Hi I’m a new member looking for support/advice

Hi. My name is Todd and I’m from down here in Mississippi. I’ve got several injuries that have been kicking my butt for years. In 2012 I fell 22 feet and shattered my ankle and every bone in my leg up to my knee. I’ve had to have 4 surgeries on that and have arthritis, RSD, nerve damage etc. still to this day in my ankle.
As of late, I’ve been diagnosed with Cervical Spinal Stenosis that’s related to a lot of damage I did to my neck playing football in High school. The pain I’m experiencing with my neck is unbearable. I’ve gotten 3 Toradol shots over the past 3 weeks and they have helped but after 5 days or so the pain comes right back.
But to be honest, I’m only 33 years old and no one my age seems to understand the constant pain and suffering and it gets frustrating. So I joined up hoping to be able to get and give support to other folks.
Thanks so much. Todd

Hi Todd & welcome to Healing Well. Yes, you are far too young to have to be dealing with chronic pain as you are. However, pain just doesn't have an age limit. I almost twice your age & my pain issues are a result of the so many different injuries that occurred when I was much younger. They tend to have a way of coming back & haunting us later.

We have discussed the problems often associated with family & friends not understanding chronic pain many, many times here. To date, we really have never been able to come up with a good solution. A lot us have a few things we do that helps us in this area. We never let our health issues be the topic of any conversation, we share what we want with close family & 1-2 friends & never let someone push you into something that you truly do not feel like doing, especially if it will cause you more problems. Most of all, don't be down on yourself because of your physical limitations. Instead concentrate on what you can still do. I personally think it is much harder on younger people. I can say that now because I am older, but when I was younger I often pushed myself & shouldn't have so much. Don't be afraid to get professional help if needed. It certainly is not a sign of weakness. We all know life can be hard, but it takes a strong individual to live this life. I ended up seeing a psychologist & I learned so much from her. Where I was helped the most was how my thinking was at the time. She gave me ideas & examples, none of the "well you need to do this or that" type of thing. Coming to a forum like this is a great thing too. I remind myself daily, there is always someone out there much worse off than me & that helps me keep my perspective.

What type of drs are you seeing to help manage all of your issues. You said you have RSD, I do hope that you have a good dr taking care of that. It can be a tough one to treat unless the dr has good knowledge.

Keep us posted on how you are doing.

I mailed this to my sister who has been suffering chronic pain after a car accident, All I know is that it worked for me.Be sure to talk to your doctor before adding any meds or supplements to your diet.

SIS

I can see from your Facebook entries that you are still dealing with pain. Years ago in my late 20s I started to have pain it was pretty constant.The pain went from my fingers to my shoulders it was always there and every once in a while it was like a shock being sent from fingers to shoulders mostly in my right arm but also in my left.Nothing relieved it,for the next 12 years into my early 40s I went to many different specialist from GPs to neurologist to bone and joint specialist most of them acted like I was faking the pain.Finally I went to a group in East Brunswick they took infrared x-rays that showed I had nerve pain from my finger tips to my shoulders.They tried different meds nothing helped, they had me wear a wrist strap that sent a pulsing electric shock from my wrists up to my shoulders it did nothing.They told me to get used to it advised me to quit driving as the pain made holding the steering wheel hard.Air conditioning was unbearable even just the wind from an open window was painful.

I was reading an article I think it was in Prevent magazine, the article was by DR. Earl Mindell he was writing about an amino acid called DLPA. He said it worked with your bodies on natural pain relief.

I am sending you a link on research on the pain relieving effects of DLPA you can copy and paste it into your address bar

https://www.afpafitness.com/research-articles/dlpa-natural-relief-for-chronic-pain

You can also do a search just by putting DLPA in your address bar there is a lot of information on it.Be sure that it is safe for you to use, I think if you have high blood pressure or are or intend to get pregnant you should not use it. I did not have much hope that DLPA would work but it did, the instructions said it works on chronic pain and could take up to 90 days before you feel relief.What did I have to lose, I mega dosed on it 1000mgs a day, with the 90 day end in sight I started to feel some relief my eyes still tear up because I never expected after 12 plus years and so many doctors that I would find any thing that would help.In a week I felt no more pain.Over the next month I started to slowly wean my self off of the DLPA. For the next two years if I felt the pain returning I took the DLPA for a couple of days.

I have no way of knowing what caused it, I had been shot in the right wrist and exposed to agent orange in Vietnam.Or maybe it was because of the lead paint I had ate off of the window sill my crib was next to o maybe the liquid mercury I had rolled around in my hands who knows. What I am sure of is that it worked for me

If you try it I hope you find the same relief that I did.