ISPINE.ORG Forum - Inducing Coma, Rebooting the Brain, Helps Chronic Pain Sufferers?

As I'm watching a House marathon on Justin.tv I heard of this. I googled it to find a few posts on Ketamine induced comas to reboot the brain. Nothing on this site about it, but has anyone even heard of this? No not the Greg House Show, the inducing of comas to reboot the brain, silly.

How is rebooting the brain going to help if the body has physical pain generators?

I find this as interesting as Substance P Isolation. (very interesting)

Here is a post about it:

Quote:

Ketamine is being aggressively used in Germany in an unusual way-- inducing coma for an extended period of time, allowing the CNS (central nervous system) to 're-boot' in chronic pain patients. As a result, those able to afford the treatment are going overseas in an attempt to find a way to make living bearable, because the United States forbids the induction of a coma lasting longer than 2 days.

THIS STORY tells of a young man named Matt who went in for a minor surgical procedure on his foot and ended up in pain so severe that even speaking is impossible. Somehow, his pain continues to worsen. The odds of complete recovery are still a long-shot, but this experimental procedure at least gives hope where before there was none.

Ketamine is used for Migraine, but infrequently. It used to be considered a potent veterinary drug sometimes known as "Special K" on the streets. Ketamine works along the Glutamate pathways mentioned in my blog post HERE.

Those of us with intractable or chronic Migraine have likely heard of Ketamine, but physicians are reluctant to use it as the medicine used in Migraine treatment and prevention is but one of many with a street value. It's not the street value that makes most physicians leery, but the professional risk they take in prescribing it for chronic pain patients. Diana of Somebody Heal Me chronicles her own experience with Ketamine HERE.

My post isn't meant to focus on Ketamine however, but instead on the practice of inducing a temporary coma or anesthesia in Migraine and chronic pain patients in desperate effort to ease their suffering.

I was once offered a temporary coma to end a 6 month long Migraine. I like to think things over though, especially when contemplating something so serious that several days in the Intensive Care Unit and no promises given. I didn't want to make a decision based solely on my pain level. I wanted to be smart, not desperate.

I admit it. I was afraid. I didn't want to be put into a coma because after several episodes of serious drug reactions resulting in brain swelling, and with no promises that I wouldn't have another one, I was gun-shy. I was living in terrible pain, yes, but I wasn't ready to risk death... yet.

Eventually, I was bad enough to seek that option, but my doctor had taken another position in the hospital administration, and I found myself not only in desperate pain, but also without any Neurologist at all.

When I found another neurologist, he was unwilling to do the procedure and I had to start at square one again. Eventually he mentioned Propofol, which I tried unsuccessfully when I had to undergo a medical procedure.

Still, my concerned hubby continued to inquire about the elusive "temporary coma" as a way to give me some relief. In honesty, he tells me later, he feared greatly for my life. He didn't know how anyone could continue to want to live while enduring such unending horrible pain, and unbeknownst to me, took matters into his own hands to be sure there was nothing around I could hurt myself with. My current Neuro was unwilling to entertain the idea however. In my current state of health, I must undergo even surgical procedures with only a local anesthetic because of the unwillingness of anesthesiologists to treat me.

I am one of those few who are running out of options.

For me, it brings to bear the question, why is the FDA unwilling to allow physicians to treat patients that don't respond to other treatments, the way those physicians would choose, when the drug is already approved for pain and being used for the same treatment of shorter duration? What purpose does that really serve? I could find no evidence of these longer-lasting comas ending in death or disability. Why does Matt have to endure a torturous and unbelievably expensive airline flight to get the treatment he so desperately needs to try?

I am glad the treatment is available to this elite few. It's better than availability to no one. Perhaps there will be enough successes with it that it will be recognized, long term, as a last ditch effort to save these patients lives.

Pain is a killer and is estimated to take more lives yearly than guns. You won't find it on a death certificate, because pain causes death by other more quantifiable means-- addiction, overdose, suicide, stroke, but the results are still the same. It's not enough that someone is screaming "MERCY" for their loved ones. Someone must be allowed to hear them.

Here is the link....

Whatcha think people? Would anyone try this? Some of us would try anything at this point...induced coma included.

And by the way, If you want to watch House with no commercials:
welcometohouse3 on Justin.tv

Search the archives if you want to start at season 1. It's in there somewhere if you look hard.