Painopolis

Can’t sleep because of chronic pain? (And wondering if weed might help?) Get our new book, Cannabis Lullaby: A Painsomniac’s Quest for a Good Night’s Sleep. Available in print, ebook, and audiobook, it’s brimming with real-world, evidence-based answers. The author is Painopolis co-host David Sharp, an award-winning health journalist who nipped his pain-fueled insomnia in the bud. Buy a copy today at: painopolis.com/cannabis-lullaby/

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While bedridden with Lyme, Kelly Weintraub set the goal of hiking the 2,650-mile Pacific Crest Trail. Could this wildlife biologist claw back her health?

Previously on Painopolis, wildlife biologist Kelly Weintraub talked about the years of symptoms that mysteriously would come and go. Fatigue. Muscle cramps. Migrating pain. Brain fog. Finally, a chance encounter with a colleague whose wife had long confronted the same symptoms led Weintraub to figure out what she was battling: Lyme disease. Lyme is a bacterial infection primarily spread by ticks. But ticks can transmit lots of other diseases, too, which can trigger disabling consequences. As Weintraub, unfortunately, found out.

“Six months after finishing her antibiotics treatment, Weintraub hit the Pacific Crest Trail. Would the little bloodsuckers she’d encounter in the wilderness zap her with even more tick-borne infections?”

Ten months into a controversial antibiotics regimen, she found out she had two more nasty tick-borne infections—anaplasmosis and bartonellosis. That’s why she was still sick, despite taking antibiotics for so long. Some experts say as many as 50 percent of Lyme sufferers like Weintraub—the ones who weren’t treated within 30 days after being infected—stay sick long-term.

But Weintraub beat those odds. In a big way.

While bedridden, she set the pie-in-the-sky goal to hike the Pacific Crest Trail from Mexico to Canada. Six months after finishing her antibiotics treatment, Weintraub hit the trail. Would she be able to walk 2,650 miles with a heavy pack on her back? Would the little bloodsuckers she’d encounter in the wilderness zap her with even more tick-borne infections? In this episode, Weintraub gives us a detailed map of how she went from the sick bay to the summit of her life.

Today, in part two of the story, Weintraub talks about:

• Her strategy for never missing a dose of her meds when her daily pills filled six pillboxes

• The mental shifts she made to deal with the roller-coaster nature of Lyme disease

• Why she believes that setting big goals for herself when she was super-sick was a key part of her recovery. (While bedridden, she decided to hike the Pacific Crest Trail!)

Can’t sleep because of chronic pain? (And wondering if weed might help?) Get our new book, Cannabis Lullaby: A Painsomniac’s Quest for a Good Night’s Sleep. Available in print, ebook, and audiobook, it’s brimming with real-world, evidence-based answers. The author is Painopolis co-host David Sharp, an award-winning health journalist who nipped his pain-fueled insomnia in the bud. Buy a copy today at: painopolis.com/cannabis-lullaby/

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_____________________

The most dangerous creature Kelly Weintraub ever came across was as small as a poppy seed. But its bite infected her with a ticking time bomb of chronic ailments.

Nine years ago, avid outdoorswoman Kelly Weintraub found herself in a scary and unfamiliar place: a wheelchair. A wildlife biologist, Weintraub thought she was having a stroke. So she went to the ER, where the doctors told her she was fine. But Weintraub knew she wasn’t. Something was making her sick.

“A chance encounter with a colleague whose wife had long confronted the same symptoms led Weintraub to figure out what she was battling: Lyme disease. But that wasn’t the half of it.”

This was just the latest calamity in a series of health ordeals that had forced Weintraub to go on medical leave. She’d suffered for years from symptoms that mysteriously would come and go. Fatigue. Muscle cramps. Migrating pain. Brain fog. A month after the ER visit, a chance encounter with a colleague whose wife had long confronted the same symptoms led Weintraub to figure out what she was battling: Lyme disease. But that wasn’t the half of it.

Known as The Great Imitator, Lyme disease mimics other conditions such as multiple sclerosis and fibromyalgia. Lyme is a bacterial infection primarily spread by ticks. But ticks can transmit lots of other diseases, too. There’s Rocky Mountain spotted fever. The Heartland virus. Tick-borne relapsing fever. These, and many others, can trigger disabling consequences. What’s more, new tick-borne diseases are being discovered all the time.

