Having Problems Convincing Social Security That Your Neuropathy Is A Serious Condition Vid

Today's video is a very useful one, not just for people in the US living with neuropathy trying to claim disability benefits but people all over the world in the same situation. Of course, outside the US you will need to deal with your own local authorities but the information in this video applies to everyone with nerve damage who need to convince the authorities that their condition is real and deserving of social security support. Well worth 5 minutes of your time.

Nerve Pain or Neuropathy and SSDI Claims
Published 12th february 2015

Are you applying for Social Security disability benefits based on nerve pain or neuropathy? While pain is a factor in many different types of SSDI or SSI claims, my experience has been that disability judges are very often receptive to nerve pain cases.

As discussed in this video, severe nerve pain often arises from significant medical problems - conditions that include:
diabetes
HIV/AIDS
herniated disc
spinal stenosis
autoimmune diseases

Or nerve pain may be idiopathic, meaning that there is no definitive cause.

Whatever the reason for your nerve pain, you will need a clear strategy to convince a Social Security judge that you meet SSA’s definition of disability. I hope this video helps you better understand what the judge is looking for and what evidence you will need.

Want more information about winning your Social Security disability case? Visit my web site at http://www.georgiasocialsecuritydisab... or call my office. Visit http://www.ssdanswers.com/free-case-r... if you would like a free case review.

Jonathan Ginsberg
Ginsberg Law Offices
Atlanta, GA



 https://youtu.be/h7vc1rlrCq4

Reasons Why Patients Should Join In With Social Media

Today's post from kevinmd.com (see link below) looks at the possibility of blogging for people living with chronic health issues. This blog also started for many of the same reasons described below and has grown into a large source of information for other neuropathy patients. I have learned so much from doing it and it has certainly provided a daily purpose in life to distract me from the ever-present neuropathy. Why not read Kevin Campbell's article and give it a go yourself - social media is not always intrusive; it can be very therapeutic as well.

4 reasons why patients should blog
KEVIN R. CAMPBELL, MD  JUNE 3, 2013

Social media has opened a whole new world for patients. Now, information about disease is readily accessible and available to everyone. Certainly, there are issues with reliability and accuracy of internet sources and this can create uneasiness and misunderstanding for both physician and patient.

However, the internet can also provide many new therapeutic possibilities. In particular, online support groups, twitter chats and blogging can provide a positive outlet for patients suffering with disease. Today, I want to focus on one of these Internet opportunities: the patient blog. Recently, a online article on iHealth Beat explored this concept of patient blogging and its benefits.

Just as commonly experienced in the climax and resolution phase of Greek tragedy, writing a blog about one’s experience as a patient can be cathartic. Patients with chronic illnesses or with a new diagnosis are often confused, frightened and angry. Numerous studies in the psychiatry literature have demonstrated that journaling or writing about one’s feelings and experiences can have a very positive effect on emotional health. Journaling has been shown to have several other unexpected benefits as well. In the age of the Internet and social media, journaling is now called blogging. Blogging can be a private posting (where only you or those you approve can see) or can be made public for anyone to see.

Blogging can have many benefits that are very similar to journaling. From a pure neuro-biological standpoint, while you are occupied with writing, the analytical left brain is engaged in the writing process. This allows the right brain to be free to feel, emote and create. In this setting, you are able to better understand yourself and the world around you. Specifically, there are four distinct benefits that patients can receive from blogging that I believe are worth mentioning:

1. Blogging helps to clarify thoughts and feelings. Often writing down our feelings provides a way for us to better organize our thoughts. Blogging can help patients with terminal illnesses better understand their disease and how they are reacting or adjusting to the challenges of the diagnosis and/or therapy.

2. Blogging helps you to get to know yourself better. Writing routinely will help you better understand what makes you happy and content. Conversely, writing will also help you better understand what people and situations upset you. This can be incredibly important when battling chronic disease. It is important that you are able to spend more time doing the things that make you happy and are able to identify and avoid things that are upsetting.

3. Blogging helps you to reduce stress. Patients who receive a diagnosis of a major illness or who suffer daily with the challenges of chronic disease often have a great deal of anger and resentment. It is human nature to ask questions such as “why me?”. Blogging about angry feelings can be a positive and therapeutic release of emotion. It allows for the writer to return from the blog more centered and better equipped to deal with negative emotion

4. Blogging helps unlock your creativity. Often we approach problem solving from a purely left brain analytical perspective. This is how we are taught throughout our education to attack problems in math and science in school. However, some problems are only solved through creativity and through the use of a more right brain approach. Writing allows the right brain to creatively attack problems while the analytical side of the brain is occupied with the mechanics of the writing process.

