Ive not heard too many people discuss melt downs,,,I am a compassionate man,I have empathy for others and Love life and God. Ive noticed thru the course of this disease,whether its just wearing me down physically and mentally of if in reality,its destroying the mind,plus I have factored in the side effects of medicine to the demeanor of a persons charactor. What has scared me and alarmed me is that the other day ,while on the phone with a friend of 15 years,he was in error of a subject that he kept debating me on,he later on after reasearch found that he was wrong,But the focus of this thread ,is after discussiong the matter for an hour on the phone and him defending his views,,I had a major melt down and Wigged out on him. I snapped..I felt like I was loseing my mind,,in rage I ranted,,,That is not me, where did this come from,,Its like turning into a wearwolf,,My patience have grown thin,,,I love my wife dearly,,I appreciate you people as well,and know everyone is hurting,,But this gives me no right to lose control,,My med intake is small due to sensitivity,,But its still a factor,,but the rage that came out of me,is not the person that I want this disease to turn me into,,In the last year Ive became short with people at times,when before RSD came into my life,,,I am so sorry,,with this rapid spread,has comsumed me..I want to hold onto my integrity,,,Has anyone else experineced this,,,Im trying to comprhend whether its just the disease keeping me in pain the meds,the shock of the spread,ect,,,or is it the RSD, deterorating the mind. Im not like that all the time,I try to be up beat,,,but I do notice a change going on,,,I used to be able to debate or argue with the best of them ,so to speak,,but now,my button has gotton bigger,for which is a huge defect to my charactor,,Ive noticed that I dont handle contoversal problems well any more,,I mean I do handle everyday issues ok ,,So im not like that all the time,,I havent been that easy for someone to draw me out like that,,,,Im just going by the other day when I T'ee'd off on my buddy on the phone,,,,,,,,,,,,,,bobber ,,,PS plus Im getting older than dirt and I dont want to end up in a rubber room,Liveing out my end days in a paddle cell with a guy named no neck vinnie bringing me my thorseen shot to shut me up

My heart is truly bleeding for you, brother.....

You have prayed for so many people here......
You are a true man of God and right now your Armor is weighing heavy on you..... (Eph 6)

My hope is that every one of your prayers comes back to you tenfold....

Please hang on.........

....i'm sending you a pm

Rae

Bobber, My Friend.

I am praying hard for you right now. I know that you are a gentle soul. I, personally began to "turn" when I was on a high dose of Neurontin. I would scream and rant at my husband and kids for the slightest thing. I would go to bed crying, wishing I could take it all back and wake up the next morning with little memory of it. I felt that awful feeling that I had done something horrible, but not exactly sure what.

Please know that your friend will forgive you and do his best to understand your stress. Try to not be too hard on yourself. You are a wonderful friend to all of us!
Keep us posted.

Kim

Kim

Hi Bobber,

I know that I don't have RSD, but, it sounds to me like perhaps after 15yrs of debating this issue, especially since you knew you were right...you had enough! I think that it is a human reaction to lose it once in a while. Think about what you go through every day, the comments that are made, the way people treat you and talk to you. I know that as a caretaker I sometimes have a short fuse, we all do...and if it has taken this long for you to explode on your friend, maybe it was just Gods way to making the debate end. You are a wonderful person, and have brought many days of peace and understanding to many people here. So Bobber, I honestly don't foresee you going to a padded cell with what's his name again, oh yea "No NECK VINNIE, coming in to give you your shot in the padded room. I will lift you in prayer and hope that you find peace with this...I can't imagine how you feel with the pain you're in, and having it spread like it has. You are under a lot of stress...Sometimes you will have to vent.

Peace my friend...
Sandy

Bobber... Bobber.. Bobber..my friend....

It is my utmost pleasure to answer your post..My friend , you and I have a lot in common with our RSD ... so please alow me..I hurt for you and I don't want you to beat yourself up over this..I want to say you are such a gentle man..spiritual and love in your heart... Remember that you have changed from the person you were prior to your illness..Now this is not a bad thing but we have to allow ourself the space to grow thru that.. none of us are the same..we are different in the way we look..feel (pain levels of 10000 every day!), we see the world different... cuz our world is now different and sadly, in some cases..we are not going back to who we were... the word normal is no longer for us..what is normal?? What was nomal?? We appreciate the sweet softer simpler parts of our lives and our tolerance had changed..it has to go along for the ride... see we lack control over our condition so sometimes we try to take control over other matters cuz we can control them (not our RSD) and we need control once in awhile... esp. when we KNOW we are right...MAKE SENSE??? My dear buddy please do not question that...let it go as others will certainly understand esp. our families and dear long life friends ..as he and they know us best... Most important is to be tolerant of yourself..give your self space and time..don't be too hard on yourself as we all realize, Sandy, you too being the care giver... life has dealt us a terrible blow..but we can work it out...you have to expect our patience will be tested and our way of handling ourselves is going to be different as we are doing our best and living a rollercoaster of pain... your special people in your/our lives will be the first to understand and accept and forgive us... Please, my friend..don't be sad, concerned or hurt..toss out an I am sorry once in a while and you are good to go!!!

