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A suburban Chicago man accidentally shot a 3.25in (8.25cm) nail into his skull but is recovering after doctors successfully removed it from the centre of his brain. Dante Autullo, 34, was in his workshop when a nail gun recoiled near his head. But he had no idea the nail had entered his brain until the next day, when he began feeling nauseous.

Can an all-natural dietary supplement from tobacco plants help ease your chronic pain? Yes, according to the makers of a product called "Anatabloc." * * * Anatabloc, which comes in pill or lozenge form, is based on a substance called "Anatabine" that comes from tobacco plants. That's right tobacco. After you take a pill, it enters your body and interacts with a protein in your cells. The resulting cell adopts a natural anti-inflammatory process in the body. Researchers say it's very effective and promising in the battle against chronic pain.

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama's budget director said Monday that the president's new deficit-reduction plan would impose "a lot of pain," and is clearly true of White House proposals to cut $320 billion from projected spending on Medicare and Medicaid in the coming decade. Obama proposed higher premiums and deductibles for many Medicare beneficiaries and lower Medicare payments to teaching hospitals and rural hospitals. He would start charging co-payments to frail homebound older people who receive home health services. And he would reduce the growth of federal payments to states for treating low-income people under Medicaid.

71-year-old Gullan Holmgren from Piteå, in northern Sweden, is 'too old' for pain rehab, according to the pain rehabilitation unit at the local hospital that turned her away. “I might be over 70, but that doesn't mean I am dead yet,” said an outraged Holmgren to The Local. Holmgren, who has had chronic pain after an unsuccessful hip operation six years ago, sought help through her primary care provider, the local clinic in Piteå where she lives. After trying all sorts of pain relief to no avail, her doctor referred her to the pain rehabilitation unit at Sunderby Hospital. Holmgren...

I finally completed a project that has been on my bucket list for years. I am celebrating completing my first novel. I'm now an author!!!!

For many in the West pain ends with a pill, but elsewhere the war on drugs is cutting people off from pain medication. For much of the Western world, physical pain ends with a simple pill. Yet more than half the world's countries have little to no access to morphine, the gold standard for treating medical pain. Freedom from Pain shines a light on this under-reported story. "For a victim of police torture, they will usually sign a confession and the torture stops," says Diederik Lohman of Human Rights Watch in the film. "For someone who has cancer pain, that...

This post is a search for the knowledge of the community. Since December 2000 one of my friends has had pain in the lower left quadrant of my mouth always in one particular tooth. The pain is a dull, deep, gnawing, crushing pain that he describes as being with him 24 hours a day. Its intensity varies, but it is always there. It is completely ruling his life. The pain started with a crown preparation of tooth #20 in December of 2000. After tooth #20 was extracted (July 2003) the pain immediately jumped to tooth #19. Two years later (July...

The price at the pump has increased 28% in just the last four months, 116% since Barack Obama took office.  The reaction from the White House and the Democrats?  Punish the energy industry with $85.5 billion in new taxes – a penalty that will further discourage domestic production and sure to be passed on to consumers driving prices even higher. The President says that oil and gas should pay their "fair share."  I did a little checking and found that the industry pays an average 41.1% of net income in taxes compared to 26.5% for all other S&P industrials.  Only...

Scientists from Keele University found that letting forth a volley of foul language can have a powerful painkilling effect, especially for people who do not normally use expletives. To test the theory, student volunteers placed their hands in a bucket of ice cold water while swearing repeatedly. They then repeated the exercise but, instead of swearing, used a harmless phrase instead. Researchers found that the students were able to keep their hands submerged in the icy water for longer when repeating the swear word - establishing a link between swearing and an increase in pain tolerance.

What Is Heaven Really Like?By Jimmy Akin Wings and halos. Robes and harps. Sitting on clouds. Being greeted by St. Peter at the pearly gates: These are the images of heaven we get from movies, TV, and newspaper cartoons. Silly as they are, the ideas behind these images can seep into our consciousness and affect the way we think of heaven. For example, it’s commonly believed that we will have no bodies in heaven. That’s only partly true. People in heaven do not have bodies (with rare exceptions such as Jesus and Mary), but that’s a temporary state of affairs....

