadarola, Ph.D., of the pain and neurosensory mechanisms branch of theNational Institute of Dental Research, Bethesda, Md.Driving the surge in interest is an awareness that there are few good alternatives to morphine forchronic pain. "If morphine stops working for you, then you have a problem," Dr. Iadarola said ina telephone interview.Much of the work that has been done looks at somatic pain--brain responses to externallyapplied stimuli such as pinpricks or ice-cold water on the skin.Only very recently have researchers turned their PET scans on more medically related problems:poststroke central pain syndromes; postsurgical pain when anesthesia wears off; visceral painsyndromes such as inflammatory bowel disease; cluster headaches; esophageal pain;postherpetic neuralgia; and chronic vs. acute pain.The goal of investigators for the time being is to learn the basic neurobiology of pain. Little isyet known about what pain and sensation look like in the brain of a healthy person, much lessabout specific pain conditions, expectations of pain, or what happens after treatment.Some, like Dr. Daniel H.S. Silverman, are optimistic that clinical gains are around the corner.His studies were the first to show an aberration in brain activation patterns of patients withirritable bowel syndrome (IBS) who received the same experimental intestinal pressure stimulias did healthy controls.He, Dr. Emeran Mayer, and their associates at the University of California, Los Angeles, aretesting the effectiveness of new drugs being developed for IBS. They compare baseline PETscans to posttreatment scans to see if the abnormal brain pathway has normalized, said Dr.Silverman, head of the functional brain-imaging unit of UCLA's neuroenteric disease program.Building on clues to gender differences in how men's and women's brains process pain, Dr.Silverman and his associates are studying a potential new drug for IBS that improves the diseasein women but not in men. His data suggesting that gender differences in pain pathways in thebrain may account for the different reactions to painful stimuli were presented last year at theannual Society for Neuroscience meeting in New Orleans. Dr. Silverman hopes to see PET imaging of pain become a cost-effective diagnostic alternativein the same way that whole-body PET imaging provides a cheaper alternative to multiple CTscans to stage cancer throughout the body."Most gastroenterologists are not comfortable diagnosing IBS until after a barium enema;colonoscopy; and, maybe, some biopsies to make sure they don't have a tumor that could becausing the symptoms," he noted.Diagnoses of noncardiac chest pain or nonulcer dyspepsia similarly call for extensive andinvasive testing to rule out other disease.If PET images of the brain can be validated as a sensitive and specific marker for these diseaseson an individual level, their cost would be justified to replace extensive, invasive testing used torule out other diseases, Dr. Silverman suggested. PET imaging might even evolve to provide the first objective measure of pain.But scientists are far from correlating PET images to pain on an individual rather than a grouplevel, cautioned Dr. Satoshi Minoshima, a University of Michigan researcher. The multidimensional physiology of pain involves multiple levels of processing. PET provides"one step closer to the final solution, but it's not giving us enough specific information todiagnose `pain' or `painful' disorders," Dr. Minoshima said.Technologic advances, however, are improving PET's spatial resolution, and newthree-dimensional PET increases its sensitivity and the number of scans that can be done on oneperson."This is now pushing the limits of who we can study and whether we get reliable data from asingle subject," Dr. Iadarola said.------------------Moderator of the Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Anxiety and Hypnotherapy forumI work with Mike and the IBS Audio Program. www.ibshealth.com www.ibsaudioprogram.com
 
It is said that women tolerate pain better than men, because of childbirth etc..So you would think that a women having similar pain would be equiped more to handle it.Well I often say to my husband, after a painful attack of D, that if i had to have a baby now it would be no problem because all the pain i have now is far worse and i don't get anything out of it either <except for the usuall you all know what im mean>.I used the think that pain would would seem far worse if my body was not prepared for it. Like if i knew the horrible pain pattern was comming i would "sike" myself up for it and just go in there and feel like dying but i'd get through it.But recently i've changed my mind, i think it's different degree's of pain that makes pain more painful. the placement of the pain, the circumstances, even the kind of food that is causing the bout.It's very odd because i can have an operation with hardly any anestic, i can have a tooth pulled with just a small local and then i don't even take my pain pills afterward, i had my tongue pierced and i was eating the same day with no pain.but a sudden change or rumble in my tummy, makes my pain receptors shoot through the sky!I bet i could have my foot cut off and be in less pain than when i am in there feeling like i should be dying or bleeding from within.It's the inside we can't see, so maybe not seeing causes you to have more pain. If you can't see that it's not bleeding or it's just a scratch then you wonder and then you have massive pain. sometimes i beleive this and sometimes i don't...ex: ever cut your finger and not know it and then you finally look down a see it and see the cut and blood and THEN it starts to hurt.And you think to yourself damn i shouldn't have looked i would've been fine...See this is why pain is such a mystery.I believe in the mind body gut connection, i believe in the gut being more receptive and sensitive in IBSers.I often say to my Doctors, I don't care about the bloating, gas or rumbling, or the alternating bowel habits, just stop the pain that comes when i have an attack and i will be fine.I can even get used to the pain i have on either side of my abdomen.So does fear play a role here also, maybe since i fear this pain so much i'm making it more painful, atleast to me?Who knows, i'm trying to figure these things out myself. I think if i can just get past the pain i'd be fine, but pain lets us know were alive, well i don't think i need to be THAT freaking alive, i'll settle for a dull existence for the time being.-------------------CadiaIM name: MedianAngelYahoo name: MedianCadiahttp://www.cakesbynikki.com
 
Discussion starter · #40 ·
cadia, fear of the pain makes it worse. The pain centers of the brain would normally release opiates to block the pain from digestion and that is not happening in IBS, instead the anxiety centers of the brain are activated. The sensitivity is in the bowels, and basically the rest of us is normal when it comes to pain, although we have individual tolerences for it.------------------Moderator of the Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Anxiety and Hypnotherapy forumI work with Mike and the IBS Audio Program. www.ibshealth.com www.ibsaudioprogram.com
 
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