Painopolis

Alexander Tressor was 47 and living in Manhattan when a neurologist gave him what he stoically calls “The Bad News.” A Russian-born ballet master, Tressor says hearing the word “Parkinson’s” was like getting hit by a lightning bolt. Then hearing “No cure” was like getting hit again. But Tressor is a resilient kind of guy. And an optimist. So he set about figuring out how he could sidestep the worst of what Parkinson’s could throw at him. And he wanted to do it without going on the usual cocktail of meds. He learned that exercise and diet were game-changers with this disease. Would it be possible for him to take the self-discipline and insights he gained from ballet and use them in his battle against Parkinson’s?

Now 58, Tressor remains largely asymptomatic! He credits his daily stretching with keeping his pain down to the level of ache and discomfort.

Today, we talk with Tressor about his decade-long medical challenge, how he figured out the exercise, diet and stress-reduction regimen that’s successfully kept most of the disease’s symptoms at bay, and how he’s learned to live with Parkinson’s without it dominating him.

Check out this episode’s show notes at https://painopolis.com/exercise-diet-parkinsons/ for links to Tressor’s films and a sample workout. We’ve also included links to compelling research about the benefits of exercise for people with Parkinson’s.

Review: Different pharmacies charge different prices for the same drugs. And the money you’re throwing away can be HUGE!

How much money could be slipping through your fingers? Well, the average American’s annual prescription drug tab is $1,370. If you have insurance, you may only end up paying about $185 of that. But what if your insurance company moves one of your meds on to a no-pay list? Or what if you don’t have health insurance and you don’t realize you’re overpaying hundreds of dollars a month for the meds you need to keep your chronic health condition under control? Or what if a drug maker astronomically spikes the price of a prescription medication you’ve been on for years? (Yeah, I’m talking about YOU, asthma inhaler manufacturer!)

GoodRx collects prices and discounts from more than 60,000 U.S. pharmacies and has millions of users each month. This website lets you type in the name of your medication, select your dosage and quantity of tablets, type in your zip code, click on a FIND THE LOWEST PRICE button, and compare three different prices for the drug—a cash price, a club price and a GoodRx coupon price—at different pharmacies near you.

Today, we let you know how well GoodRx works based on three criteria:

• Is it effective?

• Is it easy to use?

• Is it inexpensive?

After listening to this episode, be sure to check out our show notes at https://painopolis.com/painopolis-reviews-goodrx/. You’ll find a link to GoodRx, plus more information to help you find the best prescription drug prices around.

Review: It’s an all-too-common scenario: You’ve seen a slew of doctors who’ve prescribed countless treatments to erase your pain. Nevertheless, it persists. So what now?

If the available treatments haven’t worked, maybe some unavailable ones might. And by unavailable, I mean treatments so new that they’re still working their way through the gauntlet of scientific testing that determines whether they’re safe and effective. That evaluation process can take a decade or more to complete. In the meantime, the only way you can gain access to one of these experimental treatments is by participating in a clinical trial. Yeah, a human guinea pig.

But there’s a catch: Experimental treatments pose potential health risks (including, in rare cases, death) as well as potential benefits. And because experimental treatments are so new, nobody really knows what those possible risks and benefits might be. What’s more, most experimental treatments never make it out of the lab because they simply don’t work; or in some instances, they do more harm than good.

But on the flip side, some newly invented treatments prove to be major breakthroughs. So by participating in a clinical trial, you can get access to an experimental treatment long before you otherwise would. If the word “experimental” gives you the creeps, you’re right to be cautious. On the other hand, keep in mind that every medication you currently take was once an experimental medication. And likewise, many experimental treatments now undergoing scientific scrutiny will one day earn a place in your physician’s quiver of treatment options.

At this very moment, hundreds of thousands of clinical trials are taking place around the globe. Hence, you can bet that scientists somewhere in the world are recruiting volunteers right now in hopes of coming up with a new and improved treatment for your particular type of pain. But how do you locate a clinical trial near you that’s focusing on your specific health problem? How do you find the eligibility requirements for acceptance into a clinical trial? What questions should you ask when deciding whether to be a test subject? And how do you actually sign up for a clinical trial?

In this episode, we tell you about an online tool named ClinicalTrials.gov that promises to give you those answers. Moreover, we let you know how well ClinicalTrials.gov works based on three criteria:

•  Is it effective?