I believe that blogging can be just as important as medication compliance in patients with chronic disease. The diagnosis of a chronic disease can produce a great deal of stress and emotional angst. Patients who are able to deal with negative feelings and emotions in a more positive way are better suited to tackling their health problems.

As mentioned above, blogging has many benefits on our emotional health. By dealing with negative emotions and unlocking creativity, we are better able to deal with the realities of chronic disease and more effectively interact with friends and loved ones. I encourage everyone–patient, physician, family member or friend–to begin to blog. I expect that the health benefits of writing will be well worth the time in front of the computer screen and the insights that you may discover about yourself may be be life changing.

Kevin R. Campbell is a cardiac electrophysiologist who blogs at his self-titled site, Dr. Kevin R. Campbell, MD.

http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2013/06/4-reasons-patients-blog.html

Can Social Contact Relieve Nerve Pain

 The ever-informative sciencedaily.com (see link below) provides the material for today's post which looks at the value of positive social contact in helping to relieve pain and illness symptoms. It seems like a no-brainer but when you consider the number of people who have to endure both neuropathy and HIV alone, or simply wish to be left alone with their symptoms; it suggests that the value of visits by friends, relatives and even social organisations may be underestimated. Even if the social contact is not especially welcome, it provides a distraction from the pain and if it can be combined with genuine care and sympathy, the animal study shown here at least seems to prove its worth. Pick up the phone maybe?

 

Social Contact Can Ease Pain Related to Nerve Damage, Animal Study Suggests
ScienceDaily (Oct. 15, 2012)

Companionship has the potential to reduce pain linked to nerve damage, according to a new study.

Mice that were paired with a cage-mate showed lower pain responses and fewer signs of inflammation in their nervous system after undergoing surgery that affected their nerves than did isolated mice, suggesting that the social contact had both behavioral and physiological influences.

The social contact lowered the pain response and signs of inflammation even in animals that had experienced stress prior to the nerve injury.

These mice experienced a specific kind of nerve-related pain called allodynia, which is a withdrawal response to a stimulus that normally would not elicit a response -- in this case, a light touch to the paw.

"If they were alone and had stress, the animals had increased inflammation and allodynia behavior," said Adam Hinzey, a graduate student in neuroscience at Ohio State University and lead author of the study. "If the mice had a social partner, both allodynia and inflammation were reduced."

More than 20 million Americans experience the nerve pain known as peripheral neuropathy as a consequence of diabetes or other disorders as well as trauma, including spinal cord injury. Few reliable treatments are available for this persistent pain.

"A better understanding of social interaction's beneficial effects could lead to new therapies for this type of pain," Hinzey said.

Hinzey described the research during a press conference Monday (10/15) in New Orleans at Neuroscience 2012, the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience.

In the study, researchers paired one group of mice with a single cage-mate for one week while other mice were kept socially isolated. For three days during this week, some mice from each group were exposed to brief stress while others remain nonstressed.

Researchers then performed a nerve surgery producing sensations that mimic neuropathic pain on one group of mice and a sham procedure that didn't involve the nerves on a control group.

After determining a baseline response to a light touch to their paws, researchers tested all groups of mice behaviorally for a week after the surgery. Mice that had lived with a social partner, regardless of stress level, required a higher level of force before they showed a withdrawal response compared to isolated mice that were increasingly responsive to a lighter touch.

"Animals that were both stressed and isolated maintained a lower threshold -- less force was needed to elicit a paw withdrawal response. Animals that were pair housed and not stressed withstood a significantly greater amount of force applied before they showed a paw withdrawal response," Hinzey said. "Within animals that were stressed, pairing was able to increase the threshold required to see a withdrawal response."

He and colleagues examined the animals' brain and spinal cord tissue for gene activation affecting production of two proteins that serve as markers for inflammation. These cytokines, called interleukin-1 beta (IL-1B) and interleukin-6 (IL-6), are typically elevated in response to both injury and stress.

Compared to animals that received a sham procedure, isolated mice with nerve damage had much higher levels of IL-1B gene expression in their brain and spinal cord tissue. The researchers also observed a significant decrease in gene activity related to IL-6 production in the spinal cords of nonstressed animals compared to the mice that were stressed.

"We believe that socially isolated individuals are physiologically different from socially paired individuals, and that this difference seems to be related to inflammation," said Courtney DeVries, professor of neuroscience at Ohio State and principal investigator on this work. "These data showed very nicely that the social environment is influencing not just behavior but really the physiological response to the nerve injury."

This work was supported by funds from the National Institute of Nursing Research. Additional co-authors include Brant Jarrett and Kathleen Stuller of Ohio State's Department of Neuroscience.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121015131541.htm