If you think you’re out of the woods because you live far from Tick Central—the Northeast states of the U.S.—circle back to the names of the tick-borne diseases I just listed. Yep, the West and Midwest are flush with ticks, too. In fact, in some places, your risk of getting some of these other tick-borne diseases is greater than getting Lyme disease, which is found throughout the U.S. and in more than 60 other countries. (Indeed, Weintraub lives on the West Coast.) Living in a leafy suburb—or hiking in the woods—can potentially jeapordize your health these days.

Even if a tick makes you sick, good luck trying to get an accurate diagnosis. Why? For starters, tick saliva has an anesthetizing substance in it. Less than half of people bitten by a tick recall the event.

Can’t sleep because of chronic pain? (And wondering if weed might help?) Get our new book, Cannabis Lullaby: A Painsomniac’s Quest for a Good Night’s Sleep. Available in print, ebook, and audiobook, it’s brimming with real-world, evidence-based answers. The author is Painopolis co-host David Sharp, an award-winning health journalist who nipped his pain-fueled insomnia in the bud. Buy a copy today at: painopolis.com/cannabis-lullaby/

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Did you find this episode worth hearing? If so, kindly donate to Painopolis.

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_____________________

After a horrific fall from a roof, Bob Jester needed opioids to get through the day. Then he found something better than pills: the pain-fighting power of VR.

In the time it takes to tumble off a roof, Bob Jester’s life took a calamitous turn. A professional chimney sweep, Jester had spent decades working at a job that involved climbing onto high, steep rooftops. Given the obvious danger, he’d always been a stickler about safety. Then one August day in 2016, he made a slight blunder, and that’s all it took. An instant later, he fell 18 feet and broke 19 bones. Surgeons used metal rods and bolts to cobble together his fractured vertebrae. But despite the repairs, he was left with partial disability and intense chronic pain that he treated with opioids.

“Laid out before him was a dreamscape of images far more dazzling than anything on TV. In fact, virtual reality is to television what television is to daguerreotypes.”

Fortunately, this chimney sweep had also worked for 39 years as a high school science teacher. So when he looked for ways to reduce his suffering, guess which method he used? The scientific method. It became Jester’s road map, and his body became his laboratory. Harnessing the same spirit of experimentation that he’d taught to his students, he hit upon a revelatory finding little known beyond the pages of obscure medical journals.

His eureka moment happened while he was wearing a virtual-reality headset, which looks like futuristic ski goggles. But it’s what Jester saw inside those goggles that made all the difference. Laid out before him was a dreamscape of images far more dazzling than anything on TV. In fact, virtual reality is to television what television is to daguerreotypes. No matter how skillful the camerawork, even the best TV documentary about dolphins still boils down to two-dimensional, miniaturized animals moving across on a flat screen. You’d never mistake it for the real thing.

Watch a similar scene through VR googles, by contrast, and you’ll suddenly be surrounded by three-dimensional, life-size dolphins swirling around you, above you, and below you. It’s as if you’re actually there with Flipper and his friends in the ocean. Virtual dolphins look so palpably real that you’ll want to reach out and hand them a virtual fish.

For Jester, the effect of VR wasn’t just entertaining. It was transfixing. Whenever he had a flare-up, he’d pop on his VR headset and suddenly find himself swimming with dolphins. Or flying with the Wright Brothers. Or petting a virtual farm animal. Or wandering the ruins of Machu Picchu. The VR imagery transported him to a world so engrossing that his pain faded ...

Can’t sleep because of chronic pain? (And wondering if weed might help?) Get our new book, Cannabis Lullaby: A Painsomniac’s Quest for a Good Night’s Sleep. Available in print, ebook, and audiobook, it’s brimming with real-world, evidence-based answers. The author is Painopolis co-host David Sharp, an award-winning health journalist who nipped his pain-fueled insomnia in the bud. Buy a copy today at: painopolis.com/cannabis-lullaby/

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Please support Painopolis:

Did you find this episode worth hearing? If so, kindly donate to Painopolis.

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_____________________

Can a do-it-yourself treatment involving capsaicin—a chemical in hot peppers—stop severe facial pain? A Nashville-based singer-songwriter decided to find out.

Previously on Painopolis, we brought you the jaw-dropping story of an Australian scientist named Hugh Spencer. He’s come up with daring, do-it-yourself method for treating one of the worst types of pain imaginable: that of trigeminal neuralgia.

“After the ailment took hold, Ruggieri found himself buffeted by more than 200 excruciating jolts of pain in his face every day. It got to where he could barely talk, much less sing.”

