I've also had the odd, clear moment of being in no pain at all. It has brought home to me that for most of the year I was carrying around low-level pain without even thinking about it

This, yeah. It's freaky how much chronic pain can become such a part?

Other people's medical dramas do become legitimate entertainment, being the only entertainment available.

Yes, although I found myself more comfortable with them as radio drama rather than reality TV.

And I'd made really good pizzas for the family, with the fresh mozzarella and flatbreads I got at different places out on Lincoln Road.

As a member of the Stones group, I can honestly say that was the most gruesome sentence in the post for me. You made pizza with?

You made pizza with what? Wait, I don't want to know.

Dude, I am quite capable of making pizza bases from scratch. But these breads were 40cm across and they came up beautifully on the pizza stones. So.

My husband got kidney stones while we were in Granada. I have no real Spanish, and he obviously couldn't leave the hotel room. I had to mime 'blood in the urine' to a non-English-speaking pharmacist. Luckily he understood, bless him.

The US medical system is great at putting?

I know that all-the-muscles-are-clenched back pain agony – I had undiagnosed gall stones for a year – used to kick in at 2am without warning every week or so – people who've had both tell me it's the same as "back labour".

Mine was more like 4am. Anybody who repeatedly?

At least, I think it was oxygen. I wouldn't have blamed them if they'd given me nitrous to shut me up.

I've just done a tour of the delivery suite at Wellington Regional. They have a blend of oxygen and nitrous on tap called Entonox – one of the women?

Hospitals are dodgy for most of us – not generally a sign of things being?

He was right in sending you to a doctor.

Track down a book called Trick or Treatment by Simon Singh and Edzard Ernst, or Suckers by Rose Shapiro. Very enlightening books about alternative treatments.

I am surprised to?

I'm perplexed.

I'm perplexed you're perplexed. My partner did the round of all the non-alternative sources of treatments for her OOS, finally the osteopath round the corner got her sorted in three visits and told her what exercises to do to keep it in check on her own. Changed her?

And Russell? Loved the piece. I know how hard?

I got up: "I think this is ambulance-grade," I said to Fiona. She was sceptical. ("I was thinking, y'know, man flu," she explained later, by way of apology.)

Priceless, the rest had me biting my lip in discomfort..

(And, shamefully in my head, this is like House, I thought.)

Been?

I am surprised to hear that you go to an osteopath. One of your links – onegoodmove.org – seems to tear that stuff apart all the time.

I'm perplexed.

Don't be. I'm aware of the theoretical elements of osteopathy that don't make sense, but as practical therapy, it's helped me?

I'm finally on allopurinol for uric acid

Are those little yellow pills of an extract from the crocus bulb? They can be rather lethal--quite literally give you the shits. But anything that makes you better...

Brought home the immediacy of Twitter and the faux closeness of being in touch like that.?

Yeah, I definitely suggest you don't read those particular pages of Pepys' blog though. Christ.

Word up. It was agony reading about the (17th century) op in Vol2 of the Neal Stephenson trilogy. I think I might've settled for death :)

Are those little yellow pills of an extract from the crocus bulb?

Nah, that's colchicine (sp?), which you can take for an acute gout attack.

My Dad tells me allopurinol is the shiz. When you're a wine-bibbing meat eater who grows every kind of purine-rich vegetable there is, the gout?

I am glad you back to a wine-drinking standard of health.

pain induced puking painful

At one point I was asked if I'd been nauseous, and I said no, I just threw up from the pain ...

Irrational male fear, no doubt, given all the crappy reasons you can be in hospital, but still there.

Good GPs are absolute gold.
I've had perfectly fine ones and condescending ones, but even if we end up moving I think I'll still be going to Malcolm (practice currently just down the street). Just so calm and sensible and practical.

Next time, call the ambulance early! You're not wasting their time.

And doesn't this incredible level?

Every time some wanker describes it as "third world" I want to shake them and take them to a real thrid world hospital.

