Originally Posted by
GhostRider62
...After my bike accident last year, I still had some pretty good pain in the shoulder about 3 weeks post surgery although the compound clavicle was already healed. I thought my shoulder needed some work or adjustment from my longtime chiropractor who is also a cyclist and has worked at the Olympics. Guy knows his stuff. So, I go to him telling him the pain and can he do anything. He says, "You have the highest pain threshold of any patient I have ever worked on". "If you are telling me you are in pain, you have a real problem. Go back to the Surgeon." Turns out my scapula was also broken and they missed it in the trauma center (also missed a fractured trochanter).
What is different about cervical pain, it never goes away. Broken bones heal and they don't hurt too much. The chronic pain in the neck just chips away. It sucks...
Yup, I got the impression from the ambulance crew and ER staff, and chiropractic clinic, that my pain threshold is higher than usual. The chiropractic clinic had an industrial strength sort of TENS machine, maybe an EMS or NEMS? Anyway, they'd turn it to 2 and ask if I was okay. I'd say "I don't feel anything. Turn it up." Usually I'd settle for 7 or 8 on the dial. They said most patients complained if it was set higher than 4 or so.
Might be a difference in skin and nerve response as well. I found a really good little inexpensive TENS device on Amazon a couple of years ago, much better than the earlier home TENS doodads I used to have. This thing really has some kick. The only time it bothers me is when the electrode pad isn't making full contact and I get some stinging sensation on the skin, which is more annoying than painful. But if I make sure to clean the pad so it makes full contact and find the sweet spot on the skin, it just contracts the muscles and feels great. I usually set it for around 6-8 and let the muscles dance. It's still less painful than those occasional midnight Charlie horses many of us get while sleeping after a good hard bike ride, run or workout. I've literally fallen out of bed rolling on the floor from those wee-hour muscle spasms, while my cats are looking at me like I'm crazy. But it's over with after a few seconds.
I haven't found a good chiropractor since my first serious injuries about 20 years ago. Back then my lawyer sent me to one of those accident and injury pain clinics, all paid by the eventual insurance settlement. Since then not many lawyers have those kinds of sweetheart deals with doctors and chiropractors because some judges and courts consider it unethical. But TBH, I had no complaints. I got great treatment from that clinic and the settlement took less than a year.
After my 2018 injury, I tried an attorney who was himself a cyclist and serious runner, recommended by fellow cyclists. But I can't say the experience was any better, or even as good as my first incident. It took more than three years to settle, and during the mediation phase there was an implication that there was something unethical about the attorney's office sending me to a specific ortho doc for evaluation and proposed surgery for the busted up shoulder. The ortho doc and clinic were great, but they couldn't do the surgery because it turned out I also had thyroid cancer with the goiter distorting and compressing my trachea so badly I couldn't be intubated. So I never got shoulder surgery. Anyway, I thought the ortho doc and clinic were fine, but the court mediator and opposing attorney seemed to imply there was something unethical about the whole thing. The settlement didn't even cover half of my actual medical expenses, despite the fact that a cop witnessed the collision. The cop wrote it up as "equal fault" because I failed to dodge the car that ran the light and hit me. But that's Texas. Drivers reign supreme and pedestrians and cyclists are dismissed as mere road bumps.
Fortunately the VA got me into their health care system immediately and took care of most of my health issues from 2018-2019, including full body scans to evaluate my neck and spine issues. Unfortunately the VA health care system failed badly during the pandemic as they were overwhelmed by elderly veterans, so the planned treatment for my cervical spine was postponed indefinitely. But I turned 65 in November and switched to Medicare. Between the two options I'm better off than many Americans, so I don't really have any serious complaints.
Yeah, the pain management farce is a pain in the neck. But that's an issue caused by government and media hysteria over the "opioid crisis" that has very little to do with legitimate medical care for chronic pain patients. They've conflated recreational drug users and addicts with legit chronic pain cases to inflate the statistics. So doctors, clinics and hospitals are terrified of being gigged by the government and being accused of being "pill mills." And now instead of being sympathetic and responsive, doctors and nurses tend to regard all of us as potential junkies by default, even when we specify that we don't want prescription pain meds, but some alternative treatment.
And I see in recent medical journals some new studies that indicate corticosteroid injections may actually worsen joints and osteoarthritis over the long haul. So now I'm expecting ortho docs and rheumatologists to tell us they can no longer use local injections of anti-inflammatories because of a preliminary study that hasn't even been finalized.