Through trial and error, Spencer figured out a way to cure himself of this difficult-to-treat disorder, caused by a facial nerve gone rogue. His secret weapon: capsaicin, the chemical in hot peppers that produces the spicy, burning sensation when you eat them. A neurobiologist by training, Spencer argues that capsaicin can deaden the pain receptors that provoke trigeminal neuralgia while leaving other nerve fibers and healthy tissues intact. Consequently, he insists, capsaicin can relieve the suffering without causing facial numbness or other complications sometimes associated with conventional treatments.

It’s been known for decades that capsaicin applied topically to the skin can help relieve certain types of chronic pain. But Spencer added a daunting new twist: instead of smearing the oily substance on his face, he put it directly inside his mouth on the location of the pain and held it there for 20 minutes before rinsing it out. He then repeated this protocol once a day for a week. After that, his pain was gone. That was more than a dozen years ago, and it’s never come back. Not even a twinge.

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As word spread, trigeminal pain sufferers worldwide contacted Spencer to find out more about his treatment. And of the hundreds of people who’ve tried it and reported back, he says, about half of them found relief.

That got my attention. But I wanted to get an independent assessment about this approach from a trigeminal patient who’s used Spencer’s method and could tell me whether it helped.

To do that, I’d need to find somebody who’s either brave or desperate. That’s because the capsaicin recommended by Spencer is 300 times hotter than Sriracha sauce. In fact, it approaches the intensity of law-enforcement-grade pepper spray....

Can’t sleep because of chronic pain? (And wondering if weed might help?) Get our new book, Cannabis Lullaby: A Painsomniac’s Quest for a Good Night’s Sleep. Available in print, ebook, and audiobook, it’s brimming with real-world, evidence-based answers. The author is Painopolis co-host David Sharp, an award-winning health journalist who nipped his pain-fueled insomnia in the bud. Buy a copy today at: painopolis.com/cannabis-lullaby/

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Check out the following sponsored services we use and love.

Please support Painopolis:

Did you find this episode worth hearing? If so, kindly donate to Painopolis.

We appreciate it! Your donation allows us to keep bringing you great stories, strategies, and insights.

_____________________

Tormented by severe facial pain, Hugh Spencer invented a nonsurgical way to relieve his trigeminal neuralgia. He found the remedy—capsaicin—inside a canister of pepper spray.

Nineteen years ago, in a distant corner of northeast Australia, a scientist named Hugh Spencer started suffering horrible attacks of pain on the left side of his head. It felt as if someone were striking him with an axe. A neurobiologist by training, Spencer—in his 50s at the time—feared that he was experiencing the first foreboding glimmers of an agonizing ailment called trigeminal neuralgia.

“Spencer’s treatment involves a chemical so ubiquitous that you probably ate it the last time you dined at a Mexican, Thai, or Indian restaurant.”

It’s a neurological disorder that happens when the trigeminal nerve—a major cranial nerve that affects facial sensations and chewing—goes haywire, often for unknown reasons. It then floods the spinal cord and brain with ferocious pain signals. Typically described as electrical or stabbing, the facial pain can be so unbearable that trigeminal neuralgia has been dubbed “the suicide disease.” And indeed, Spencer—unable to control his escalating pain with medications alone—eventually found himself nearly pushed to the brink.

If his medical ordeal weren’t challenging enough, he also had to deal with one other obstacle: geographic remoteness rivaling that of Gilligan’s Island. Spencer runs an environmental research station at Cape Tribulation. There, scientists from around the world study everything from flying foxes to invasive weed species. Located along a coastline teeming with crocodiles, pythons, and ostrichlike cassowaries, his research station is actually closer to Papua New Guinea than to any major city in Australia. In fact, his nearest neighbor is the oldest tropical rainforest on earth.

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After recovering from eight gunshot wounds, Jeff Droke confronts two major dilemmas: chronic pain and a faulty justice system.

Previously on Painopolis, gunshot survivor Jeff Droke described the day in 2003 when a gunman ambushed him at home. Droke was shot eight times in the head, neck and chest. Despite life-threatening injuries, the 44-year-old accountant and professional wrestler tussled with his attacker. Droke ended up throttling the guy so badly that the gunman was forced to flee.

“Just three weeks after the shooting, he was back at the gym working out. But his severe pain didn’t go away; it only went dormant.”

But Droke wasn’t out of danger. While waiting for an ambulance, he nearly bled to death on his neighbor’s lawn. He also had an unforgettable near-death experience. And at the hospital, doctors were amazed that the bullets hadn’t killed him outright.

