My dad had it, when he was 75+ years old ... he recovered quite quickly and was helping me instll a garage door within 6 months.

Wildchild, I think you're exactly right. (And that's brave of you to say, too.) My sister is bipolar, too. She is pretty good about taking her meds and staying in treatment, but the doctors have always had a hard time treating her. She is depressed most of the time, with periods of mania. She's tried virtually every drug they use to treat bipolar, plus several rounds of electroconvulsive therapy. Susan_on, that quote from Drew Pinsky was a lightning bolt for me. That's *exactly* what I think about her. She doesn't bring the problems on herself (kidney stones, car accident where the other driver was cited, etc.), but she is pleased when something happens, because it gets her attention and narcotic drugs. It's hard to judge someone else's level of pain, but I always wonder. For example, right now, there's something wrong with her hip. The doctors thought it might have been fractured, but it wasn't, and they are thinking it's just a pulled muscle. I watch her - it's painful for her to walk, and she has to adjust herself to sit comfortably, but she'll watch television for hours without pain. It doesn't seem any worse to me than when my hip bursitis flares up - quite painful, but certainly bearable. It would never occur to me to use narcotics for my bursitis, but she immediately reaches for them. Sue, yes, she's tried to get to the root of the pain. It isn't any one thing. At one point it was her shoulder. She had surgery, it got better ... and then there were kidney stones. They passed, she got better ... and then something happened to her hip. She goes to the doctor, does physical therapy, tries alternative therapies, but something else always goes wrong. And she always asks for something for the pain. I'm not at all convinced that getting rid of the pain would take care of the problem. In fact, I'm pretty much convinced otherwise. I don't know that she's physically addicted, simply because she doesn't get enough of the medication. She certainly has a tolerance to narcotic pain meds, but so does anyone who takes them long-term, addicted or not. She misses the drugs when they're gone, but never has any sort of detoxing symptoms. (I'm intimately familiar with those, from watching my addicted clients when they get locked up without their drugs.) She won't agree to hospitalization or treatment of any kind, and she's not at a point where she could be forced. She goes to work every day, her daughter is well cared-for (by me, when she's on a drug binge), she keeps her doctor appointments. No court would find that she was a danger to herself, and I don't really want to do that, anyway. I've spent a lot of years trying to save her from herself, and finally got it through my head that it's not helpful. Linda_in_Iowa, I spoke to my doctor yesterday, and she recommended the same thing as you did. I've got the name of a pain clinic, and I suggested that she go. We'll see.

Very interesting stuff about nutrition - thanks for posting, Cookie8. I have tried eliminating foods for several weeks at a time - dairy, wheat, sugar, caffeine (not a food, I know) - and have never noticed any difference at all in how I feel. How long does it take? For those of you who noticed a difference when eliminating foods, did you suspect anything before? Digestion problems, or something else? If not, what made you try eliminating foods? The juicing idea is interesting, Susan. I have some friends who do that. You're basically using food as medicine, right? The quantities seem to be much higher than anyone would include in a "regular" diet. How do you know which foods to combine? Is it palatable? Do you all discuss this stuff with your doctors? What do they think about it? How do these natural treatments work with traditional treatments? I can't imagine I'll ever be able to cut out synthetic hormones. Before synthetic cortisol, people with Addison's disease invariably died. (I had four addisonian crises before I was diagnosed and nearly died during three of them, so I'd never take a chance of going without steroids again.) Btw, Susan and Ravencajun, I have Sjogren's, too. I was diagnosed after an acute case of iritus where my eye was so dry and inflamed that the cornea stuck to the pupil. I spent two hours at the opthamologist's office, getting pupil dilators at regular intervals to try to break the cornea's hold. Little bits of the cornea would break free and the pupil at that point would dilate, so my pupil ended up looking small and round but with protruding "fingers". Really weird. Thank God it worked - they were worried I'd lose my eyesight in that eye. Do you get plaque on your front teeth from the dry mouth? Like you, Susan, I am never without water, but it never seems to be enough! And the nasal dryness in the winter is awful. I have bottles of saline spray all around the house. One thing that has definitely helped me is regular exercise. It doesn't make me less exhausted, but I am much stronger, so I can often push through despite the fatigue.

lucille, I think empathy shown to your sister is probably the best help you can give her. Surgery where there is extensive cutting of nerves, such as in foot surgery, takes time to heal completely. (Not the surgical site but the cut nerves - they are very slow to heal and that process if probably causing her neuropathy.) phoggie, I take Tramadol for a back injury I incurred in 1995, and my pain is controlled the majority of the time. If I have break-through pain, which isn"t very often, I take 2 Ibuprofen. Please be very careful if you take Tylenol for an extended time as it is very hard on your liver and can actually ruin it. I've taken care of someone who destroyed their liver that way and it is not a pretty sight to see. Fun2BHere - Yes Neurontin is prescribed for off-label treatment of neuropathy, I take it in addition to the Tramadol and the combination works good for me. For all those who have chronic pain, regardless of what part of the body it affects, we just have to all be tough old birds and fight it down every day!!!! < :-)