Since January 1997 I have been getting professional help via a modified pain clinic set-up. I have been under the care of a psychiatrist, who specializes in pain management; and a psychologist who helps me talk about my feelings and any problems which I may have. I really feel that these two professional women have helped to lower the level of pain which I experience.
In 1975 my osteopathic doctor started me on the drug, amitriptyline. In 1975 the mind-body connection had been proven. My doctor was well-read on this subject. He spent a lot of time trying to help me understand the mind-body connection. This was especially difficult for me to comprehend because, as a result of living in so much pain, I was having an extremely difficult time trying to concentrate on anything.
He told me about the various chemicals which the brain contains and gave special attention to the following terms: serotonin, neurotransmitters, endorphins, and some others. Endorphins are the body's natural morphine! Stress depletes this natural morphine. Thus a person experiences unrelenting pain. Amitriptyline helps to restore the body's natural morphine.
Amitriptyline has really made a difference in my life! After several weeks of gradually increasing the milligrams of amitriptyline, I was finally getting a therapeutic level.! This drug has helped me not only be able to get restful sleep at night, but it has also helped to lessen (not eliminate) the extremely severe chronic pain I had been living with for 5 years following my 1970 laparotomy.
I continue to be involved in community life, I teach piano lessons to students from age 8 to 85 - who not only learn how to play the piano - but - they in turn have helped me more than they probably realize. They have helped to give meaning and companionship to my life as well as I do not feel so isolated anymore, which is a common problem for people who have disabilities. Chronic pain is a disability too! I continue to be involved in my church and have been attending Weigh Down Workshop sessions - to help me lose weight.
So there is my modified pain clinic set up: physician, psychiatrist, psychologist, plus nutrition and weight control. Additionally there is the support that I get as a member of the Weigh Down Workshop program as well as the support I have received from the many adhesion-sufferers who have written to me wanting information about adhesions along with the support of all of you at this forum.
June 1998 at one of the forums, I decided to write about how chronic pain had impacted my life. I typed steadily for about 4 hours (having not typed in 50 years). I found it to be extremely painful to even try to remember what had happened all those years! As a result, I only touched on some of the experiences I had had with the medical profession. Plus - I included information I had learned about adhesions, etc. since my 1997 diagnostic surgery, when my diagnosis was: *massive adhesions attaching the omentum to my abdominal wall.*
It was never my intention to ever place my story on the Internet! I assumed that when I typed my story at the Healthseek forum that my story would stay there. But it didn't!!! Someone, unknown to me, decided to put my story on the various search engines. When I first saw it on the Internet, I was stunned! I also felt violated - because the information in my story was so personal to me. BUT------- I remembered the phrase: "If you can't beat them, then join them." So from that point on I have posted many messages at various forums with the intention of calling attention to my difficulty in getting the right diagnosis for the chronic pain I had lived with for 27 years in 1997 - 29 years in 1999.
My intention of posting messages of my own has been and now is to help others find information about adhesions - especially those who have had multiple surgeries to try to get rid of adhesions - but instead are still are having problems with chronic pain and adhesions, in spite of their efforts to have them surgically lysed.
NO ONE DESERVES TO SPEND THE BEST YEARS OF THEIR LIVES SUFFERING FROM THE CHRONIC PAIN OF ADHESIONS!!!!!!!!!!!