@A MyChronicPainTeam Member Hi Lucy, I think there is a definite correlation between PTSD and physical pain. Unlike a herniated disc or a fractured leg you are right that it doesn't physically link to bone or joint but it creates that Pyscosomatic pain that is real. Our brain governs how we interpret pain and is why some have a higher pain tolerance than others. That doesn't mean that neither are suffering real pain, just that our brains react differently. When PTSD flares it gets the whole body. You muscles tighten and your fight or flight response kicks in. You spike adrenaline and more Nuerotransmitters than I can remember names for. Your body hurts from that. I have and have had PTSD for a long time. For me it often results in depression, stirring up other Nuerotransmitters into the pot. So I know exactly what you mean and imagine that many others do also. @A MyChronicPainTeam Member You could do a Masters Thesis on the topic of PTSD and it's relationship to chronic pain. Barb

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A MyChron...

A MyChron...

I first suffered from disc L-5 L-6 blew up. I became paralyzed especially on the right leg. It required a Nero surgeon to preform a lamenectomy. Which fixed the nerves. Yet I still suffered pain. I eventually learned to walk correctly in 9 months.I suffered from chronic sciatica in my right leg and numb toes. Then in 1998 I fell from a 2nd story porch. L-3 is an 80% complete burst fracture. The Nero surgeon wanted to put rods in. But I had no where for the screws. Since then I developed spinal stenosis at L-3 L-4 level. I used to be 5'8" tall. Now I'm 5'4" tall. My spine suffered a "functional" curve. It projects outward. I have pain thruout my entire spine. And sciatica in both legs. I'm in need of surgery again to help with the spinal stenosis. It's severely curved. I'm so self counses of this that I refuse to wear a tight fitting shirt. My ribs are resting on my hips. And they spread apart. I suffer from a condition called "rib pop". My serum and collar bone are not in the correct position. I hope you find this useful.

@A MyChronicPainTeam Member
How the body is affected are in numerous complex ways. First is your mobility is greatly affected when you have spinal stenosis. Depends which part of the spine whether the cervical, thoracic, or lumbar and sacral are being squeezed to cause nerve impingement and therefore pain/inflammation. My gait has dramatically changed to slower and less. My back is hunching over from the diagnosis which caused me to use a rollator and now a cane. At one point I was using a walker. The herniated disc has caused permanent nerve damage to my left heel of my foot, it has been numb for several years.
I am exhausted all the time from my cells constantly triggered in defense mechanism hence
inflammation/pain.
My brain is affected with mood swings going from normal to depressed through out the week. One can't help to be overwhelmed with anxiety and depression. But my perspective on life has changed for the better. I appreciate waking up in the morning, seeing birds outside and the sunshine and beautiful resilient bushes, trees and flowers.
A kind gesture like one holding a door open so I can pass through is a good feeling but not taken 4 granted.
Lastly, chronic pain I believe has caused my teeth to deterioate faster than normal aging would. The culprit is the varied controlled substances I have taken 4 years now. But I don't have much of a choice.
Hope this helps.

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A MyChron...

David, I had to edit because it was too long. So you get the bare bones, pun intended, of the edit.

Hi David, what I have is easily related to both anatomy and physiology.

The first condition was caused at work by my being in an awkward position for quite some time. The short story is that I herniated a disc, L4-5 which was mismanaged for almost a year. During that mismanagement the disc ruptured. A laminectomy was done but the surgeon was careless and cut the covering on the spine in 5 places. I can't remember how to spell the name of the membrane that covers the spinal cord. I was released from the surgical ward and thought for the first few days that my surgery was a success. It took a couple of days for the cuts to show up and I was getting ready for a meeting when I suddenly had horrid head pain from the back of the skull to the front. I was still in hospital but for nonrelated things when fluid poured from my back and saturated my clothes. Lying down relieved the head pain a bit but spinal fluid continued to pour out. The issue supposedly was only reported as slight weeping from the wound but was really a fully constant flow.When the surgeon came in to check the wound I was barely conscious. A day or so elapsed and surgery was done, same surgeon, to close the spinal covering. I spent two weeks flat on my back. My spine never recovered. There was damage to the sciatic nerve ganglion which resulted in chronic leg and back pain and some loss of bladder control. The long term effects have been compression of the lumbar discs with more compression of the nerves. That is the simplified version of cause and effect. You can expand that to the physiology of spinal fluid, it's relationship to the brain and spinal cord with the potential for infection and the resulting head pain from loss of spinal fluid.

The autoimmune diseases are unrelated to my back. Symptoms for Autoimmune Disorder number 1. That initially showed as painful swelling on the top of my arm between the wrist and elbow. Forty plus years later the diagnosis is Generalized Tenosyvitis, an autoimmune disorder that basically destroys my tendons. Present day is a completely blown tendon on the inside of the left forearm. Partially destroyed but inflamed on the right arm, same location. The physiological part would be dealing with those immune system functions that treat the tendons as a viral or bacterial invader. Autoimmune disease #2 is and pardon my spelling Dequervains Disease. It is also known as trigger finger or in my case hands times 2. There is swelling present in all 10 digests with periodic triggering. Surgery is temporary and dispite what orthopedic doctors say it will come back in spite of surgical tendon release.Number 3 is CPPD disease, look it up can't remember the related physiology, which is also known as Psuedo Gout. You have all the pain and swelling but no crystals appear in the fluid samples.