Mangling Medicine - Early Intervention for Chronic Pain

When you're done reading this, hit that 'Forums' tab on the pretty purple bar under the Lumigrate logo, please!  It's what I'm really REALLY asking people to 'go and do'. I got up super early today thinking I was going to get this blog written and off my 'chest' or 'mind' and then go take another REM cycle. I was supposed to ski tomorrow with a friend and due to travel schedules, I've had difficulties getting one of the providers I'm hoping to write in Lumigrate settled in. I'm trying to get a couple handfulls of new providers from Colorado (and one from Texas) into the 'lineup of Lumigrate' before I start working on folding in information from Jerry Rand of Bay Recovery, seen on 'Intervention' on A&E.  This week, he is at a big conference in San Antonion, Texas.  "Big Pain Conference" I guess I call it!   Note added January of 2012, please see box at bottom for updated information about Dr Rand.  

Due to software upgrades in facebook and my computer yesterday, it felt like I only got half of what I needed to completed. (And I heard a LOT of it yesterday.)  We had a really wonderful comment in the Fibromyalgia Forum related to finances yesterday, with Yenta coming up with GRATE ideas for money saving and my coming in with recommendations for if one is feeling overwhelmed and I think the overlap is that we were both saying 'use your other resources if money is tight.'  Resources are:  Time, Energy, Money.  I addressed energy and time and Yenta money and time.  I encourage everyone to go read what the three of us contributed yesterday.  (Forums, Fibromyalgia, etc... OR scroll lower in the Forums and there is a link from within the forum that is about health care financial and taking money. 

In addition, luckily, one of my techy connections suggested me to an awesome new resource for Lumigrate I believe and so that was definitely time well spent and enjoyable because it was a person who 'walks the walk' of integrative medicine and was really interested in the site's content and not just being a consultant.  (So not only did Vince the Monkey Handler (me being the Monkey) help me put together a stellar looking presentation for Berkeley last summer, he's brought me a really neat new resource on the I.T. end, and one that I hope will do a little contributing to the I.T. info area of Lumigrate.com.  (Who credited me with a good idea on having such a resource area on a health related website!) 

I looked at my facebook messages and it is wonderful to see people looking to me for individual guidance, but I want to include people in what the current game plan is and how I'm looking at things today and moving foward to helping many more people and having much more information:  For two years now I've been working toward creating what you see now (and there is much more coming that is 'here' with Lumigrate that hasn't made it to the website for you to access it yet -- due to limited resources, which are time, energy, money for ALL people and businesess).  There are Forum areas developed and I can create different ones and add and modify as the needs are suggested and presented.  It's a collaborative place.  Think of it as the breakroom at work, or the playground/sandbox at school. 

There are hundreds of people that know about Lumigrate.com that know more about fibromyalgia or other health topics than I do!  And they're the people that have it as well as the people who work with people who do.  So use them.  In the Forum areas.  

Lumigrate's FORUM AREAS are there for people to go to and ask questions, give answers -- which are then available for ALL the people who come later who might be able to learn.  Or contribute.  And that process then evolves into a large body of information that can be a tremendously powerful resource.  

I currently am spending as much time as possible facilitating and ushering valid, progressive experts to the site -- and that includes people who have experience with chronic pain that maybe are not 'professionals'.  I'm also continuing to interact a LOT with the facebook fan pages and personal pages (when facebook isn't glitchy.... .  Today is a new day and things on facebook started working right sometime about the time it got light out today."New and improved" the screen says, basically. 

I'm really asking each person who is 'on board' the Lumigrate boat to grab an oar.  Interact in the facebook streams, go to the website and write and read and Comment / discuss.  My biggest first impression when Lumigrate launched and I got out into the facebook world was how much time people are spending online and still really don't know anything valid.  So I had to think 'why is that' and it's because you can't tell when you hear about From Fatigued to Fantastic or Bay Recovery if that's any more valid than Beneficial Bootcamp (which is something I just made up).  When Lumigrate was in it's first months, we had to prove ourselves and now thanks to so many people who have come for so much time ... like new neighbors or coworkers... we've learned to trust each other and our validity is represented in many hundreds of minds. 