Quite. The care I got was generally outstanding, and, as I indicated, it involved involved human qualities as well as technical skill on the part of those?

Quesiton: did knowing you could write about it afterwards help? Because it's a trick I discovered some years ago. It has since helped a lot in pain-related situations of one kind or another. (I'm not good with pain, and the one time I?

Quite. The care I got was generally outstanding, and, as I indicated, it involved involved human qualities as well as technical skill on the part of those giving it.

And think, you didn't have to spend every lucid moment in the A&E worrying about any possible undisclosed conditions.

We don't know?

my dad had the 'stones and I remember graphically how much pain he was in before they were removed

"Mick! Stop that!"

I think your reaction to the catheter – as in 'get the damn thing out' – is quite common for guys.

The most pain I experienced with the?

"Mick! Stop that!"

I think it was whatever Keith was smoking at the time that was the worst...

The transition from having a 'telescopic device' inserted into your penis to what OS software you had on your iPhone surely now stands as the most quintessentially Russell-Brown-esque prose of all time.

Heh.

A few years ago I spend hours in Auckland Hospital ED with a suspected blod clot that turned out to be just a sore leg. Because I was low on the triage, I spent most of the?

Stories abound of expectant fathers having a go on it while the expectant mothers aren't using it and the medical professionals are elsewhere.

Been there and done that. Huffed on the stuff all night. Conclusion: bloody useless.

Thanks for the great positive ending to your post, RB. I can't help?

Craig Y

And, well, I'm in my mid thirties, and starting to get those mild constant nagging pains and twinges here and there, now and then, and you've got me thinking. Time to see a GP, I think!

Wishing you a speedy and comfortable?

This has reminded me of an episode of That's Incredible where they showed how a team in China had developed an experimental technique which used small explosive charges to shatter kidney stones inside the body. The resulting fragments would then be passed out through the urethra.

I also remember seeing?

(Also: I'm glad you're feeling better, and I'm glad there was followup to the alarming twitters!)

I know you're trying to be down with the kids, Russell, but dude, writing about genital surgery is so 2005!

Superb. Love the birthday party, and this is genius:

and then they pushed an oxygen mask down on my face, and I started freaking out, because it was like they?

I managed to get two in the space of 3 months (which was not fun at all). However mine were quite small in comparrison to?

I still find it incredibly difficult to describe the pain which I was in to other guys, there just doesn't seem to be anything to compare it too.

I go with "somebody put my left testicle in a vice" because that's exactly what it felt like.

Although in my case, the genitals were a route rather than a destination.

My genitals are a root AND a destination...

and may i say i especially liked the reportorial snap
granted to the doc's "Mr. Brown!"

(could it be that he saw you as directly related to the likes of tee-shirt stars Mr Grumpy and Mr?

(could it be that he saw you as directly related to the likes of tee-shirt stars Mr Grumpy and Mr Happy et al?)

Given that I had been both in the previous 72 hours, it's possible.

Very glad you're on the mend, Russell.

I go with "somebody put my left testicle in a vice" because that's exactly what it felt like.

Erm... no, wait, I'm not going to ask.

My genitals are a root AND a destination...

LOLed. And then my brain yelled 'hey Jo, got root?'

Erm... no, wait, I'm not going to ask.

My safe word is actually a safe phrase: please get my left testicle out of that vice.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rWs_tncktU

The surgical team were all groovy and conversational.

Aren't they just. When I was having the op where my skull was being put back together, there was a delay because my anti coagulant was working too well and more blood tests were required so while waiting for results, out came?

I hope this doesn't come across as condescending and such, but are *all* New Zealand women alarmingly good writers?

Nope, only a very small minority – just like the men.

Best wishes for your ongoing recovery (and future wine choices).

"So for me the pain?

As for third world service, a mate was?

our hospital system is *bloody good* – despite the worst efforts of the politicians

No doubt partly down?