•  Is it easy to use?

•  Is it inexpensive?

We also dig into the potential benefits and drawbacks of volunteering for a clinical trial. In addition, we’ll talk you through the different types of clinical trials and tell you which ones are more likely to involve experimental treatments that may actually pan out. We then wrap up the episode by revealing the Painopolis rating we give ClinicalTrials.gov based on its usefulness, user-friendliness and cost.

By the way, ClinicalTrials.gov is loaded with lots of technological bells and whistles that can easily confound first-time users. So after you’ve listened to our review, watch our free half-hour-long video tutorial on how to use ClinicalTrials.gov. You can find that tutorial in the show notes for this episode at https://painopolis.com/painopolis-reviews-clinicaltrialsgov/

Shannon Stocker was 30 years old and in her last year of medical school when she first felt the pain. It started in her arm and eventually spread throughout her body. The pain became so intense that this newly minted M.D. was forced to put her medical career on permanent hold.

The cause of her suffering was a disorder called reflex sympathetic dystrophy, or RSD. (It’s also called complex regional pain syndrome, or CRPS.)

After exhausting other treatment options, she gambled on a high-risk, experimental procedure called ketamine-coma therapy, which would render her unconscious for FIVE DAYS. To undergo it, she’d need to travel to a hospital in Monterrey, Mexico, because the FDA hasn’t approved ketamine-coma therapy for use in the U.S. Given the procedure’s experimental status, riskiness and cost, no physician in the U.S. even offers it.

Today, we talk with Stocker about her long ordeal with RSD/CRPS, the experimental procedure she bet her life on, and how she’s doing now.

For more information about RSD/CRPS, including a list of published studies evaluating the effectiveness of ketamine-coma therapy and other treatments, check out the show notes for this episode at https://painopolis.com/ketamine-coma-therapy-for-rsd-crps/.

Review: In the U.S., many pharmaceutical and medical-device manufacturers have struck up financial relationships with doctors as a way for those companies to promote their products. Various studies indicate that doctors who take payments or perks from Big Pharma prescribe pricier brand-name drugs in greater proportion than their peers received no remuneration.

Granted, there’s nothing illegal about these financial relationships. But for many patients, there's an undeniable ick factor to the notion that their doctor might be recommending medications or medical devices made by companies from which the doctor has benefitted financially.

For that reason alone, you deserve to know about these financial ties in order to be fully informed when making healthcare decisions. Dollars for Docs is an online tool that can tell you whether your doctor (or any other doctor in the U.S. that you’re curious about) has taken money or gifts from drug and medical-device companies; what the monetary value of those payments and perks was; which companies provided them; and for what reason. Dollars for Docs can also give you similar financial data about your dentist, optometrist, chiropractor, and podiatrist.

Today, we let you know how well Dollars for Docs works based on three criteria:

• Is it effective?

• Is it easy to use?

• Is it inexpensive?

After listening to this episode, be sure to check out our show notes at https://painopolis.com/painopolis-reviews-dollars-for-docs/. You’ll find a link to Dollars for Docs, plus further information to help you navigate the medical-industrial complex.

Review: In the U.S., many pharmaceutical and medical-device manufacturers have struck up financial relationships with doctors as a way for those companies to promote their products. Various studies indicate that doctors who take payments or perks from Big Pharma prescribe pricier brand-name drugs in greater proportion than their peers received no remuneration.

Granted, there’s nothing illegal about these financial relationships. But for many patients, there's an undeniable ick factor to the notion that their doctor might be recommending medications or medical devices made by companies from which the doctor has benefitted financially.

For that reason alone, you deserve to know about these financial ties in order to be fully informed when making healthcare decisions. Dollars for Docs is an online tool that can tell you whether your doctor (or any other doctor in the U.S. that you’re curious about) has taken money or gifts from drug and medical-device companies; what the monetary value of those payments and perks was; which companies provided them; and for what reason. Dollars for Docs can also give you similar financial data about your dentist, optometrist, chiropractor, and podiatrist.

Today, we let you know how well Dollars for Docs works based on three criteria:

• Is it effective?

• Is it easy to use?

• Is it inexpensive?

