I wanted to share this idea and welcome your input.
I went to www.innerbody.com and printed out from the website a front and back view of the skeletal system. I used a yellow highlighter marking all the areas I have pain, marked constant pain with a black pen and shooting type pain with a red pen. I can add as pain happens. Sometimes I will have pain for a week, then it goes away and I forget about it at the next visit. I plan on giving my doctor a copy.
Of course, as probably with all of us, it can depend on what we are doing at the time to cause the pain. If I sit too long my tailbone hurts, do too much baking and cooking, my upper back aches and bending too much my lower back, and on and on and ........ So my doc will ask at an appointment "Do you have any new pain?", well, let me think about that, I have so much pain its hard to remember sometimes....
I seem to be rambling today. Thanks for listening.
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Talking to the Doc about pain
- By kat47
- Posted October 28, 2009 at 9:18 am · 10 replies
- In Taking charge: Being a proactive patient
- Shared with the public
10 replies
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- Newest first
- By g8orfan
- Posted October 28, 2009 at 10:34 am
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Kat47,
That is a very good idea. Actually, every time I see the Pain Management Specialist I am given the front and back body views to do just that but Kat is right, I know I dont remember them all so using different colors to identify the various types of pain etc is a great idea! That info would help the doc to know how best to treat the pain.
Go KAT, GO!
Donna
- By TellMeWhy
- Posted October 28, 2009 at 11:03 am
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What a great idea. Thanks for the tip.
Linda
- By g8orfan
- Posted October 28, 2009 at 7:44 pm
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Kat, I went to innerbody.cm and did nt find a print Icon, how did you print yours? Donna
- By anything4mom
- Posted October 28, 2009 at 9:06 pm
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Great idea Kat -- I'm bringing one to my mom so she can use it when we see her Onc tomorrow. Thanks!
Donna, I just dragged the image onto a blank Word doc and it worked.
Maria
- By jojobeans
- Posted October 28, 2009 at 9:08 pm
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This is a great idea!!! Sometimes, it hard to explain some of the pain and they just don't get it. I was trying to explain to my doc about my pain at my last visit and he is puzzled because according to my scans and tumor markers, everything is getting smaller, so in theory I should have less pain, not more...
- By kat47
- Posted October 28, 2009 at 10:26 pm
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I just printed it off my tool bar. It printed everything, so copy and pasting it is probably is a better idea.
Glad this helped!
- By Beachbabe
- Posted October 29, 2009 at 11:47 am
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Great advice! My Pain Mgmt Team asked me to keep a 'pain diary' because when you don't see them for a while you can forget what/when/how bad things were. Only problem is, with the current cocktail of pain meds I'm on, things aren't too bad so I forget to keep my diary. Good grief, I'm going to have to 'make up' a pain diary so I'm not given a zero on this assignment :)
- By GirliebikerTPBC
- Posted October 29, 2009 at 2:44 pm
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Here's an interesting situation about bone mets pain. When I was on narcotic pain relievers, I still had pain but it was tolerable. When I got off all pain relievers (including OTC meds) six months ago, I still had the same pain. The narcotics had not helped at all.
I point out my pain spots to my oncologist but the only ones that show up on a bone scan are the ones on my spine. The other spots (ribs, shoulder, iliac crest) only show up on a CT scan. That makes me think that a CT is more valuable than a bone scan. It is a way of seeing if the lesions are growing; hence, treatment should be evaluated.
- By 2xnow
- Posted October 29, 2009 at 6:51 pm
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The pain chart is an interesting concept. Since pain can radiate from other areas or be caused by other than bone mets, ie arthritis, sclerosis, degenerative changes in the bones, etc. sometimes it is hard for a dr to differentiate whether the pain is from the mets or other conditions. I have pain in and around the hips when I bend or lift - I have bone mets in the area both spinal and pelvic but I also have sclerosis in the same area. After having a CT with contrast done yesterday and the bone mets have not gotten worse or shown any improvement, who knows why the hips hurt. They hurt before I was diagnosed this year but then who knows when the mets started.
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