The pain when you have gall stones?

But – what the media say we trust through their slidey wee minimal opinion polls, and what we -as 4million+ citizens of ANZ – actually do trust...that cold uprushng wind? From the gap between the 2-

as 4million+ citizens of ANZ – actually do trust

Trust is a malleable quality just like morality such things are not set in stone. Just a reminder.
As for those other stones, I somehow managed to drive myself to an ER while in an agony similar to RB's. Not recommended.

Kidney Health New Zealand
PO BOX 139
Christchurch

E-mail:
Website: www.kidneys.co.nz

Phone: (03) 353 1242
Fax: (03) 374 2176
Freephone: 0800 KIDNEY (0800 543 639)

[[http://www.northernadvocate.co.nz/local/news/dhb-trials-device-for-kidney-stones/3793562/|'DHB?

It is interesting how the pain can make one both unreasonable and irrational. As I lay on the living room floor, curled up in the only position that would bring a slight relief to the pain,?

well. there it is, my new. erm, 'tribute-oriented' alias
a dissolution of 'kidney stones'
into the above rearrangement!

You never cease to surprise, I'll say that much.

One of the Media7 Clubbing Team will be attending in my place, with the partner in crime?

Last year, looking for something to do, I offered up a kidney for transplant.

There are various hobbies that require slightly less commitment y'know.

Agree with you completely on the splendour of health professionals.

On questions about pain, it isn't so much the "how bad on a scale of 1 – 10" that baffles me but rather the "what type of pain are you feeling?" I?

Astute question Terence W – and one which should be given *much* more consideration.

I also have arthritis – so, that's the kind of dull grating continuous ache. Except for the sudden vicious inflammatory flare up.

Every so often (result of old accidents)?

What staggers me is how lightly your correspondents have tiptoed over the fact that you were seeing a quack. I think a good Doc would have found it before the quack realised his?

**Side rant: some people – masseurs(of the benign healing kind), and more -er- different (rongoa-oriented) produce healing results.

I am totally irreligious:none of these?

I'm with TroyHoward on this one Russell. For a free thinker like you I am rather surprised.

What staggers me is how lightly your correspondents have tiptoed over the fact that you were seeing a quack

Gee Ross, do you think I haven't done the thinking on that? I've even?

Because the underlying mechanism of the distressing symptoms isn't properly understood, some Skeptics decided that it was therefore an hysterical affliction or a silly name for "cramp".

I had an email argument with Owen McShane, who was?

That's obviously the smart thing to do.

Nice.

Because the underlying mechanism of the distressing symptoms isn't properly understood, some Skeptics decided that it was therefore an hysterical affliction or a silly name for "cramp".

Even if it were cramp or, hell, even a hysterical thing, it shaved a year off her life and the quack cured it,?

a major Jacko moment

or two
PYT such a great beat
and digging out Thriller bought in a sale with bonus tracks of demo's & Quincy and others talking about the making of.

I used to work nights at a BNZ data processing centre and it was full of hysterical people, one of whom several years from the original injury could no longer lift her arms above the level of her shoulders.

This reminds me of a first year paper I did at?

I know from first hand experience some of what you have been going through and feel lucky to have been put on some preventative medicine early in the cycle.

Because the underlying mechanism of the distressing symptoms isn't properly understood, some Skeptics decided that it was therefore an hysterical affliction or a silly name for "cramp".

And I thought my inability to write with a pen for more than five minutes meant something was wrong.

The trouble with the Skeptics?

It is quite?

There really aren't all that many conventional options for resolving chronic back pain

As someone who has suffered (lying on the ground screaming and crying) acute?

"At this point, I regret to inform you that I was not my usual reasonable and polite self"

Damn straight. I've come out of surgery before and been in the worst possible mood from the moment my eyes opened. Apparently that kind of reaction is not uncommon, and the nurses?

It's certainly enough to allow me to think I'm not imagining a benefit.

