I wrote you a long response based on my years of interactions with doctors who know less about pain management (with opiate and non-opiate meds and other non-medication solutions), then I realized that I was going to send you an entire history of dealing with Chronic Pain and ignorant doctors so I reset my scope. I wish I could send you this as a PM to a BLer, since it's so long, but you won't be one for a while, so I'll send it. Hopefully, someone else will find something helpful in it.
First off, I am so sorry that you were not warned of the short-term and medium term effects of opiate-based medication. Whether it's Zoloft, Paxil, Vicodin or Percocet, I have had the same experience where the docs did not warn me to taper off medications. Or taper ON in the case of some SSRIs or SNRIs. (Even after I asked them expressly whether I should taper on and off.)
I actually liked some of these docs and respected them in some areas, but I feel that with all the Big Pharm reps coming to their doors with sandwiches and pens, they get a lot of new medications to research and they simply choose not to or don't have the time to research them thoroughly.
I feel for you because the first time I was thrown on to Zoloft, I thought I was dying. Terrible side-effects. I was in agony the first few days and when I quit taking the meds after a call with the doc, he just said, "Just Ride it out. <Click>" And his voice conveyed no sympathy or understanding. I was young then (in some ways, 21) and sensitive and maybe that's what hit me the most: his utter lack of interest in my condition.
Anyway, I'll just skip to what you're asking: Yes. there are many techniques to manage your chronic pain without opiate/oid medications:
1 Physical Therapy: You have to find the right practitioner, but once you have a good one, communicate well and get a set of exercises that are tailored to your injury and practice them every day. This has been a godsend for me. (And with all of the inept, arrogant, unknowledgeable Doctors I've seen, no matter how many magazine articles had been written about them, I was lucky enough to score a fantastic Physical Therapist.)
2. Acupuncture/acupressure: If your funds allow, or if by some miracle you can get your HMO to cover acupuncture/acupressure, go in for a session twice a week. Make sure you choose a practitioner who has experience with people who are injured
3. Chiropracty: If your injury is one that won't be worsened by chiropracty, find a good chiropractor and see him/her twice a month.
4. Yoga: Go to a yoga studio/ashram where the focus is on healing/understanding yourself, not on out-performing the other classmates, or out-perfiorming yourself. You should look for an ashram/studio who works with people who are injured then find a teacher who understands physical limitations.
Yoga, is after all, about understanding the limitations of your body and working with them. When yoga became really popular in the early 00's, this focus was lost in many studios. But there are good teachers out there who know how to teach people to use yoga to help them with their injuries and not hurt them.
Also, a studio or Ashram that focuses on breathing (pranayama) and meditation will help you to work on the mental voices that force you to push harder. And teach them to push less.
Many people who suffer from Chronic Pain got that way because they were totally type-A successful, over-the-top people, who always wanted to be the best at whatever they were doing. (I'm one of those, or was.) A good yoga teacher can help you to understand why you do that and how to channel that energy into healing yourself and keeping yourself healthy and mobile.
5. Therapy: a good therapist will help you to understand how you got into the physical situation you're in today and how the way you're addressing your physical limitations may be holding you back.
6. Breathing: This was included in the yoga section, but I want to break it out because you can learn really powerful ways of regulating your breathing that will help you to relax and control your pain and anxiety. If your yoga ashram doesn't include pranayama, I'd probably look for another one. But there are also excellent books and tapes that teach you to use your breathing to heal and relax and gain strength
7. Meditation: I included this in the yoga section, but again, like pranayama, there are endless resources to teach you how to meditate. I'v gained a lot of control over my pain through practicing mediation every day.
8. Mindfulness/Cognitive Behavior Therapy: The Yoga/Breathing/Meditation sections touched on this. Mindfulness is a large topic but I will be a bit reductionist and say that learning to follow your mind's thoughts, recognizing them and then changing them can help immensely with controlling pain.
Cognitive Behavior Therapy teaches you to look at the thoughts that pass through your head, especially before/during and after a pain attack (flare-up) and can be really helpful in minimizing flare-ups and constant pain.
Cognitive Behavior Therapy is a lot more than I just described, and you can find lots of good books on it, but I highly recommend it. So much of our pain, even while structurally-driven pain, can be minimized by our thoughts. Conversely, negative thoughts and stress from say, a partner or a family member will increase your pain and without knowing why your pain was increased you're left in the dark about how to treat it.
9. Exercise. Exercise is a gift, a partial solution and a danger. I've always relied on cardio and long, strenuous hikes and weights to release evil (non-productive) thoughts and excess anger but after I really injured myself, exercise became a real problem.
I would follow my old patterns of going to the gym or heading out on a 15 mi. hike, thinking I 'd free myself from the thoughts and pain that were tormenting me. But since I was physically damaged. I would end up in agony, curled up on the couch, waiting for a flare-up to reside: using ergonomic pillows with ice/heat, stretches, etc. But my intense exercise was actually re-injuring my back and I am still trying to learn how to manage/balance that.
But if you can get your body to a state where it's more or less balanced, exercise once again becomes a way to manage excess energy/thoughts that may cause pain Plus, it creates endorphins. I love exercise and not being able to exercise (jog, I used to run) has really held my recuperation back. But now that I've slowed myself down and practiced the things I have listed above, strong healthy exercise is an option for me again.
10. Medication: Sometimes, if your body is physically fucked up you need some amount of opiate medication/muscle relaxants to be able to do all of the options I listed above. Personally, i would love to go back to being drug-free, but in the mean time, in order to get my fitness back, adequate pain management is what I need.
I haven't quite gotten there with my new Pain Management Specialist but I know that when I'm adequately medicated, I can stick to my program and exercise and work almost like a normal person, albeit with a lot of ice and ergonomic support throughout the day.
If you were a BLer, I would have PM'd you this very lengthy missive. I hope it helps you and maybe by being in the public eye, it will help someone else. Otherwise I apologize for such a lengthy response. It's just that I really feel your pain and perplexity having been through so much of this bullshit over the last ten years of my life (which has changed me for the worse as I tried to figure out the system and myself) I wouldn't want to wish it on anyone else. So hopefully, some of my suggestions sound plausible to you.
Good luck. White light.