Nutra Pharma Announces Launch Of Cobroxin, An Over-the-Counter (OTC) Treatment For Stage 2 (Moderate To Severe) Chronic Pain Nutra Pharma Corp. (OTCBB: NPHC), a biotechnology company that is developing treatments for Adrenomyeloneuropathy (AMN), HIV and Multiple Sclerosis (MS), has announced that it has launched an over-the-counter (OTC) pain reliever, Cobroxin, for the treatment of Stage 2 (moderate to severe) chronic pain. Cobroxin is the first OTC pain reliever clinically proven to treat Stage 2 (moderate to severe) chronic pain. The drug, which was developed by Nutra Pharma's wholly-owned drug discovery subsidiary, ReceptoPharm, will be available as an oral spray for...

As governments go broke, public employee unions must share the painBy: Examiner Editorial 12/28/10 8:05 PM One need look no further than two Michigan officials -- William Cooper, the city manager of Hamtramck, and Tom White, associate director for labor relations of the Michigan Association of School Boards -- to grasp the seriousness of the financial crisis exploding across this country. Cooper told the New York Times that his city government "maybe" can pay its bills through March 1. Hamtramck has already cut what it could from its budget, reducing spending for parks, senior centers and road maintenance. Now city...

Need some advice for peace of mind of the wife and I. We have a beautiful baby boy, almost 4 mos. old (next week) that had a high fever last weekend before Christmas. Monday we took him in and Dr. said that his cold/upper respiratory infection has given him a secondary inner ear infection ( acute otitis media (AOM). The good Dr. gave us Cifdinir (Omnicef) 3/4 TSP for 10 days and thankfully his fever has gone. However, this Christmas has been a nightmare for Mom and I due to his frequent waking and screaming. His schedule over Christmas was...

Researchers have made a discovery that could lead to a brand new class of drugs to treat chronic pain caused by inflammatory conditions such as arthritis and back pain without numbing the whole body. The team, funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) and working at UCL (University College London), have shown for the first time that genes involved in chronic pain are regulated by molecules inside cells called small RNAs. This mechanism is so different from what has already been discovered about the biology underpinning pain that it could be the Achilles heel of chronic inflammatory...

A new bogus report from Great Britain's Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has released a study that claims the baby in the womb is not able to feel pain before 24-weeks of development. The Family Research Council's Jeanne Monahan says this study is being used in the attempt to challenge the UK's current legalization of abortions up to 24-weeks. Monahan of the Center for Human Dignity of the Family Research Council in Washington also says it’s just a matter of time before studies like this are used by the American abortion industry to challenge the number of new pro-life...

I have a problem that I haven't seen asked about before. On my microsoft laser mouse, I have a 'thumb' button that I use when I want the magnifier to come up. It would always take a while to 'work' after first booting up but I suspect that was due to all the other programs loading. The problem Now is that .. The Only way to get it to work is to go to my Control Panel, click on the mouse icon, wait for the mouse page to come up and then click OK! All of the other functions of...

I thank you, Lord, not for the pain But that Your love redeems. I know that I must walk though this As heavy as it seems. But when I think I can't go on, The pain is so intense, It's then You whisper in my soul, "Of this I will make sense." This too You'll use to help someone, In this I'll give You praise. I'll gladly bear the price of pain If this Your hand displays. For in my weakness You are strong, This pain is not in vain, For You waste nothing in my life, Myself and others...

[snip] With chronic pain, however, the underlying problem that started it has usually (though not always) been fixed and yet the patient is still hurting. A malfunctioning nervous system has started manufacturing pain. The pain is no longer simply a symptom. It has become a problem in its own right. No one knows a sure-fire way to avoid chronic pain. Still, you can improve your chances by avoiding the temptation to simply tough it out when you get injured. "Luckily, if treated adequately, pain goes away in a majority of patients," says Dr. Talal Khan, a specialist in anesthesiology, pain...

Studying chilli peppers is helping scientists create a new type of painkiller which could stop pain at its source. A team at the University of Texas says a substance similar to capsaicin, which makes chilli peppers hot, is found in the human body at sites of pain. And blocking the production of this substance can stop chronic pain, the team found. They report their findings in the Journal of Clinical Investigation. Capsaicin is the primary ingredient in hot chilli peppers which causes a burning sensation. It does this by binding to receptors present on the cells inside the body. Similarly,...

Nebraska heats this topic up again. Embarrassed about being the late-term abortion capital of the United States, Nebraska changed the law: Can an unborn child feel pain? That question will dominate the abortion debate in America for the next several years thanks to Gov. Dave Heineman of Nebraska. Last week, Heineman signed the Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act into law, banning abortions in Nebraska at and after 20 weeks based on growing scientific evidence that an unborn child at that age can feel pain. The legislation was enacted as a defensive measure. After the murder of late-term abortionist George...