Hell, an imagined benefit is better than no benefit. The placebo effect is a real phenomenon. If standard medical care can't find the source of chronic pain or treat it effectively, then it's legitimate to depart from?

The kicker is that it's nigh-on impossible to go back afterwards and apologise for your behaviour.

I don't think so. I popped in to floor 8 at Ak Hospital and from there visited all those who took care of me and thanked everyone I found. If you explain your purpose?

I made tamarillo chutney yesterday,

I made a second batch Saturday (promised Jackie Clark) but also added sultanas and will use similar recipe changing fruits according to season. I figured it should work for fruit or veg with less sugar.
Glad it was acceptable to your palette.

mean chutney.

I'll take mean to mean good.
Forgot to mention, My friend (the laparoscopic Surgeon) said stones are nothing compared to child birth :) and this person is a man.

She's done both!

Ah, but with all due respect to his wife and four kids, he may feel like he's done both. :) Plus as I said earlier, only a Surgeon would find the stones cute and not the Rollings Stones, he's more of the Bowie, Pink Floyd type (hey,?

I'm all for Carl Sagan's Bullshit Detector to be turned on in as many people as possible.

Very good, let's start with you. The fact that you don't understand how something works, doesn't mean that it can't work or that it won't work.

A wise head on these boards recently?

Russell said: "It is quite widely accepted: ACC, private insurers etc — and four universities in Australia offer clinical courses."

And London(?) University has a degree in Astrology. NZ Universities sell MBAs. Hmmmm.

Clearly Ross, I am not going to lure you into any second thoughts as to your judgement?

You never responded to the example I gave you of my partner, anyhow.

He also skipped gaily past the part about how ACC and health insurance companies fund it ...

you just don't understand, giovanni. anyone who seeks and receives effective treatment from someone that mr. mason does not approve of is an idiot, a dupe, someone who deserves to lose their money, blah, blah, because they are unable to detect bullshit when they see it. anything not approved?

He also skipped gaily past the part about how ACC and health insurance companies fund it ...

Well, to be fair, he did offer a helpful jibe on the Astrology degree thing. Which – since I'll grab *any* excuse I can find to do this – gives me the opportunity?

Gio n=1. Your wife got better and you and she attribute that to some exercises, you may be right but that does not constitute proof. Not that either of you care the only important thing is she is?

Both of you argue that Osteopaths should be recognised and my issue is that if they should be recognised then they should be recognised as specialists and only see patients that are referred by someone who has done a thorough diagnosis.

But are you going to apply the same requirements?

the Te Papa website is pretty short on detail.
which sessions does Rangimoana Taylor do?
is it all the "Matariki Star Lab sessions" on level 4?

In 2000, the BMA report on Acupuncture: efficacy, safety and practice [Reference 8] considered the?

the Te Papa website is pretty short on detail.
which sessions does Rangimoana Taylor do?
is it all the "Matariki Star Lab sessions" on level 4?

Yes, there's always a second host working with him and operating the little portable planetarim but I'd be surprised if he wasn't always involved?

Osteopathy seems to be in a similar place to acupuncture: the theoretical underpinnings are bonkers in scientific terms, but it appears to work, for some things.

Another thing I routinely reccommend is the film Dear Diary by Nanni Moretti. One of the episodes it's the story of his cancer, which?

that superimposing groovy maori motifs upon the nightsky
at your local kulchur emporium
will suddenly, painkillingly relieve us all
of the burden of thinking those centuries throughout which untold (sic!) christian thinkers sought to learn how to?

Psst: I do good deals in Magnetic Blankets too! The shysters who peddle those should be shot.

Ross, if it wasn't for magnets I'd be stuffed.

Do I care that I do not understand how they work, much like acupuncture and osteopathy seem to (but homeopathy doesn't for me)?

Do?

'continuum beween myth, astrology & astronomy"
now what is that really supposed to mean?