My prayers are with you my dear pal... we all have you covered this time!!!!! Let us know how you are feeling now...

Hugz, Kathy

Bobber,
I'm with ya! Hey, sometimes, popping the cork, is our relief valve, to keep us from truly imploding! You've earned enough love, to go through this, I know you well enough to get that. You should know that as well!

You're a sensitive man, Bobber. Always ready to help others. I'll explain the way a psych did once with me.
Consider your emotions (stress) like a barometer.
The moment you wake from a stress free sleep, your eyes open, and you begin to become aware of the "stressors" in your life.
Your "Barometer" starts to rise.
By the time mid morning hits, you've got the full realization of your pain and your problems, and your Barometer is idling at around 75%. Give or take.

Then, comes the day, and new problems and more pain. You have some greif thrown on by a stranger. Barometer up to 95/90%, which brings your pain up, Barometer now, 95%.
Then, your friend calls, and since none of us operate well with a "Stress Barometer" @ 95%, yours now breaks through 100% due to a small disagreement, and you bite someone's head off! Including your own!
We can't, We not equipped to handle this kind of STRESS!
You, Me, Any of our Beloved family, or friends here, can and will POP!

Anyone that knows you Bobber, knows well, that you're a kind man. And, that it out of character for you to POP.
So, you're forgiven.

But, have you forgiven yourself?
Can you bring that "Stress Barometer" down to a workable level, on a daily basis?
Recognize your stressors, and work to eliminate or diminish them.

You haven't changed, my friend. You just reached a limit! No sin, no harm done.
Your apologies are gladly accepted.
That you wrote here, shows us all what a kind heart you have.

Take it as a warning from God, that you are carrying a bit too much on your shoulders.
Ask him for some help. He'll provide!
You know this.
This is your faith!

My prayers are with and for you!

Yer Pal,
Pete
asb

Bobber -

What you describe is almost universal, to the point that an alleged "pain psychologist" told me that there was nothing I clould do about it. Boy was he wrong. Please check out the following threads in this forum, all of which have addressed your concern:

RSD and random crankiness? http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/sh...d.php?t=114027
started 02.06.10

Chronic Pain Effects the Brain
http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/sh...ad.php?t=87636
started 05.22.09

RSD and Your "Emotional State"
http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/sh...ad.php?t=93290
started 07.11.09

Most of the relavent informantion I know is in there, in particular, I would invite your attention to the discussion of "The Brain in Chronic CRPS Pain: Abnormal Gray-White Matter Interactions in Emotional and Autonomic Regions," Paul Y. Geha, Marwan N. Baliki, R. Norman Harden, William R. Bauer, Todd B. Parrish, and A. Vania Apkarian, Neuron 60, 570–581, November 26, 2008, FREE FULL TEXT at http://www.apkarianlab.northwestern....00811_Geha.pdf

SUMMARY

Chronic complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) is a debilitating pain condition accompanied by autonomic abnormalities. We investigated gray matter morphometry and white matter anisotropy in CRPS patients and matched controls. Patients exhibited a disrupted relationship between white matter anisotropy and whole-brain gray matter volume; gray matter atrophy in a single cluster encompassing right insula, right ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC), and right nucleus accumbens; and a decrease in fractional anisotropy in the left cingulum-callosal bundle. Reorganization of white matter connectivity in these regionswas characterized by branching pattern alterations, as well as increased (VMPFC to insula) and decreased (VMPFC to basal ganglion) connectivity. While regional atrophy differentially related to pain intensity and duration, the strength of connectivity between specific atrophied regions related to anxiety. These abnormalities encompass emotional, autonomic, and pain perception regions, implying that they likely play a critical role in the global clinical picture of CRPS. [Emphasis added.]