After listening to this episode, be sure to check out our show notes at https://painopolis.com/painopolis-reviews-dollars-for-docs/. You’ll find a link to Dollars for Docs, plus further information to help you navigate the medical-industrial complex.

Meet the chronic-pain patient who talked the U.S. government into giving him free, legal medical marijuana for the last 34 years.

You’ve probably heard about our guest today, maybe not by name but certainly by way of urban legend. The story goes like this: In Mississippi, the U.S. government has been growing marijuana for decades and giving the crop for free to a small, select group of Americans suffering from chronic pain and other medical conditions.

Well, the story’s not just an urban legend. And today, we talk to one of those recipients, Irvin Rosenfeld. He’s a 63-year-old Florida stockbroker who’s received free, government-approved weed for more than three decades. And he’s permitted to smoke it anywhere in the U.S. that tobacco smoking is allowed.

We chat with Rosenfeld about how he persuaded the feds to stop bogarting the pot; what the rest of us can learn from his decades-long reliance on medical cannabis; and what happened the day he lit up one of his legal joints at Disneyworld.

Today, Rosenfeld talks about:

•  How he went from being the Nancy “Just Say No” Reagan of his high school to discovering that marijuana drastically reduced his severe chronic pain

•  Why marijuana surpasses prescription painkillers at controlling his pain and allowing him to live a full, active life that includes sailing and playing softball

•  How he uses marijuana on a daily basis to rein in his severe chronic pain

•  How he pulled off the nearly impossible feat of persuading the U.S. government to provide him with a legal, lifetime supply of medical marijuana

•  What the same amount of pot would have cost him if he’d bought in on the streets instead of getting it free from the federal government

•  Why this successful stockbroker’s clients are happy to trust their investments with a guy who smokes 10 joints a day

•  The Kafkaesque craziness that can happen when he smokes marijuana in public and can’t convince local police that he’s toking legally

Go to this episode’s show notes at https://painopolis.com/legal-medical-marijuana-for-chronic-pain/ for more information about Rosenfeld. We’ve also included links to an array of published studies investigating the medicinal uses of marijuana for chronic pain and other ailments.

By now, we’ve all heard that eating a plant-based diet protects against cardiovascular disease. But can you eat your way to better health if your medical problem is chronic pain? And if so, which diet could accomplish that, and how quickly? And could it do so even more effectively than prescription drugs?

In June 2016, 32-year-old dental hygienist Gabrielle Fennimore decided to find out. She’d suffered for years with ulcerative colitis, an autoimmune disease that attacks the colon and triggers severe abdominal pain and bloody diarrhea. Despite taking powerful anti-inflammatory medications, her symptoms were getting worse rather than better.

So last summer, she took the gutsy step of flying from her home on the east coast to attend a 10-day dietary program in California run by internist John McDougall. Here’s what you need to know about McDougall: he’s all about eating exclusively starches, vegetables, and fruit. That means no meat, no dairy, no eggs, no cooking oil, and no junk food. In other words, goodbye, typical American diet! Unlike Fennimore’s physician back home who championed medications instead of diet to control her ulcerative colitis, McDougall argues just the opposite.

He claims that eating low on the food chain can fend off the plague of chronic ailments targeting countries that follow a Western-style diet. Those diet-related diseases, he says, include the obvious ones: clogged arteries and diabetes, for starters. But he also insists that our Western way of eating puts us at greater risk for certain cancers (including breast, colon and prostate cancer) as well as autoimmune diseases like multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. What’s more, McDougall contends that a plant-based diet can promote healing in people who have already those diseases.

Other researchers have also linked the Western diet with an upswing in various chronic diseases. For Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, however, the scientific research to date has been inconsistent in nailing down that cause-and-effect relationship and pinpointing which specific elements withing the Western diet might be most to blame. So McDougall’s approach sounds promising in theory. But when you put a plant-based diet to the test in the real world, can it actually reduce chronic pain and other symptoms enough to make a difference?

Well, it’s now been the better part of a year since Fennimore took McDougall’s advice. And it hasn’t been easy. Her colon was already so fragile that for the first few weeks she subsisted only on pureed squash soup. And because of that hyper-spartan menu, her weight quickly dropped to an emaciated-looking 88 pounds.