In the weeks that followed, doctors would be surprised again by Droke’s speedy recovery. Just three weeks after the shooting, he was back at the gym working out. But as he would eventually discover, his gunshot-related pain didn’t go away; it only went dormant. Meanwhile, the police arrested two men and charged them with attempted first-degree murder for the attack on Droke.

Today, Droke talks about:

•  The strange and unexpected way that severe pain came roaring back 11 years after the shooting

•  How he ultimately brought that pain under control

•  What other gunshot-related medical complications cropped up

•  What happened to the culprits involved in the attack

•  How the local justice system bungled any chance he had of getting the justice he’d hoped for

•  Why a gunshot-survivors support group is probably the safest place in town—unless you’re a bad guy

Interviewee:

Jeff Droke is an accountant, gunshot survivor, and gunshot-survivor advocate.

Resources:

•  Droke created shotmemphis.org to serve as an internet resource for Memphis-area survivors of gun violence.

•  Droke’s website was inspired by shotproject.org, another website that addresses the tragedy of gun violence (caution: it contains graphic images of gunshot injuries).

Straight from the lab:

Medical experts have published more than 10,000 articles on the treatment of gunshot wounds. In a sign of just how common gun violence has become, name any body part that’s ever been hit by a bullet, and you’re likely to find published papers exploring the best treatment options for it.

Explore the show notes for this episode at: https://painopolis.com/gunshot-survivor-chronic-pain-part-2/

Music:

Our theme music is “Gentle Storm,” composed and performed by Betsy Tinney (betsytinney.com).

Bonus:

Can’t sleep because of chronic pain? (And wondering if weed might help?) Get our new book, Cannabis Lullaby: A Painsomniac’s Quest for a Good Night’s Sleep. Available in print, ebook, and audiobook, it’s brimming with real-world, evidence-based answers. The author is Painopolis co-host David Sharp, an award-winning health journalist who nipped his pain-fueled insomnia in the bud. Buy a copy today at: painopolis.

An ambush in suburbia. Eight shots. And a survivor who refused to be a victim.

On a bitter January morning in 2003, a 19-year-old man named Billy Glenn Jackson drove a stolen rental car along a quiet residential street near Memphis, Tennessee. It was the sort of suburban neighborhood that normally seemed shielded from the crackle of gunfire plaguing other parts of the Memphis area. But Jackson had brought along a target pistol. And on this day, gun violence would be making a house call.

“For most Americans, gun violence amounts to little more than a quick item on the local news. But the victims of that violence don’t have the option of changing the channel.”

Jackson parked at the home of his intended victim: a 44-year-old accountant named Jeff Droke. Raised in Memphis, Droke moonlighted as a professional wrestler. Even in his middle years, Droke—known to local wrestling fans as “The Hammer”—still had the muscle-popping, superhero build of an athlete 20 years younger.

Jackson got out of his car, walked up to Droke’s house, and banged on the front door. Then he banged even louder. Glancing out a window, Droke saw a stranger oddly decked out in a white bubble coat and white pants. Droke felt something wasn’t quite right and slipped out the back door to investigate.

Moments later, he encountered the young man who’d come there to kill him. And on that January morning, Jackson was one trigger squeeze away from completing that task. He pointed a pistol at Droke and shot him eight times in the worst possible places: his head, neck, and chest.

What happened next was a tussle so bloody and surreal that it could have been the opening scene of a Quentin Tarantino movie. You’ll hear all about it in a bit, and I hope you’re sitting down when you do. It’s that intense.

For now, let’s just say that the outcome didn’t go quite the way Jackson had intended. The confrontation ended with the panicked gunman—his white coat stained with Droke’s blood—scrambling into the stolen car and speeding away.

He didn’t stay on the run for long, though. The police soon arrested Jackson and another man named Jason Jerden for the shooting. Droke had never heard of Billy Jackson before, but he was all too familiar with the name Jerden.

Years earlier, Droke had testified against Jerden’s then-wife—a former employee of Droke’s—in a child-custody case. After that, Droke found himself on the receiving end of some serious animosity that would eventually turn lethal. Following his arrest, Jackson told police that Jason Jerden had hired him to kill Droke in retribution for Droke’s testimony in that child-custody case. No charges were ever filed against Jerden’s wife in this matter.

Unfortunately, the danger didn’t end for Droke after his assailant fled the scene. Bleeding massively, Droke managed—just barely—to stay alive long enough to get to an emergency room. He survived that ordeal, too. But he wouldn’t escape chronic pain and other gunshot-related ailments in the years to come. In that regard, he’s got a lot of company.