PMID: 19038215 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE] PMCID: PMC2637446 [Available on 2009/11/26]

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1...ubmed_RVDocSum

And here's the crucial paragraph from pp. 575 - 576 of the article:

Role of VMPFC in CRPS in Relation to Emotional Decision-Making

Atrophy in the right VMPFC was correlated with the interaction of duration and intensity of CRPS pain, which functionally segregates the atrophy in this region from right AI [anterior insula] and suggests a more global impact, or ‘‘emotional load,’’ of CRPS on the VMPFC. Atrophy within this region was our primary hypothesis because CRPS patients perform poorly on the emotional decision-making task (Apkarian et al., 2004a), which has been shown to critically depend on an intact VMPFC (Bechara et al., 2000). In fact, even when CRPS pain is transiently reduced, performance on this task does not improve and CRPS patients do not show evidence of learning the task (Apkarian et al., 2004a). In contrast, chronic back pain patients who exhibit atrophy in the thalamus and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) (Apkarian et al., 2004b), although also abnormal on this task, exhibit clear signs of learning and improved performance over time. Emotional decision-making critically depends on the ability to evaluate options in terms of potential reward or punishment; such decisions require proper capturing and evaluation of sensory cues, including bodily autonomic responses. It is thus not surprising that autonomic regulation and monitoring involve many of the same cortical regions implicated in emotional decision-making, especially ACC, VMPFC, and AI. Therefore differential atrophy of gray matter and abnormal connectivity of associated white matter tracks involving ACC, VMPFC, and AI in CRPS, in contrast to atrophy of DLPFC in chronic back pain, must underlie their differential responses on emotional decision-making, especially given the fact that CRPS is associated with autonomic abnormalities and chronic back pain is not.

(It's tough going, but the illustrations and schematic diagrams - which can't be copied here -are easier to follow than the text.)

But what is not included in the previous posts is that there is a corresponding body of literature suggestiing that the very reverse of these observed neuro-physiological effects has been demonstrated in long term, committed meditators, in whom is observed, among other things, an acutal thickening of the cortical cells on the right anterior insula. But before you think I'm getting all Buddhist on you, let me suggest that there is no reason why the same effects couldn't be seen in "Christian Centering Prayer," where instead of silently speaking to God, one listens in silence for the intervention of the Holy Spirit. There are other techniques as well, out set out in a Wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centering_prayer

With that introduction, here are a couple of articles on the effects of meditation on the brain, as observed through fMRI scans, speficially as it effects emotional regulation:

Lazar SW, Kerr CE, Wasserman RH et al, Meditation experience is associated with increased cortical thickness, Neuroreport. 2005 Nov 28;16(17):1893-7, FREE FUUL TEXT at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...nihms-6696.pdf

Psychiatric Neuroimaging Research Program, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA. lazar@nmr.mgh.harvard.edu

Abstract
Previous research indicates that long-term meditation practice is associated with altered resting electroencephalogram patterns, suggestive of long lasting changes in brain activity. We hypothesized that meditation practice might also be associated with changes in the brain's physical structure. Magnetic resonance imaging was used to assess cortical thickness in 20 participants with extensive Insight meditation experience, which involves focused attention to internal experiences. Brain regions associated with attention, interoception and sensory processing were thicker in meditation participants than matched controls, including the prefrontal cortex and right anterior insula. Between-group differences in prefrontal cortical thickness were most pronounced in older participants, suggesting that meditation might offset age-related cortical thinning. Finally, the thickness of two regions correlated with meditation experience. These data provide the first structural evidence for experience-dependent cortical plasticity associated with meditation practice.

PMID: 16272874 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16272874

AND

Lutz A, Brefczynski-Lewis J, Johnstone T, Davidson RJ., Regulation of the neural circuitry of emotion by compassion meditation: effects of meditative expertise, PLoS One. 2008 Mar 26;3(3):e1897, OPEN ACCESS FREE FULL TEXT at http://www.plosone.org/article/info%...l.pone.0001897

University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin, United States of America. alutz@wisc.edu

