Pain management?

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Dada Kind, modified 8 Years ago at 4/9/15 11:32 PM
Created 8 Years ago at 4/9/15 11:31 PM

Pain management?

Posts: 633 Join Date: 11/15/13 Recent Posts
I know that mindfulness is sometimes used for pain management and I'm curious if any DhOers have had success with that. I'm passing my first kidney stone and am looking for anything to supplement the painkillers and water.

I've tried a few strategies
1) Try to concentrate on something else
2) Vipassanize the painful sensations
3) Do nothing; resist as little as possible

none of which have seemed to help much. I haven't had a formal sitting practice lately so my concentration is booboo. +100 internet points to whoever knows pain management techniques that don't require strong concentration.

Any tips welcome. Thanks
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Bill F, modified 8 Years ago at 4/10/15 12:06 AM
Created 8 Years ago at 4/10/15 12:06 AM

RE: Pain management?

Posts: 556 Join Date: 11/17/13 Recent Posts
10 point practice. you tube dharma ocean boulder or denver 10 points
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Dream Walker, modified 8 Years ago at 4/10/15 12:09 AM
Created 8 Years ago at 4/10/15 12:09 AM

RE: Pain management?

Posts: 1657 Join Date: 1/18/12 Recent Posts
Droll Dedekind:
I know that mindfulness is sometimes used for pain management and I'm curious if any DhOers have had success with that. I'm passing my first kidney stone and am looking for anything to supplement the painkillers and water.

I've tried a few strategies
1) Try to concentrate on something else
2) Vipassanize the painful sensations
3) Do nothing; resist as little as possible

none of which have seemed to help much. I haven't had a formal sitting practice lately so my concentration is booboo. +100 internet points to whoever knows pain management techniques that don't require strong concentration.

Any tips welcome. Thanks
Sorry dude....
1) Try to concentrate on something else - unless it's giving birth I don't know if there is anything gonna touch that...
2) Vipassanize the painful sensations - I've done this with much much much less intense pain, it works but.....try it and tell us how it works...
3) Do nothing; resist as little as possible. - Shinzen young - (pain x resistance = suffering) so ya...resist it not....if you can...

Good luck....hope you got lotsa mega painkillers.
~D
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Daniel M Ingram, modified 8 Years ago at 4/10/15 2:37 AM
Created 8 Years ago at 4/10/15 2:37 AM

RE: Pain management?

Posts: 3268 Join Date: 4/20/09 Recent Posts
I agree toradol can help.

Drinking plenty of water can help.

Do you know the size of the stone? Sometimes a urologist doing some unfortunate procedure helps if it is too big to pass.

I personally tend to roll around on the floor like an aligator with spear hanging out of its back, for what it is worth, at least at the worst of them. For others, I have been able to work shifts in the emergency room and just ignore the pain and nausea.

At their very worst, consider passing out.

I find that a cold concrete floor or a cast-iron tub works best for the rolling around part.

I have had about 12 kidney stones at this point, some worse than others. For prevention: Avoid high-oxalate foods. Drink lots of water daily.

My thoughts this early morning,

Daniel
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Dada Kind, modified 8 Years ago at 4/10/15 9:49 AM
Created 8 Years ago at 4/10/15 9:41 AM

RE: Pain management?

Posts: 633 Join Date: 11/15/13 Recent Posts
Thank you guys so much. As this stone is currently the Biggest Deal in the World to me I really really appreciate the support.

The serious pain, nausea, and vomiting started on Friday and by Saturday I figured it was a kidney stone. I went to the herb shop (read: witch store) right by my house and picked up some chanca piedra. On Sunday the pain got so bad I gave up my stubbornness and went to the ER. They confirmed it as a kidney stone, 4.6mm. They gave me morphine when I got there and then later while I was waiting on my results some anti-nausea medicine and either Toradol or Dilaudid. As this was probably the most relieving 30 seconds of my life I'm guessing it was the latter. I went home with 20 5/325 Percocets and 14 Flomax, with a recommendation to add ibuprofen.

The next day, a few hours after taking my medicine, I ate a brownie made from some vaped pot. I expected to feel a little buzz and pain relief for the next few hours. Within an hour I realized I had made a horrible mistake in not considering the interaction with my medicine (being opiate naive). I spent a good 3-4 hours immobile, dizzy, heart pounding, confused, on my bathroom floor hugging my toilet, 100% convinced I was dying. Hard to say if this was worse than the kidney stone pain.

Soaking in a hot bath seems to be the most reliable relief I can get. I'm too tall for my tub, but the heat seems to help (distract?) and floating slightly takes the pressure off of my back.

My longest stretch of continuous pain was from about three hours before posting this thread, to about an hour ago. The nausea was so bad during that time that I couldn't keep down the medicine.

@Bill F
I've actually been listening to Reggie Ray to distract myself lately; your recent post about him put me onto him. I read that Reggie has experience with the Hakomi method which is an amalgam of NLP, Reichian/bioenergetics, Gestalt, Taoism, Buddhism, etc. Very neat.

@DW
I've had strategy 2) work with some pain before but it seems to make the kidney stone feel worse. Letting myself thrash, writhe, and groan while doing 3) has gotten me the most success of the 3.

@Gordo
I tried pacing and walking meditation early on but the pain in my back turns it into a limp. Helps somewhat with the restlessness tho. If I had Toradol I would def take it emoticon

@Daniel
They told me they consider surgery at 5mm+. I'm uncomfortably close to that.