IF ANYONE HAS FORGOTTEN or was not aware: Sarah Palin’s church was torched shutting it down for months and causing millions in damage. That was what the dangerous America hating MSM reported but they forgot to mention it was filled with children, the gas-line was cut, electricity was cut and the phone lines were cut! Longer term, Palin is doing what any possible presidential candidate should do 32 months out: Hand out her precious personal campaign time and PAC money to potential allies for her own race should she decide to launch one about this time next year. That's her...

Democrats plan "pain" for Republicans who seek to slow or block passage of healthcare legislation, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) said Wednesday night. Brown said that if Republicans try to offer amendments and use parliamentary maneuvers to grind out the legislative process, Democrats would retaliate with all-night sessions and other methods of fighting back. "I think they're going to try to do amendments, as many as they can get away with," Brown said Wednesday evening during an appearance on MSNBC. "I think we keep them here all night -- tonight, the next night, the next night, the next night." "If they're...

Oprah Winfrey, the daytime television guru who encourages viewers daily by telling them they have the power to achieve any goal they might set for themselves, questioned Bristol Palin’s goal of abstaining from sex until marriage in a recent interview: “In a Jan. 22 interview, Oprah criticized Bristol Palin, the teen daughter of former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, for recently telling In Touch Weekly that she was pledging abstinence until marriage. ‘I kind of bristled,’ Oprah began, ‘when I saw this—where you said, ‘I’m not going to have sex until I’m married. I can guarantee it’ ... I’m just...

Just got a call (here at work) from a telemarketer with a private number concerning "our local and long distance telephone provider" - I hung up as I always do. The woman called back 3 minutes later and said the following: "Now your getting your services changed bitch!" and hung up.

A cup of Brazilian mint tea has pain relieving qualities to match those of commercially available analgesics, a study suggests. Hyptis crenata has been prescribed by Brazilian healers for millennia to treat ailments from headaches and stomach pain to fever and flu. Working on mice, a Newcastle University team has proved scientifically that the ancient medicine men were right. The study is published in the journal Acta Horticulturae.

With flu vaccination season in full swing, research from the University of Rochester Medical Center cautions that use of many common pain killers – Advil, Tylenol, aspirin – at the time of injection may blunt the effect of the shot and have a negative effect on the immune system. Richard P. Phipps, Ph.D., professor of Environmental Medicine, Microbiology and Immunology, and of Pediatrics, has been studying this issue for years and recently presented his latest findings to an international conference on inflammatory diseases. (http://bioactivelipidsconf.wayne.edu/) “What we’ve been saying all along, and continue to stress, is that it’s probably not a...

WASHINGTON (CNN) — The man who ran John McCain's presidential campaign warned Friday that Sarah Palin could lead to a 'catastrophic' election result for the GOP in 2012 if the former Alaska governor captures the party's presidential nomination. "I think that she has talents," Steve Schmidt, the former campaign manager of McCain's failed presidential bid, told CNN's John King. "But my honest view is that she would not be a winning candidate for the Republican Party in 2012, and in fact, were she the nominee, we could have a catastrophic election result." The comments came during The Atlantic Magazine's First...

CLINTON v. OBAMA "Better put some ice on that..." --Bill Clinton to Juanita Broaddrick after he assaulted her in 1978.... ""Maybe you're better off, uh, not having the surgery, but taking, uh, the pain killer..."--Barack Hussein Obama to Jane Sturm on August 9, 2009FREEPERs VOTE...which one of these quotes is more outrageous?

Swearing may actually reduce the pain of, say, slicing your finger with a kitchen knife or accidentally banging your toes or your head. New research from Britain’s Keele University shows that when you let loose with a few four-letter words after these commonplace injuries, you can ease the discomfort. For the study, the investigators asked 64 volunteers to immerse their hands in a tub of ice water for as long as possible while repeating their favorite swear word. Then, they were asked to repeat the experiment but to choose a word that they would use to describe a table. The...

Stacy Porter, 29, can’t remember a time when she didn’t suffer from crippling, relentless migraines before having the surgery that changed her life eight years ago.“I was diagnosed with migraines when I was 2 years old,” the New Philadelphia, Ohio, marketing executive tells WebMD. “I had about 15 days a month of severe migraine pain.” Her symptoms included throbbing pain in her temples, nausea, and sensitivity to light so severe she remembers wearing sunglasses to more than one final exam in high school and college. None of the drugs used to prevent migraines helped, so her only relief came from...

