ABC news article on a Abdul's struggle with pain/ helping others...ect

[Guest guest]

Ok at first I didnt know what to make of a Abdul and i hated when people

would make fun of her...called her 'condition' the 'crazies on saturday

night live....but here is an article I found while doing some searches in

hopes to find some updates articles while Im sitting here with heating pad.

For some reason her RSD is also called the other term CRPS but it also says

regional pain syndrome...ive never heard it called anything but RSD or

CRPS.... Im a bit out of it due to meds kicking in so wont reply to msgs

right now but hope to find some articles....Here it is and here is the link-

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/PainManagement/story?id=4133950 & page=1

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*By LAUREN COX

ABC News Medical Unit*

Jan. 16, 2008

If celebrity gossip were the stock market, a Abdul's shares would be on

a solid uptick.

Her hit program " American Idol " started Tuesday — with no writers needed —

and TVguide.com reports that she's in talks to sing at the Super Bowl

halftime show.

<http://abcnews.go.com/Health/painmanagement/>

Abdul, who has endured more than her share of bad Hollywood gossip, also has

a condition not shared by many fellow celebrities. She's one of millions of

Americans who suffer from chronic pain.

Acknowledging Her Pain

In a 2005 interview, Abdul was straight up with People magazine, confirming

that she had taken powerful drugs before — Oxycontin, Vicodin, Soma — but

all in an excruciating trial-and-error process to beat her chronic pain.

Abdul claimed to suffer from a condition called Regional Sympathetic

Dystrophy, or Complex Regional Pain Syndrome. The condition, she said,

started with a cheerleading neck injury that sent her body into a mysterious

chain reaction of pain symptoms that spiraled into intolerable pain over

decades.

Chronic pain may be mysterious, but it's not uncommon. About 10 percent of

people suffer from pain that lasts longer than a year, according to 2002

statistics from the American Pain Foundation. For people with neuropathy,

spinal cord injuries, rheumatoid arthritis and other diseases, chronic pain

can last for decades — and sometimes require drugs with side effects that

can leave people drowsy, nauseous, or suffering from memory lapses to make

life tolerable.

Getting Acceptance

" We don't want sympathy at all, we just want empathy; we want

understanding, " says Mike K. Buckley, 51, a retired firefighter in

Massachusetts who suffers from chronic pain.

In the summer of 2002, Buckley pulled a fire hose toward a blaze in full

gear. With just one unnatural turn, two discs in the middle of his back

bulged into his spinal cord.

Beating Back the Stigma of Pain Treatment

a Abdul's Stardom May Help Cut Negative Perceptions About Chronic Pain,

Painkiller Use

This single injury has sent him to the emergency room 20 times in the past

four years, every time in a bout of excruciating pain.

Buckley stayed at work for three years, even after a T-bone car accident

injured a third disc in his spine, making his chronic pain condition

inoperable.

" Oh you're taking Oxycontin? Are you addicted? " Buckley remembers his fellow

firefighters asking. " I used to joke with people: I wished I was just

getting high off of this! "

In fact, most chronic pain patients won't get high with a well-managed dose

of opioids like Oxycontin, says Dr. Elliot Krane, professor of anesthesia

and pediatrics at Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif.

" All of us have had patients on grams and grams — rather than milligrams —

of morphine or hydropmorphone, for example, who have been very functional, "

said Krane, " whereas the same dose would render the opioid-naïve patient

comatose. "

Prescription Woes

Prescriptions for opioids took off in the 1980s and 1990s with the

realization that short-term painkillers could help chronic pain patients in

the long term, says Dr. Joe Shurman, chairman of pain management at Scripps

Memorial Hospital in La Jolla, Calif.

Unfortunately, in the late 1990s, the drug Oxycontin left a wake of reports

of prescription painkiller overdoses and abuses skyrocketed.

" It gives everybody with pain a bad rap, " said Buckley, whose doctors have

tried Vicodin, Oxycontin and epidural injections to fix his pain before

finally finding a prescription for methadone, which he says works. Each time

a chronic pain patient switches drugs, he or she may take a couple of weeks

to adjust to the mental and physical side effects.

" A lot of us just take it to get through the day, and a lot of times the

pain wins, " said Buckley.

Buckley had to retire in January of last year after a fall down some stairs,

which Buckley says weren't compliant with the fire code. Though he says he

still spends most of his days at a seven on the 1-10 pain scale used by

doctors, Buckley may have been lucky that doctors even believed he was in

pain

Convincing Peers and Doctors

" I guess I wasn't screaming enough; I told them I was in pain, but I guess I

should have been yelling at them, " said Janice Dallas, a Type 1 diabetic who

suffers from " fire and lightning " pain due to a degenerative nerve disease

called neuropathy.

" It started out in '94 with neuropathy, it wasn't diagnosed until 2000, "

said Dallas. Part of Dallas' six-year wait for a diagnosis was an odd

condition: She felt pain in her trunk, as opposed to the more common areas

of hands and feet.

But part of Dallas' challenge to get diagnosed might have also been doctors'

heightened scrutiny of anything that might resemble drug-seeking behavior.

In response to the rising Oxycontin abuse, the U.S. Drug Enforcement

Administration started the official Action Plan to Prevent the Diversion and

Abuse of Oxycontin in 2003.

The plan led to high-profile cases of doctors going to jail for prescribing

certain opioids. Now doctors are hesitant to prescribe heavy-duty pain

killers like Oxycontin. " It's shifting to being underprescribed, " said

Shurman.

But perhaps high profile cases of chronic pain — like Abdul's — could

eventually help normalize the stigma and fear that come along with the

proper use of prescribed painkillers.

" Unless you've really experienced pain you can't get rid of, you don't

understand our world, " Buckley said.

Unlike Buckley, Abdul had a chance of ending her world of pain. In her

interview with People, Abdul says after more than 25 years of unsuccessful

treatments she's feeling better than ever. According to the Associated

Press, Abdul and her doctor report she's only taking low-side effect

medication of Enbrel for arthritis and Pamidronate for complications of her

chronic pain.

Buckley still feels supportive of Abdul's trial in the spotlight.

" When it comes down to it celebrities are people just like us and have to

deal with this pain that changes their whole world. "

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*Thanks for reading and pass along to anyone who may like to read this....*

*wishing you a pain free/ pain tolerable night Love

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RSD STOP THE BURNING, STOP THE PAIN*