Weird Episode

Just had a very weird episode. Not the first, maybe the 6th in about as many months, one yesterday. I feel really, really bad. Instead of beating, my heart feels like it is "squishing" and I feel like it's hard to breath. . like there is water in my lungs. There are various muscular pains in my back and chest and I get nauseated and dizzy.

This time I leaned back in my chair and when I stretched to give my lungs more room to get air, there was a good deal popping and there was a bit of easing of the pain. In some ways the symptoms are similar to what women who have survived heart attacks say they endured . . otoh, stretching and breathing seems to alleviate the pain. I still feel like someone is pressing a finger into my back about heart level and to the left of my spine. And the stress has caused all the muscles in my mid-section, which I had gotten to relax more lately, to tense up.

Interesting. We'll have to see if anything comes of this.

Genes May Help Some People Bear Pain

(HealthDay News) -- People who tolerate pain better may just be blessed with better genes.

Scientists say levels of a molecule called BH4 -- required for the production of major neurotransmitter chemicals -- influence the body's sensitivity to pain.

The team of international researchers, based at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), Boston, say BH4 levels might also determine a person's vulnerability to chronic pain.

Reporting in the November issue of Nature Medicine, they found that a certain set of variations in a gene that's involved in producing BH4 appear to reduce a person's pain sensitivity.

"This is the first evidence of a genetic contribution to the risk of developing neuropathic pain in humans. The pain-protective gene sequence, which is carried by about 25 percent of the population, appears to be a marker both for less pain sensitivity and a reduced risk for chronic pain," study senior author Dr. Clifford Woolf, director of the Neural Plasticity Research Group at MGH, said in prepared statement.

"Identifying those at greater risk of developing chronic pain in response to medical procedures, trauma or diseases could lead to new preventive strategies and potential treatments," Woolf said.

In research involving hundreds of volunteers, the scientists concluded that people with a protective GCH1 haplotype -- a set of variations in the gene that are inherited together -- were less sensitive to pain. This GCH1 haplotype reduces production of BH4.

"Our results tell us that BH4 is a key pain-producing molecule -- when it goes up, patients experience pain, and if it is not elevated, they will have less pain," Woolf said.

"The data also suggest that individuals who say they feel less pain are not just stoics but genuinely have inherited a molecular machinery that reduces their perception of pain. The difference results not from personality or culture, but real differences in the biology of the sensory nervous system."

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