I'm not sure if I can pass-out on command.

Lold at the gator imagery. That's sadly actually going on my list of things to try.

12 stones is nuts. I read somewhere that if you get your first one young then you're likely to have many. I'm young so this scares the hell out of me.


Thank you all so much for the support.

Reading about historical figures that had kidney stones has also been surprisingly helpfu
  • After praying to Mother Teresa, a 1⁄2-inch-diameter (13 mm) kidney stone disappeared from the lower ureter of Father V. M. Thomas in Guwahati, India. This occurred a day before the priest was scheduled to undergo surgery for the stone's removal. The surgeon said that, "the disappearance of the calculus (stone) was beyond medical explanation." This alleged miracle was used to support the case for sainthood of Mother Teresa.[91]
Will devoutly join the cult of anyone who can perform this miracle on me. Serious inquiries only emoticon
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Daniel M Ingram, modified 8 Years ago at 4/10/15 12:14 PM
Created 8 Years ago at 4/10/15 12:14 PM

RE: Pain management?

Posts: 3268 Join Date: 4/20/09 Recent Posts
One great thing about kidney stones: as the pain can top almost anything else (as working in an ER shows almost daily, as almost nobody looks as miserable as kidney stone patients at their worst except severe burn patients), kidney stones are a fantastic demonstration that despite whatever we think our practice has done for us, we are still mortal mammals.

When the 10 Fetter debates arise, I often think along the lines of, "Whoever claims full 10 Fetter realization like the idealists claim it will be, I bet they haven't had one of these damn things!" As, if they had, they might have a totally different interpretation of what it means to have been born with a human body and its zillions of pain receptors.
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Psi, modified 8 Years ago at 4/10/15 3:42 PM
Created 8 Years ago at 4/10/15 3:41 PM

RE: Pain management?

Posts: 1099 Join Date: 11/22/13 Recent Posts
Hang in there Llord Kindeed, this too shall pass, this too shall pass...

emoticon

Psi
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Dada Kind, modified 8 Years ago at 4/10/15 4:29 PM
Created 8 Years ago at 4/10/15 4:29 PM

RE: Pain management?

Posts: 633 Join Date: 11/15/13 Recent Posts
Agreed. I remember you mentioning a story about an arhat with stomach pain who killed himself. Makes sense. If the story is based on any real events then I bet it was a nasty kidney stone.

In my current state of ignorance it seems unlikely anyone could handle extreme conditions of the body with meditation alone.


Thanks again guys!

Can't resist...
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CJMacie, modified 8 Years ago at 4/11/15 8:19 AM
Created 8 Years ago at 4/11/15 8:11 AM

RE: Pain management?

Posts: 856 Join Date: 8/17/14 Recent Posts
RE: Pain management?
re: Daniel M. Ingram (4/10/15 12:14 PM as a reply to Droll Dedekind.)
"When the 10 Fetter debates arise, I often think along the lines of, "Whoever claims full 10 Fetter realization like the idealists claim it will be, I bet they haven't had one of these damn things!" As, if they had, they might have a totally different interpretation of what it means to have been born with a human body and its zillions of pain receptors."

also in
RE: Ten Fetters Path?
re: Daniel M. Ingram (4/10/15 9:45 PM as a reply to Chuck Kasmire.)
"The number of texts (even those on the standard lists of "more authentic" or "older" texts, not that every scholar agrees on those points) that support the strict bad-emotional-elimination view is pretty large, for better or worse. The texts also say even wilder things, like pain being minimized, total control of all thought, and the like."

Daniel,

Initially I took your take on things like the "idealist claims" as an emphasis away from such for the sake of accessibility to most (secular) folks. The statements above raise the question whether you actually believe "idealist claims" or "wilder things" to be in fact out of the realm of possibility?

How do you interpret the case of Thich Quang Duc's self-immolation? Not just on paper, but with studying the video and the photographs. (Cited in the thread "A rather serious practice" at: http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discussion/-/message_boards/message/5710696)

Posing these questions is not to challenge you, but rather my coming across the Thich Quang Duc material cast in a new light a couple of themes that pop-up in DhO now and again:

1) Discussions of recognizing, verifying or demonstrating "attainments". A fair amount of time is spent here with people describing such tentative experiences and being helped in interpreting them by others. The visual and otherwise reported evidence in the monk's case might appear as quite a different, a rather graphic demonstration along those lines. It certainly relates to issue of "…a human body and its zillions of pain receptors."

2) The issue of 4th (hard, Visudhimagga-type) jhana as truly capable, or not, of obliterating the vedana ("bare" feeling-tone pleasure/pain) qualities of experience. I've had a couple of relatively brief periods I consider 4th-jhana – quite difficult to get to and sustain, but a strikingly different experience in terms of bodily awareness, namely the apparent lack thereof. (My limited experience does, however, give me a more vivid sense of the Canonical notion that the 4th jhana is a "gateway to liberation.") People like Shaila Catherine, who has trained extensively in the hard jhanas (with PaAuk Sayadaw), and I suspect yourself having decades of experience, would have a better sense of it.

3) Could "magick" be involved? Could someone like Thich Quang Duc be using some sort of "super-human" or esoteric yogic powers to pull-off what he did (rather than an advanced path attainment or super-hard jhana)?