Each year, nearly 90,000 Americans become the victims of gun crime. Thanks to advances in emergency medicine, more than four out of five of them pull through. That’s the good news, sort of. The bad news is, the advances in emergency medicine haven’t been matched by similar improvements in the treatment of chronic pain.

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As a result, more people than ever are now surviving gunshot wounds.

Can’t sleep because of chronic pain? (And wondering if weed might help?) Get our new book, Cannabis Lullaby: A Painsomniac’s Quest for a Good Night’s Sleep. Available in print, ebook, and audiobook, it’s brimming with real-world, evidence-based answers. The author is Painopolis co-host David Sharp, an award-winning health journalist who nipped his pain-fueled insomnia in the bud. Buy a copy today at: painopolis.com/cannabis-lullaby/

Check out the following sponsored services we use and love.

Please support Painopolis:

Did you find this episode worth hearing? If so, kindly:

We appreciate it! Your donation allows us to keep bringing you great stories, strategies, and insights.

Stay tuned for a new season of Painopolis! It’s a podcast for people with chronic pain. And also for everybody else.

That’s because we bring you stories about ordinary people who’ve grappled with extraordinary pain. And now that they’re on the other side of it, they want to pass along their insights and strategies to you.

“We bring you stories about ordinary people who’ve grappled with extraordinary pain. And now that they’re on the other side of it, they want to pass along their insights and strategies to you.”

And boy, do they reveal all. How they moved from Healthy to Unwell—and back again. Their treatments. Their medical expenses. And exactly what kept them on their roads to recovery!

I mean, these life-and-death stories will have you riveted. For example:

• You’ll hear from a retired high school science teacher and longtime chimney sweep who had a life-altering brush with disaster, falling 18 feet and breaking 19 bones. You’ll see how his lifelong spirit of experimentation led to using virtual reality to ratchet down his flare-ups and get off opioids.

• We’ll tell you about a wildlife biologist whose ticking time bomb of chronic ailments was set off by a creature as small as a poppy seed. You’ll root for her as she moves from being bedridden with Lyme disease to hiking the Pacific Crest Trail!

• You’ll meet a muscle-popping Memphis accountant who wrestled professionally on weekends until a hit man ambushed him and shot him eight times in his head, neck and chest. You’ll find out how he got a grip on gunshot-related chronic pain that popped up 11 years after the shooting.

• And you’ll marvel at how a neurobiologist who lives in a remote part of Australia DIYed a cure for his unbearable facial pain caused by trigeminal neuralgia. Through trial and error, he figured out how to eliminate his torment—in just one week!

At painopolis.com, you’ll find these inspiring stories of resilience—and much, much more.

Brace yourself to be moved.

Painopolis. Relentlessly in search of what works, one defiant story at a time.

Explore the show notes for this episode at:

https://painopolis.com/painopolis-podcast-new-season-coming-soon/

Music:

Our theme music is “Gentle Storm,” composed and performed by Betsy Tinney (betsytinney.com).

Today, we’re breaking from our usual format to let you know that we’ve now wrapped up Season One of Painopolis. 

Starting this week, we’ll be taking a break from publishing new episodes so we can work on Season Two. If you liked what you’ve heard thus far, here’s the good news: we’ll be taking it up a notch in Season Two, with stories that will leave you amazed, informed, and transformed.

In the meantime, I invite you to head over to painopolis.com, and sign up for our free newsletter, so we can let you know by email when Season Two launches. While you’re there, use our Support the Show page to make a donation. We’ll use your funds to create more episodes. So if you like the show, support it. And be sure to download any episodes that you didn’t have a chance to catch the first time around.

Till next time, thank you for listening. Thank you for donating to the show. Many thanks to our guests for generously sharing their stories. And we wish you well.

Today, we’re breaking from our usual format to let you know that we’ve now wrapped up Season One of Painopolis. 

Starting this week, we’ll be taking a break from publishing new episodes so we can work on Season Two. If you liked what you’ve heard thus far, here’s the good news: we’ll be taking it up a notch in Season Two, with stories that will leave you amazed, informed, and transformed.

In the meantime, I invite you to head over to painopolis.com, and sign up for our free newsletter, so we can let you know by email when Season Two launches. While you’re there, use our Support the Show page to make a donation. We’ll use your funds to create more episodes. So if you like the show, support it. And be sure to download any episodes that you didn’t have a chance to catch the first time around.

Till next time, thank you for listening. Thank you for donating to the show. Many thanks to our guests for generously sharing their stories. And we wish you well.