Free Republic

WASHINGTON – U.S. Sen. John Kerry must have been channeling his inner Letterman yesterday. The Bay State senator was telling a group of business and civic leaders in town at his invitation about the “bizarre’’ tale of how South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford had “disappeared for four days’’ and claimed to be hiking along the Appalachian Trail, but no one was really certain of his whereabouts.

... "I felt overall pain to the point that even when my children or husband just touched me it hurt."... ..."I am really, really good," Campbell said. "Having said that, I'm still not 100 percent. I'm still not that person I was before." Campbell was one of 10 women with fibromyalgia to take part in a small pilot study at Stanford over a 14-week period to test the new use of a low dose of a drug called naltrexone for the treatment of chronic pain. ..."Even after the study, it just got better and better and better," Campbell said. "I...

Ever wish you got something really painful on camera, right at the moment of impact? Well these people managed. These have all got to hurt. More pics on site

You know that moment where time seems to slow down, as your body fills with adrenaline, anticipating the imminent pain? Well, I can guarantee these people were experiencing just that, and perhaps some are well passed that:

Prayer request for Brett,older brother to one of my son's baseball team mates. _________________________________________________________ First of all: THANK YOU! We appreciate your calls, texts, food, etc. thru the last few days. We have not been able to get back to everyone and thought we would try this to get many of you. I am home for a few hours and decided to try this option to reach most of you. I’m sure I have missed some, but it wasn’t intentional! Please feel free to forward on to anyone else you know has been interested. Update as of Tuesday Evening: Given...

I served as Deacon at the solemn “Celebration of the Lords Passion”. This frail couple approached. The wife could barely walk without her husband’s loving firm support. As they drew closer, I could see that the husband’s face was filled with deep wrinkles, the kind of love lines etched in the face from suffering borne with grace. His head was covered with unkempt white hair and framed with a coarse white beard. His eyes were filled with pure love for his beloved wife whom he assisted so tenderly as she came forward to venerate the Holy Cross.Her eyes were distant...

Enlarge ImageBrother morphine. Research with rats may explain why opioid painkillers work better for males.Credit: Scott Camazine/Photo Researchers Inc. Men get more relief than women do from painkillers like morphine, according to some studies. New research with rats hints at a possible explanation: Male rats have more receptors for the drug in a brain region involved in pain processing. Although it's not yet clear whether the same is true in humans, researchers say the study underscores the need for more research on the sex-specific effects of pain drugs. The new study used rats in part because they exhibit a...

The California Air Resources Board approval last week of top-down micromanagement of industries and commerce, ostensibly to rid California of global warming, is a broad intrusion into the private sector that not only will be costly, but ultimately a solution for a problem whose dimensions have been defined more by politics than science and probably doesn't even exist. The ARB's "scoping plan" details the regulations and costs to be imposed on nearly every facet of California economic life to implement 2006's presumptuously named "Global Warming Solutions Act." It's the last thing a struggling economy needs, and the last thing a...

Cheryl Weinstein’s left knee bothered her for years, but when it started clicking and hurting when she straightened it, she told her internist that something was definitely wrong. But in many cases it is just not known whether what is seen on a scan is the cause of the pain. The problem is that all too often, no one knows what is normal... --snip-- As a rheumatologist, Dr. Felson saw patient after patient with knee pain, many of whom had already had scans. And he was becoming concerned about their findings. Often, a scan would show that a person with...

Kim Adair fights a daily battle with arthritis. "With 10 being the worst, I would say it's about a 7 or 8,” she said. But she recently found relief in a study at Baylor University using cherries. "They have a lot of the same properties that common anti-inflammatory medicines like ibuprofen or naproxen will have," said Dr. John Cush, Rheumatologist. Kim took cherry extract gel caps. "I think about maybe three months, I didn't notice any pain at all," she said. "Overall, about five out of six patients did very well in the study," said Dr. Cush. Another plus, cherries...

“You just sit and you worry,” said Pat Weber, a construction administrator in Fennville who was laid off more than a year ago. “In the last year, I’ve put in for more than 100 jobs. I stopped counting after 110. It’s just so defeating.” All around Fennville and its neighbors here in southwest Michigan, front lawns are peppered with for-sale signs and merchants complain about slow days. But while this remains a beautiful place with none of the obvious blight of Detroit on the other side of the state, residents say the hardship beneath the surface is very real. It...