Abstract
Recent brain imaging studies using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) have implicated insula and anterior cingulate cortices in the empathic response to another's pain. However, virtually nothing is known about the impact of the voluntary generation of compassion on this network. To investigate these questions we assessed brain activity using fMRI while novice and expert meditation practitioners generated a loving-kindness-compassion meditation state. To probe affective reactivity, we presented emotional and neutral sounds during the meditation and comparison periods. Our main hypothesis was that the concern for others cultivated during this form of meditation enhances affective processing, in particular in response to sounds of distress, and that this response to emotional sounds is modulated by the degree of meditation training. The presentation of the emotional sounds was associated with increased pupil diameter and activation of limbic regions (insula and cingulate cortices) during meditation (versus rest). During meditation, activation in insula was greater during presentation of negative sounds than positive or neutral sounds in expert than it was in novice meditators. The strength of activation in insula was also associated with self-reported intensity of the meditation for both groups. These results support the role of the limbic circuitry in emotion sharing. The comparison between meditation vs. rest states between experts and novices also showed increased activation in amygdala, right temporo-parietal junction (TPJ), and right posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS) in response to all sounds, suggesting, greater detection of the emotional sounds, and enhanced mentation in response to emotional human vocalizations for experts than novices during meditation. Together these data indicate that the mental expertise to cultivate positive emotion alters the activation of circuitries previously linked to empathy and theory of mind in response to emotional stimuli.

PMID: 18365029 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18365029

Slould you know any psychologists, these articles might be worth reviewing with them. And for what it's worth, I'm reliably advised that Richard Davidson is the leading figure in the world on fMRI studies of meditative consciousness.

There is however one caveat I should add: it's not clear to what extent the results obtained from "experienced meditators" are a function of the depth of their meditative experience, something that I know from personal experience maybe - but not necessarily - more difficult to achieve in people whose powers of concentration (the ability to attend to that which is not otherwise deemed interesting) may have deminished over the years with CRPS. For instance, I know that I had a much easier time achieving relatively high states of concentration when I was just statrting out in 2002- 2003, less than 2 years into CRPS that I do today. That said, check out the last paragraph of my reply to Sandy last night in the Any others with RSD have memory/ concentration problems? thread at http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/thread12479-5.html (post 45).

In otherwords, not to worry. This too shall pass.

Mike

After reading your post and having rsd for not as long as you, but being young and looking ahead in my life, it scares me to the fact of where I will be at your age. I understand the thoughts and fear and fact of being scared that our patience is short, and how this is an uncontrollable feeling. Yet, I look at it and take RSD out of the equation. The Lord is there for us always we just need to let him do his work with us. I have moments like that, one was yesterday. I woke up with such an anger rage in me, i had to close my bedroom door and get down on my hands and knees and beg God to take the evil spirit out of me. I then read my bible and had a day to myself to cope and come to terms with what is going on in my head. This morning I woke up and had a peace within me. I know that the power is within you and you CAN overcome this. I opened my bible yesterday and in Mark 14:27ish, Christ took Peter John and James with him as he went to Gethsemane to pray right before Judas betrayed Him. He told them them stay here and watch. And when he came back he found them sleeping and said to Peter, "Simon, are you sleeping? Could you not watch one hour? Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation. The SPIRIT indeed is willing, but the FLESH is weak. This is so true for us. Our flesh is weak, yet our spirit is willing, so lets allow ourselves to pray and becoming willing unto the Lord, and not stoop down to the weakness of flesh.

Hannah

Dear Bobber;

You are okay my friend. As we discussed before, you have had alot thrown at you in a very short time. Our mind, body and soul are all being challenged with this disease and we have very little control. You are such a gentle yet strong spirit but you are also human. This disease is not for the weak, God has chosen us for this experience for a reason. There is no way possible in this short of time that your mind can comprehend what is going on with your body. Your wires are short circuiting all over the place. Be patient with yourself and by no means do not criticise yourself for something you cannot change. I do not look at where I was a year ago, I do not look at where I am going to be a year from now, I deal with today. In all reality that is what we have and you are entitled to have a bad day!!!!

It sounds as though the debate what really not about being right or wrong it was about being heard, and your friend did not hear you. Let it go, forgive yourself and apologize to your friend. This is not worth it. You do not need another upsetting issue on your plate. I had many of these debates with my husband, in the early stages of causalgia, I would fight to the bitter end and I mean bitter end. Then I would cry for days, my pain would escalate like Pete said, it is a vicious cycle. Opt out of debates for now, even if you know you are right about something, it is not worth the torture that you put your mind and body through and I guarantee your friend is not pondering over it as you are. You are in pain, angry, frustrated, overwhelmed and scared. I was too but over time you learn to manage these side effects and you will learn to handle such situations differently but for now, avoid, avoid, avoid!!!! Fluff some pillows for your wife, I mean BEAT them, get it out you will feel so much better and your wife will be happy that you have taken on the chore of fluffing the pillows for her. As always I will keep you tentatively in my prayers, this will pass....hang in there.

God Bless you

Jeanie

Hannah,
That's quite Beautiful!

Pete