It means, in my imperfect understanding, that Maori astronomy, which factually described the night sky and drew from those observations important and sophisticated tools for orientation and the marking of time and the seasons, needed myth and?

Nicely plugged giovanni. I might just check it out.

Nah, you're in Wellington, sorry: get your arse to Te Papa. I'll block your IP if I have to!

presumably not a Maori

Gio, I think you've been falling down on the whole Discussing Where You're Originally From thing. ;)

In the United States [Wiki], all the osteopaths are doctors — about 10% of medical graduates graduate as a Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine, and their practice (almost invariably in primary care) can be hard to distinguish from a?

You can't tell from his name, that's fer sure.

Ah, but there are Maori Italians, and I mean in Italy. Not many, but not none either.

so what 'sophisticated tools for orientation'
do you, presumably not a Maori
draw from any of this now?

I draw the lesson that astrology?

scientists and tehcnologists too are storytellers

Good ones, yes.

Personally, if I went to an osteopath who started talking about "allopathic medicine" like he had some better mojo, I'd change my osteopath.

See, he's no fool.

I'd have thought it a given as it is an integral part of the continuum: down from the Greek Pleiades, to that "sophisticated tool for orientation" the Japanese Subaru
(even if?

Sorry Russell, I don't think I ever called anyone, most of all you,?

please dont get me wrong:science is the best tool we have so far invented (as a species, it's right up there with the word & the worked stone)

but – placebo effect & all that- or otherwise- some things really?

All I did was ask a couple of questions

please re-read your previous comments. your memory seems a bit faulty on what you wrote a few hours ago.
you said:

the fact that you were seeing a quack

glad you had established the facts!

you said:

I think a good?

But what about TroyHoward!!!!!!

Take him! he's all yours, if that's what you're after. Sorted yeah?

(What, too much?)

Geez, I'm impressed that this has hit such a nerve amongst folk. All I did was ask a couple of questions.....and relativley politely I thought.

No Ross, you were rude and patronising.

You also seem to ignore anything (including the research I noted) that doesn't suit your beliefs. It's like?

But is nice to see you are on the mend RB

You had us all worried mate,
Chris K, Jacko & RB
It was not looking a good week but two out of three is much better

Or perhaps like many others I trust that I'm smart enough to notice the effect over time, notice when it's not there – and ask other intelligent people about their experience to decide whether to go there.

I'm somewhat amused by the postings by some people on this thread, and?

And yet a similar experience with unexplainable medical treatments seems to get supported.

Oh, come on Kyle! An osteopath manipulates your body, does not pray on your behalf. Besides, there are a lot of drugs that work in mysterious ways, ask any oncologist. It doesn't stop us from taking them.?

In the US, where a lot of the more skeptical writing originates, osteopathy has made some whacky claims, particularly in its early days. Like chiropracters, their theory is that spinal misalignment is the cause of all sorts of ailments. So?

It seems to me quite plausible that a practiced masseur with good anatomical training and a nice manner can get real and repeatable results with back and joint pain no matter what theory is used to explain their techniques.

Quite. That's exactly my view of it. What annoys me is?

Finally, lots of things get better on their own, and the last treatment to be tried gets the credit.

That, absolutely. I've done several rounds with a lumbar disc injury, tried physio, found that the standard treatment either has no effect or makes it worse, and experimented with a few?

Trying to conflate it with faith healing is just building a straw man.

Oh I'm not conflating them at all. Just contrasting the reactions to the two, which are completely opposite, when people seem to be indicating that the evidence (or lack of) for both is not poles apart.

Oh I'm not conflating them at all. Just contrasting the reactions to the two, which are completely opposite, when people seem to be indicating that the evidence (or lack of) for both is not poles apart.

Can you give me an analogy that would apply to religion. Somebody being cured?

Oh I'm not conflating them at all. Just contrasting the reactions to the two, which are completely opposite, when people seem to be indicating that the evidence (or lack of) for both is not poles apart.