Enlarge ImageAltered perceptions? Minimally conscious patients may have a greater capacity to feel pain than do those in a vegetative state (such as Terri Schiavo, above).Credit: Reuters Most of the time, doctors have a simple way to determine if a patient needs pain medication: They ask. But when a brain injury renders someone unable to respond to questions, the right course of action becomes murkier. Now a study finds that the brains of some patients with brain injuries respond to an unpleasant electrical shock much as do the brains of healthy people, suggesting that these patients may feel pain...

Why pain is good – in both medicine and finance By John Kay Published: September 30 2008 18:57 | Last updated: September 30 2008 18:57 Pain has been described as the gift no one wants. There cannot be a single reader who has not, at some time, wished not to experience pain. But we are better off with the capacity to suffer pain than without it. A few people are born with a genetic deficiency that leaves them completely free of pain. They rarely survive to adult life. Leprosy has for thousands of years been the most dreaded disease. Only...

A new type of drug could alleviate pain in a similar way to cannabis without affecting the brain, according to a new study published in the journal Pain on Monday 15 September. The research demonstrates for the first time that cannabinoid receptors called CB2, which can be activated by cannabis use, are present in human sensory nerves in the peripheral nervous system, but are not present in a normal human brain. Drugs which activate the CB2 receptors are able to block pain by stopping pain signals being transmitted in human sensory nerves, according to the study, led by researchers from...

Low levels of the sunshine vitamin, vitamin D, may contribute to chronic pain among women, scientists believe. The link does not apply to men, suggesting hormones may be involved, according to a study published in the Annals of Rheumatic Diseases said. The team from the Institute of Child Health in London said studies were now needed to see if vitamin D supplements can guard against chronic pain. About one in 10 people are affected by chronic pain at any one time in the UK. The causes are not well understood and much of the focus to date has been on...

Dallas, TX (AHN) - A University of Texas Southwestern Medical School study linked the rise in kidney stone ailments to global warming.The connection of kidney stone with warm weather has been established based on statistics that southeastern states have 50 percent higher incident than northeastern states. Kidney stones, although on the rise nationwide since 1976, were observed to have higher rates of occurrence during summer. With global warming even the northeastern region will likely experience higher incidents with an estimated 1.6 million new cases by 2050.The rise in kidney stone incidents by 25 percent in 2050 will be accompanied by...

Fibromyalgia Affects Women More Often Than Men ScienceDaily (Apr. 26, 2008) — Are you exhausted? Do you have pain all over but can’t figure out what’s wrong? If so, you may be suffering from fibromyalgia, a chronic condition that causes exhaustion, sleep disturbances and diffuse pain in your muscles, tendons, and ligaments. Fibromyalgia patients experience a range of symptoms of varying intensities that increase and decrease over time and often resemble other conditions. For years, because of their complex nature and a lack of research on the condition, many doctors misdiagnosed fibromyalgia symptoms or dismissed them as being in the...

Biological Link Between Pain And Fatigue DiscoveredImage of nerve endings in mouse muscle shows that ASIC3 (red) is present in pain receptors (orange). (Credit: Masahiko Ikeuchi M.D., Ph.D., UI visiting scientist from University of Kochi in Kochi, Japan) ScienceDaily (Apr. 8, 2008) — A recent University of Iowa study reveals a biological link between pain and fatigue and may help explain why more women than men are diagnosed with chronic pain and fatigue conditions like fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome. Working with mice, the researchers, led by Kathleen Sluka, Ph.D., professor in the Graduate Program in Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation...

In the slide show I narrated about the late William F. Buckley, Jr., I didn’t have room to get into a couple of issues we’ve been debating here at the Lab: the Drug Enforcement Administration’s campaigns against medical marijuana and against doctors who treat chronic-pain patients. Mr. Buckley was worried about the D.E.A. well before the OxyContin scare inspired the agency’s Operation Cotton Candy and led to doctors like William Hurwitz and Bernard Rottschaefer being sent to prison. In 1995, after criticizing presidents and members of Congress for pursuing a war on drugs he considered futile, Mr. Buckley wrote: But...

<p>My Daughter has come down with stomach ulcers, H. Pylori, my son has also come down with problem, a mite earlier.</p> <p>This has been the bane Of The Little Bill Clan for at least the past 150 years, killed my Old Man.</p>