I am going to take this advice
Aug. 14th, 2012 11:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
I got this from a friend I met this aft: if after major knee surgery the doctors strongly recommend pain killers, take them rather than assuming the current lack of pain will continue indefinitely. Apparently all the nerve blocks and such wore off at the same time.
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Date: 2012-08-15 04:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-15 04:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-15 12:40 pm (UTC)That's ... surprisingly counter-intuitive, if you'll forgive me saying so.
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Date: 2012-08-15 12:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-15 09:27 pm (UTC)Oh not at all actually; A Nicoll Gene is certainly no more silly than a Teela Brown gene in general, as it ensures that dirty stinking luck leads to possessing experiencing survivable but quite impressive accidents, so most importantly and pertinent to natural selection, the gene clearly also ensures that the possessor ultimately survives to reproduce even in situations where they really shouldn't, even if the method by which it achieves this is painful for the gene's host in the short term. That it also frequently leads to sexy scarring (which increases fecundity and aids in sex selection for the gene), as well as giving the family a multigenerational wealth of knowledge about Things What Hurt Bad that other families wouldn't have, aiding in kin selection terms, is just a handy side effect that helps it to beat out competitors like the Teela Brown gene which tends to coddle its hosts and provide no net benefit for other nearby members of its species that do not possess that gene.
So tribes with a Nicoll will always have a competent herbalist/amateur EMT with a vast knowledge of poisons, venoms, anti-venoms, anti-toxins and first hand knowledge of most means to survive and treat physical injuries who is generally able to keep a clear head about them through sheer constant personal exposure to emergency situations. While the tribes with Teela Browns will of course have this nieve fool who's lucky when better people than they are not.
So to give a specific scenario when a Nicoll is evolutionarily better than a Teela Brown, say if two people from a Nicoll containing tribe are attacked by a bear, the Nicoll will be immediately but non-fatally mauled by the bear and thus allow the non-nicoll to escape, while the hunter who'd gone out with a Teela Brown will end up dying after the Teela Brown manages to run away or hide better than the non-teela brown.
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Date: 2012-08-16 12:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-18 02:52 am (UTC)You make a cromulent argument about the evolutionary benefits of the two variations.
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Date: 2012-08-15 05:20 am (UTC)The long-term flip-side is medication-overuse rebound, as well as addiction. You can't win for losing. But in the short term, take the drugs, keep the pain under control, and then taper off.
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Date: 2012-08-15 08:25 pm (UTC)Never heard of kindling, should look it up. I've had a migraine for 17 years now but it moves around, not sure if that counts for kindling. And I'm not sure if I believe in rebound, every time I've gone off to prove to another doctor that it's not rebound, it hasn't been rebound :)
My experience of cramps and back pain from my period really really showed me the point of taking the pain pills early and keep taking them, once they got their claws in me it could take a full day to get 'em under control again.
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Date: 2012-08-15 09:34 pm (UTC)I would have said that a year ago, after multiple specialists, until I visited a specialist researcher who explained what rebound (now known as "medication overuse headache") actually was. It's a complicated physical and chemical process. In any case, strictly limiting my use of *any* pain relief, including aspirin, did indeed reduce but not eliminate my migraines. Your migraines may vary. PM me if you want to know the name of the researcher.
> Mostly if you're only using opiates for pain, not for the mood lift, you won't get addicted.
This can be a mess. Opiates are not the Universally Awful Thing currently being promoted by the Federal government. On the other hand, people do become addicted because of opiate treatment for pain - this happened to a friend of mine after major back surgery, for instance. People with chronic pain respond differently to opiates than people with injury pain, but opiates remain a very mixed blessing, and opiates can be overused and misused (by the prescribers, not just the patient) even in chronic-pain situations.
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Date: 2012-08-16 12:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-16 04:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-16 04:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-16 08:53 pm (UTC)Not sure if my stuff is actually neuropathic pain or not, should look up a definition.
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Date: 2012-08-16 08:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-16 10:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-16 09:11 pm (UTC)This is so true and not something I take into account when I pontificate on opiates. Thanks for reminding me :)
Whenever the US gov't or the DEA starts whipping up a frenzy about opiates it leads to such trouble for people whose only pain relief is an opiate. And while they can be troublesome and if not treated with respect, horrible, we have been using them for so long and know so much about the effects, it drives me nuts! Washington state passed a law that caused most doctors to drop chronic pain patients and stop prescribing opiates except for cancer and the like. California has a pain patient's bill of rights, too bad other states don't *sigh*. And I swear the DEA does it when people start noticing that since the drug war started drugs have gotten cheaper, easier to find and better quality.
Enough ranting from me, a pm shall wing its way to you.
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Date: 2012-08-16 09:39 pm (UTC)Am not wimpy about pain, really; have had migraines since before kindergarten, just not daily. And the absence of pain control means it keeps getting worse, and I keep getting less and less functional. Had the baseline migraine level down to 6, with basically 45 vicos a month; now, the lowest it gets is 8, and I spend a lot of time in a quiet dark room with ice packs deployed.
*sigh*
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Date: 2012-08-15 08:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-15 09:13 am (UTC)I love your tractor story.
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Date: 2012-08-15 01:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-15 01:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-15 01:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-16 12:49 am (UTC)a) go home until the meds had worn off, rather than straight back to work to deal with Important Bidness, and
b) not to ride his bike home.
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Date: 2012-08-16 09:41 pm (UTC)wait...
Date: 2012-08-15 01:54 pm (UTC)-- Graydon
This deserves a place
Date: 2012-08-15 04:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-15 08:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-15 10:15 pm (UTC)Ibuprofin worked well for me, once we got me switched onto it, but MAN, that was NASTY.