Uh, I think you just conflated them ...

And, yet again, the [[http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=1208896|meta-analysis from PubMedCentral?

I'm a grad student in neuroscience at a major hospital. My adviser is a MD PhD neurologist. Every week, there's a morning case conference where all the neurology attendings and residents get together and present all the new cases?

That's a little hard to verify,

But so is your magnetic example, Giovanni, from the point of view of everyone who doesn't know you personally.

Personal anecdotes are a significant way we exchange information, but they are pretty useless in developing an accurate picture of risk. We count the hits?

But so is your magnetic example, Giovanni, from the point of view of everyone who doesn't know you personally.

I don't have any magnetic examples. I have a partner who went to a highly regarded local osteopath after trying several physiotherapists in vain and had a long-standing and debilitating problem?

Every single week with little or no exception, one of those cases is someone who died or became a paraplegic due to the actions of a chiropractor.

WOW, thats a lot of malpractice. I'm surprised that ACC contracts out to chiropractors, if what that blog says is true.

I did not comment on your research. I thought there may not be enough space for the replies to my comments as I suspect I might get blitzed. I have looked at?

Uh, I think you just conflated them ...

Not me sir, I've never made any commentary on osteopathy that I'm aware of. I was commenting on other people's comments :)

Can you give me an analogy that would apply to religion. Somebody being cured or something, or winning at Lotto?

I would say that in the first instance, if the person actually was improved, it wasn't because of some higher being, but some other factor, and in your wife's instance, it might have been partially related to the osteopath and whatever he/she did.

You're being obtuse. She went in to?

'extracorporeal shockwave lithotripsy' sounds rather like a prog track to me....

No more screaming babies.

Oh god. I'm going to have to tell the story I told in my speech to the Skeptics conference. Later ...

I apologise for being rude and patronising. Please be assured it was never the intention at all.

Apology accepted.

Finally, I was the shooting coach for the NZ Paralympic Shooting team in Athens.

Yikes. Ghastly story. I've never even thought of going to a chiropractor actually.

But I was osteopathically?

Which isn't poles apart from your story of your wife's experience where she had an issue, went to see an osteopath, and since then it's been fine.

But your underlying assumption is that she got some form of magical faith healing. Gio's wife was treated and given exercises to practice?

Apparently some UK Doctors would like the legal option to pray alongside patients as part of meeting the patient's needs.

Homeopathy began with a kookyish theory (like cures like) and while it hasn't exactly developed over a century of clinical experience (I think it's gotten kookier), there are many adherents and practitioners today and there are bound to be plentiful anecdotes of its?

She's less than thrilled at the prospect of the recovery taking months at least and perhaps a year or more. Does anyone have any useful advice to offer?

Sadly, everything I hear about frozen shoulder is that it's a waiting game.

But ... at the risk of being shouted at?

at the risk of being shouted at again

Heh. Thanks for that. Hell: at this point, what's to lose?

To suggest that it may only be tangentially or coincidentally related to her being in the same room as the osteopath at the time is downright ridiculous, and to imply that her benefits are due to some fideistic predisposition is a little insulting.

Perhaps I was unclear or you misunderstood.?

it's that the latter doesn't seem to have quite learned to look at the body as a complex system of interrelated parts, and insists on treating the local symptoms rather than the causes

Really? Every medical professional I saw recognised my leg pain and numbness in my feet as being?

Perhaps I was unclear or you misunderstood. I was saying that it probably was due, at least in part, to the osteopath (you said that it might also have been helped by something else that she'd already been doing all along).

She did quit the job that brought about the?

This link is from the UKPubMed that links to a Canadian article.

http://ukpmc.ac.uk/picrender.cgi?artid=1522754&blobtype=pdf

BSD rating? I would give it 7/10. Seems to be a "regarded collection of the conventional medical fraternity" and a good list of apparent (needs checking though) references

Whereas this a wiki?