For the next week I am going to really be working to solidify that 'base of support' and the leadership that has come from these past ten months on the Internet and facebook.  Because we're about to turn the heat up.  WAY up.  So anything that can be handled within the forum areas by people that all commune there to share ideas, please do.  Go there first.... if there's something that cannot be handled there, then there are messaging areas here on the website which shoot emails to the right places for us to address it.  And we are accessible on facebook.  And at info@lumigrate.com [1].

Yesterday's Oprah was about diabetes and Dr. Oz was on.  It was outstanding.  The biggest message in it was Dr. Oz crediting Oprah with teaching him that people don't change based on what they know, it's based on what they feel.  I've been tasked recently with two big projects related to chronic pain as I have been identified, through Lumigrate's growing visibility, as someone who is capable of contributing to making change and bringing visibility in the right areas related to chronic pain, it's management and the unfortunate 'mismanagement'.  Something someone I know called 'manging medicine'.  Larry King last night had Deepak Chopra on, who brought up pain management and mismanagement as it related to Michael Jackson's physician, who was in the news yesterday regarding a ruling in that case I believe.  Tonight Larry is about another pop star and medications.  It's a HUGE topic.  We're working very hard to have resources in place when Dr. Oz and Oprah do shows about 'the F word', which is inevitable.  In my estimation there are going to be TONS of people who don't realize they have a chronic pain condition who are going to seek medical treatment from the system that right now is very warped and ineffective.  So we want to have resources that are valid, progressive, streamlined and FUN for the people who need them: patients and providers!

So what you can do to help us with that is to be an extension of Lumigrate if you have something you can contribute. PLEASE regularly come to the Forums and read and respond if there's something that you have experience with.  Can you "Print" things off from the website to take to others --  particularly when you get your hair cut, because you know that your stylist or barber knows other people who have health problems which could benefit from Lumigrate.  If you do what you have the resources for (time, energy, money), I'll be able to dedicate more of mine to doing the orchestrating of all of it. And naturally, if you have ideas, contribute those too!

Leadership has truly come forward from the people who have been participating and it is making Lumigrate what it is!  So thank you.  Have a wonderful Friday and start to your weekend. ~~ Mardy

PS - As I say about every day to someone, I just keep being appreciative that I'm at the bus stop at the right place and time when the bus comes along heading in the direction that Lumigrate is apparently supposed to be going.  My job is just to then figure out who to sit next to and talk to on the bus, mostly.  OH, and then nag them about writing in the Forum area by phone, email and facebook forever after. 

Note from January 2012: I have been contacted by more than one former patient of Dr Rand's at Bay Recovery who have asked me to remove all information about him due to their concerns for others based upon their experiences. I appreciate that they are taking the time to research where he might be doing outreach to get his name heard, so thank YOU.  That is true 'generosity of time and energy' which might be translated into 'spirit'.  

I had encountered a change with Dr Rand's behaviors when interacting with me which were very different than how I had experienced him when we spent a day at a chronic pain conference together, so had stopped working to get information from him into Lumigrate at that time.  I have removed all the solo pieces he and his team had posted in the past in Forums but I have opted to keep this and one other piece but adding this disclaimer/caution, because it is "baby with bathwater" as this is an excellent resource for people.  If he was providing good information in the past which is included here and people can learn from it, that's one thing; using him as a physician would be another which I would want people to make their own decisions about.  

To help in your researching this provider (and I suggest you do this for all your providers) here's a link to the portion of the California Medical Board related to Dr Rand's current and past  http://www2.mbc.ca.gov/LicenseLookupSystem/PhysicianSurgeon/Lookup.aspx?licenseType=G&licenseNumber=25749. My apologies for not having done that step after we had met when Lumigrate was only two months 'live' -- I continue to learn with this enterprise and change my procedures just as I have as a medical consumer. Just because a big TV show uses him doesn't mean there's a good history.  Not something I had to know as a woman with fibromyalgia or an OT practicing in Colorado!