Word: spinal
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Penny Rickhoff's world began to shrink suddenly in 1990, after a very tall and very heavy file cabinet toppled over onto her back. The freak accident damaged her spinal cord, leaving her with a constant, gnawing pressure in her lower back. "If I sit for very long, I'm in excruciating pain," she says. Once an avid tennis player, world traveler and amateur pilot, Rickhoff, who is in her 50s, was not only grounded, but she also became almost a prisoner in her home, unable to drive more than a short distance, unable to go anywhere without toting special...
...have it. Nasty though it is, pain plays a valuable role in our overall health. Doctors liken it to an alarm system for the body. When skin, cartilage, muscle or other tissue is injured, peripheral nerves in the area send a shrieking signal to the spinal cord and brain. The immediate result, usually processed in the spinal cord: you pull your hand away from the stove, you shift your weight off the broken bone, you sit down. All pain signals ultimately land in the brain, where they trigger thought ("That was dumb!"), emotions (tears, sobs), memories and a complex array...
With chronic pain, however, the alarm continues to shriek uselessly long after the physical danger has passed. Somewhere along the line--maybe near the initial injury, maybe in the spinal cord or brain--the alarm system has broken down. What researchers have only recently come to understand is that prolonged exposure to this screaming siren actually does its own damage. "Pain causes a fundamental rewiring of the nervous system," says Dr. Sean Mackey, director of research at Stanford University's Pain Management Center. "Each time we feel pain, there are changes that occur that tend to amplify our experience...
...extreme agony. After knee-replacement surgery, Donna Jaeger, 56, of Auburn, Calif., developed a neurological condition that caused excruciating pain that she rated a "17 on a 1-to-10 scale." Pain-management experts at U.C. Davis prescribed a multifaceted treatment that included powerful opioid drugs and a spinal implant--all of which helped. But Jaeger regards psychologist Symreng as "my saving angel." Breathing techniques and soothing relaxation tapes help Jaeger reduce her pain level from 17 to 4 or 5 on a good day. "But really," she says, "it is just the talking to her that helps, because...
What began with a persistent headache and led to a spinal tap didn’t keep Williamson off the field for long—he picked up two tackles in the next week’s win over Northeastern...