Tears streamed down the little boy's face. He had just emerged from a memorial service for the crew of the space shuttle Challenger a few days after it had exploded in the sky over Florida, January 28, 1986, killing all seven astronauts. "I just don't understand," he told the TV reporter, "why God wanted to take them now." The young boy expresses our tendency to picture God as wanting human beings to suffer and die. But do we really buy this idea? Deep down we believe that God is all good and not to be blamed for space tragedies,...

A friend of mine got a call from the IRS. He is getting audited. He and another friend that worked for the same company, had the boss hanging out over their shoulder, who browbeat them into taking riskier deductions than perhaps they might have. Both are getting audited. My friend is seeking the collective wisdom of the group with regards to audits. 1) total transparency 2) get a lawyer 3) a particular strategery Thank you FRiends.

WASHINGTON – U.S. Sen. John Kerry must have been channeling his inner Letterman yesterday. The Bay State senator was telling a group of business and civic leaders in town at his invitation about the “bizarre’’ tale of how South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford had “disappeared for four days’’ and claimed to be hiking along the Appalachian Trail, but no one was really certain of his whereabouts.

... "I felt overall pain to the point that even when my children or husband just touched me it hurt."... ..."I am really, really good," Campbell said. "Having said that, I'm still not 100 percent. I'm still not that person I was before." Campbell was one of 10 women with fibromyalgia to take part in a small pilot study at Stanford over a 14-week period to test the new use of a low dose of a drug called naltrexone for the treatment of chronic pain. ..."Even after the study, it just got better and better and better," Campbell said. "I...

Ever wish you got something really painful on camera, right at the moment of impact? Well these people managed. These have all got to hurt. More pics on site

You know that moment where time seems to slow down, as your body fills with adrenaline, anticipating the imminent pain? Well, I can guarantee these people were experiencing just that, and perhaps some are well passed that:

Prayer request for Brett,older brother to one of my son's baseball team mates. _________________________________________________________ First of all: THANK YOU! We appreciate your calls, texts, food, etc. thru the last few days. We have not been able to get back to everyone and thought we would try this to get many of you. I am home for a few hours and decided to try this option to reach most of you. I’m sure I have missed some, but it wasn’t intentional! Please feel free to forward on to anyone else you know has been interested. Update as of Tuesday Evening: Given...

I served as Deacon at the solemn “Celebration of the Lords Passion”. This frail couple approached. The wife could barely walk without her husband’s loving firm support. As they drew closer, I could see that the husband’s face was filled with deep wrinkles, the kind of love lines etched in the face from suffering borne with grace. His head was covered with unkempt white hair and framed with a coarse white beard. His eyes were filled with pure love for his beloved wife whom he assisted so tenderly as she came forward to venerate the Holy Cross.Her eyes were distant...

Enlarge ImageBrother morphine. Research with rats may explain why opioid painkillers work better for males.Credit: Scott Camazine/Photo Researchers Inc. Men get more relief than women do from painkillers like morphine, according to some studies. New research with rats hints at a possible explanation: Male rats have more receptors for the drug in a brain region involved in pain processing. Although it's not yet clear whether the same is true in humans, researchers say the study underscores the need for more research on the sex-specific effects of pain drugs. The new study used rats in part because they exhibit a...

The California Air Resources Board approval last week of top-down micromanagement of industries and commerce, ostensibly to rid California of global warming, is a broad intrusion into the private sector that not only will be costly, but ultimately a solution for a problem whose dimensions have been defined more by politics than science and probably doesn't even exist. The ARB's "scoping plan" details the regulations and costs to be imposed on nearly every facet of California economic life to implement 2006's presumptuously named "Global Warming Solutions Act." It's the last thing a struggling economy needs, and the last thing a...

Cheryl Weinstein’s left knee bothered her for years, but when it started clicking and hurting when she straightened it, she told her internist that something was definitely wrong. But in many cases it is just not known whether what is seen on a scan is the cause of the pain. The problem is that all too often, no one knows what is normal... --snip-- As a rheumatologist, Dr. Felson saw patient after patient with knee pain, many of whom had already had scans. And he was becoming concerned about their findings. Often, a scan would show that a person with...