Despite those challenges, she stuck with it. And today, eight months after she opted for a plant-based diet and stopped taking her medications, we find out if her symptoms have improved; how she weathered the trial-and-error ordeal of figuring out which foods to include on her grocery list; why that list is still limited to just 15 items; and lastly, how hard it’s been for this self-confessed foodie to give up fine dining in favor of a menu that’s heavy on squash, rice, and purple sweet potatoes.

Go to this episode’s show notes at https://painopolis.com/can-a-plant-based-diet-thwart-chronic-pain/ for more on the relationship between autoimmune disease and diet.

By now, we’ve all heard that eating a plant-based diet protects against cardiovascular disease. But can you eat your way to better health if your medical problem is chronic pain? And if so, which diet could accomplish that, and how quickly? And could it do so even more effectively than prescription drugs?

In June 2016, 32-year-old dental hygienist Gabrielle Fennimore decided to find out. She’d suffered for years with ulcerative colitis, an autoimmune disease that attacks the colon and triggers severe abdominal pain and bloody diarrhea. Despite taking powerful anti-inflammatory medications, her symptoms were getting worse rather than better.

So last summer, she took the gutsy step of flying from her home on the east coast to attend a 10-day dietary program in California run by internist John McDougall. Here’s what you need to know about McDougall: he’s all about eating exclusively starches, vegetables, and fruit. That means no meat, no dairy, no eggs, no cooking oil, and no junk food. In other words, goodbye, typical American diet! Unlike Fennimore’s physician back home who championed medications instead of diet to control her ulcerative colitis, McDougall argues just the opposite.

He claims that eating low on the food chain can fend off the plague of chronic ailments targeting countries that follow a Western-style diet. Those diet-related diseases, he says, include the obvious ones: clogged arteries and diabetes, for starters. But he also insists that our Western way of eating puts us at greater risk for certain cancers (including breast, colon and prostate cancer) as well as autoimmune diseases like multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. What’s more, McDougall contends that a plant-based diet can promote healing in people who have already those diseases.

Other researchers have also linked the Western diet with an upswing in various chronic diseases. For Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, however, the scientific research to date has been inconsistent in nailing down that cause-and-effect relationship and pinpointing which specific elements withing the Western diet might be most to blame. So McDougall’s approach sounds promising in theory. But when you put a plant-based diet to the test in the real world, can it actually reduce chronic pain and other symptoms enough to make a difference?

Well, it’s now been the better part of a year since Fennimore took McDougall’s advice. And it hasn’t been easy. Her colon was already so fragile that for the first few weeks she subsisted only on pureed squash soup. And because of that hyper-spartan menu, her weight quickly dropped to an emaciated-looking 88 pounds.

Despite those challenges, she stuck with it. And today, eight months after she opted for a plant-based diet and stopped taking her medications, we find out if her symptoms have improved; how she weathered the trial-and-error ordeal of figuring out which foods to include on her grocery list; why that list is still limited to just 15 items; and lastly, how hard it’s been for this self-confessed foodie to give up fine dining in favor of a menu that’s heavy on squash, rice, and purple sweet potatoes.

Go to this episode’s show notes at https://painopolis.com/can-a-plant-based-diet-thwart-chronic-pain/ for more on the relationship between autoimmune disease and diet.

Is your doctor urging you to lose weight, limit your sodium, get more active, and make other lifestyle changes that push your willpower to the breaking point?

Today, we tell you about an online tool named MyFitnessPal that takes the drudgery out of adopting new health habits. Like a dietitian, MyFitnessPal adds up the calories and nutritional content of everything you eat. Like a coach, it tallies the energy you burn from exercising. The calories-expended-per-activity database includes everything from ice fishing in a sitting position (136 calories per hour for a 150-pound woman) to Tai Chi (272 calories) to chopping wood (422 calories) to jogging in place (544 calories). And like the Ghost of Fitness Yet to Come, MyFitnessPal predicts your future weight and the date the New You will appear, based on your current regimen. If that forecast doesn’t startle you into sticking with it, nothing will.

We let you know how well MyFitnessPal works based on three criteria:

• Is it effective?

• Is it easy to use?

• Is it inexpensive?

We then reveal the Painopolis rating we give MyFitnessPal based on its usefulness, user-friendliness and cost. If you believe—as we do—that you sometimes need new tools to break old habits, this episode is for you.