I'm still getting patients who surprise me.

[Aristus]

Today in clinic, I diagnosed a woman with rheumatoid arthritis. She burst into tears and announced she was thinking of killing herself.

A few weeks ago, I diagnosed a patient with multiple myeloma, and he just nodded in a matter-of-fact way and said: "Okay, what do we do now, Doc?"

It's hard to predict reactions...

[Suich]

1. I have a friend who has RA and sometimes it's hard

for her to get any relief at all, so I kind of understand the reaction of your patient.

I have no idea what to say about the patient with multiple myeloma. Is that what bone-marrow transplants are used to treat?

:hi:

[Aristus]

2. Yeah. It can also be treated with radiation therapy and medications

like dexamethasone.

The weird thing about my MM patient was that he was a black man in his fifties. The most common victims of MM are women over 65.

[Haole Girl]

3. People are unpredictable (rule #1)

Rule #2? People will be people. :hi:

[Lucinda]

4. Cancer was MUCH easier for me to handle than my joint pain is,

but I knew I had cancer before it was diagnosed, so I had come to terms with it.

Joint pain can be exhausting, in addition to the pain. Plus some people see it as years and years of pain ahead of them, especially if they have dealt with family members with chronic pain. Daunting.

[grasswire]

5. having had just three months of knee pain...

...I can only now begin to visualize what it means to have long-term severe pain. It colors everything, and changes one's world. I'm sorry for each one who has chronic pain.

[Lucinda]

6. Exactly. My grandmother lived with hip and knee pain for years and years

and I had NO idea what sort of toll that chronic pain takes on you emotionally and physically until I went through it myself. It's certainly been an education.

May be both get, and stay pain free soon!

[sarge43]

7. Chronic pain is a prison, often a life sentence.

After a while it overwhelms you until you have nothing left but the pain.

Cancer: Either it's halted or it kills you. Either way you're free of it. Pain is the 'gift' that keeps on giving and giving and ...

[TZ]

10. Not true at all.

Elizabeth Edwards battled cancer on and off for years. And cancer is thought by many doctors to be the most painful disease you can get. You know that the strongest painkillers on the market are often prsocribed for cancer patients...Morphine, Oxycontin etc.

[sarge43]

13. Well, I've had cancer twice and currently have degenerative arthritis.

During the cancer treatments I had pain meds which were powerful enough to make the pain tolerable. After a while arthritis pain can't be controlled. Either you're bombed into a coma, risk an operation which may or may not work or go barking mad from the pain and the imprisonment.

YMMV

[Lucinda]

11. Yup.

Definitely my take on it as well.

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

8. My arthritis is so bad that at 55 I have

lost the use of my legs. I now take tiny steps with the use of a walker. If I need to go out I use a wheel chair.

This process started six months ago.

[Lucinda]

12. Whatever my joint pain is, it started in May,and was that bad too but

I have been taking Lyrica - and that helped, and I've eating an anti-inflammatory diet which helps too. I still walk like my great great granny...but it hasn't become any worse yet. The combination stopped my mobility problem from getting worse, but the pain is still there.

Mine came out of nowhere. It was like a switch was flipped one day, and there was BIG PAIN. Hope you find some relief soon!

[nolabear]

9. Have you ever read Raphael Campo's "What the Body Told"?

He's a Cuban American poet who's a doctor. Some of his poems are so powerful I can barely breathe. One sequence in particular is called "Ten Patients and Another" and is about a series of patients seen in the ER. Well worth a look.