Kim Adair fights a daily battle with arthritis. "With 10 being the worst, I would say it's about a 7 or 8,” she said. But she recently found relief in a study at Baylor University using cherries. "They have a lot of the same properties that common anti-inflammatory medicines like ibuprofen or naproxen will have," said Dr. John Cush, Rheumatologist. Kim took cherry extract gel caps. "I think about maybe three months, I didn't notice any pain at all," she said. "Overall, about five out of six patients did very well in the study," said Dr. Cush. Another plus, cherries...

“You just sit and you worry,” said Pat Weber, a construction administrator in Fennville who was laid off more than a year ago. “In the last year, I’ve put in for more than 100 jobs. I stopped counting after 110. It’s just so defeating.” All around Fennville and its neighbors here in southwest Michigan, front lawns are peppered with for-sale signs and merchants complain about slow days. But while this remains a beautiful place with none of the obvious blight of Detroit on the other side of the state, residents say the hardship beneath the surface is very real. It...

Enlarge ImageAltered perceptions? Minimally conscious patients may have a greater capacity to feel pain than do those in a vegetative state (such as Terri Schiavo, above).Credit: Reuters Most of the time, doctors have a simple way to determine if a patient needs pain medication: They ask. But when a brain injury renders someone unable to respond to questions, the right course of action becomes murkier. Now a study finds that the brains of some patients with brain injuries respond to an unpleasant electrical shock much as do the brains of healthy people, suggesting that these patients may feel pain...

Why pain is good – in both medicine and finance By John Kay Published: September 30 2008 18:57 | Last updated: September 30 2008 18:57 Pain has been described as the gift no one wants. There cannot be a single reader who has not, at some time, wished not to experience pain. But we are better off with the capacity to suffer pain than without it. A few people are born with a genetic deficiency that leaves them completely free of pain. They rarely survive to adult life. Leprosy has for thousands of years been the most dreaded disease. Only...

A new type of drug could alleviate pain in a similar way to cannabis without affecting the brain, according to a new study published in the journal Pain on Monday 15 September. The research demonstrates for the first time that cannabinoid receptors called CB2, which can be activated by cannabis use, are present in human sensory nerves in the peripheral nervous system, but are not present in a normal human brain. Drugs which activate the CB2 receptors are able to block pain by stopping pain signals being transmitted in human sensory nerves, according to the study, led by researchers from...

Low levels of the sunshine vitamin, vitamin D, may contribute to chronic pain among women, scientists believe. The link does not apply to men, suggesting hormones may be involved, according to a study published in the Annals of Rheumatic Diseases said. The team from the Institute of Child Health in London said studies were now needed to see if vitamin D supplements can guard against chronic pain. About one in 10 people are affected by chronic pain at any one time in the UK. The causes are not well understood and much of the focus to date has been on...

Dallas, TX (AHN) - A University of Texas Southwestern Medical School study linked the rise in kidney stone ailments to global warming.The connection of kidney stone with warm weather has been established based on statistics that southeastern states have 50 percent higher incident than northeastern states. Kidney stones, although on the rise nationwide since 1976, were observed to have higher rates of occurrence during summer. With global warming even the northeastern region will likely experience higher incidents with an estimated 1.6 million new cases by 2050.The rise in kidney stone incidents by 25 percent in 2050 will be accompanied by...

Fibromyalgia Affects Women More Often Than Men ScienceDaily (Apr. 26, 2008) — Are you exhausted? Do you have pain all over but can’t figure out what’s wrong? If so, you may be suffering from fibromyalgia, a chronic condition that causes exhaustion, sleep disturbances and diffuse pain in your muscles, tendons, and ligaments. Fibromyalgia patients experience a range of symptoms of varying intensities that increase and decrease over time and often resemble other conditions. For years, because of their complex nature and a lack of research on the condition, many doctors misdiagnosed fibromyalgia symptoms or dismissed them as being in the...

Biological Link Between Pain And Fatigue DiscoveredImage of nerve endings in mouse muscle shows that ASIC3 (red) is present in pain receptors (orange). (Credit: Masahiko Ikeuchi M.D., Ph.D., UI visiting scientist from University of Kochi in Kochi, Japan) ScienceDaily (Apr. 8, 2008) — A recent University of Iowa study reveals a biological link between pain and fatigue and may help explain why more women than men are diagnosed with chronic pain and fatigue conditions like fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome. Working with mice, the researchers, led by Kathleen Sluka, Ph.D., professor in the Graduate Program in Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation...