Harm Reduction The Pain Management Mega Thread - for all your questions on dealing with chronic pain

[alicat72]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
im really sorry to hear about your situation man, it is one that is far too common.
it sounds like your not getting proper pain management at all, and if it is affecting your life so much that you can't work full time or go out with your peers then don't you think it's time for a change?

i would suggest going to another doctor and getting a second opinion, possibly a pain management clinic.....it's just something that has to be done if your first doctor isn't understanding...my psychiatrist recommended a second opinion and luckily it was to a pain doctor that knows his stuff. my life has finally been stabalized on a 15mg OpanaER twice a day, before that i was in both extremes, being prescribed too much or little to nothing at all, now i can live my life with manageable pain but feeling doped up 24/7

you have to be your own advocate man, if it is legitment pain then you shouldn't have much of a problem getting a doctor to devise a pain management plan for you...best of luck

Peace

i have been referred to a pain clinic......i'm a little afraid that i'll get the run around there too...my doctor said there are a lot of people just trying to get meds without having pain issues.......my appt is in january......and at my last doctors visit she only scripted half of what she normally does.....i'm trying to get by on it until next month......

does anyone know whether or not tylenol will potentiate tramadol? i tried taking them together but it didn't seem to make a difference...

 

[toomuchpain]

[no sourcing. - 6/7]

 

[Darkness2Light]

damn I was feeling sympathetic and you pull this...

 

[Mr Blonde]

does anyone know whether or not tylenol will potentiate tramadol? i tried taking them together but it didn't seem to make a difference...

It should add to the analgesia theoretically; I find acetaminophen doesn't really kill any pain for me at all though.

 

[Cane2theLeft]

D2L- it is a bit troublesome to me as well but if you were in severely undertreated pain, wouldn't you be desperate? I don't know if he is legitimately looking for relief, but I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt... but in any case, that was completely inappropriate and just contributes to more bullshit that us pain patients have to deal with.

Toomuchpain- if you really want help from people on this board, you can't abuse their trust.

 

[Darkness2Light]

Cane2the left-

I am desperate, understand it all too well.But, toomuchpain is not doing himself any favors with such a post, how is he going to get into any PM clinic with non rx'd substances in his system and self medication will only lead to a path of bad habits.

I have a PCP whom I have built trust and have gone through 3 specialist's with no concrete diagnosis.I hurt every hour with under medication, 1 attempted suicide, and yet still hope that my strength will pull me through- no med is going to fix me, only ease it.It sucks that PM is so misunderstood and further compounded by media lies, for the most part-- abuse is real.I do feel bad for him still, just want him to understand rash decisions are only going to hinder an already tough road.

BTW:There are parts of the world with even less medication options than us, sometimes in America, we forgot how easy it is to get pain relief.

 

[toomuchpain]

im sorryfor whatever i said, forgive me

 

[RainingDownOxy]

^dude your ok.there just isnt any sourcing allowed of any kind in OD.if you didnt know your cool.and now you know.

 

[Desdenova]

I feel like I should be a Duragesic promoter or something, these things are a Godsend.

Ironic, as I type this the commercial for the Duragesic recall is on TV. Anyways...

I feel so lucky to have found a PM doc that works with me and trusts me. After two years of undiagnosable pain, working with him is an amazing relief. I dread the day I have to move away and find another doctor. I don't really even have anything to prove something is medically wrong with me, other than two years worth of inconclusive tests/procedures from 10+ specialist and my GP

 

[sweetbeatlvr]

desdenova... do you have a diagnosis yet?

it didn't take me 2 years, but it did take quite awhile, and several, several tests (that showed nothing), before i was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia.

what kind of symptoms do you have?

 

[Contemporarium]

So I've been prescribed Soma 350mg and Norco 10 for a while now, and I went to a Pain Management doctor and he said he doesn't want me on narcotics anymore. He gave me this pamphlet to this place that deals specifically with chronic back pain. What should I expect? Opiates are the only thing that have seemed to help my back at all. I've tried Tylenol, Motrin 800, Flexeril, and Skelaxin. I'm terrified about this program. I don't want them to put me on some mixture of herbs and spices where I'll be in excruciating pain for like two weeks while they try everything out. I'm also afraid that when nothing works they'll say "sorry" and make me leave. I mean, this isn't like some health place, it is for people that deal with chronic pain. But if he doesn't want me on narcotics, I'm trying to think about what I WILL be on. Someone please help.

 

[Cane2theLeft]

I feel so lucky to have found a PM doc that works with me and trusts me. After two years of undiagnosable pain, working with him is an amazing relief. I dread the day I have to move away and find another doctor. I don't really even have anything to prove something is medically wrong with me, other than two years worth of inconclusive tests/procedures from 10+ specialist and my GP

I know exactly how you feel... my doctors have literally given up on trying to find a Dx and just treat my neuropathic pain... which is all essentially treated the same whether its from diabetes, postherpetic-neuralgia, HIV, lyme disease, etc.

My doctors feel its likely that I have Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy (aka Complex Regional Pain Syndrome) but since I don't have the characteristic changes in hair/nail growth, atrophy and other late-stage symptoms they can't definitively diagnose it.

I have finally gotten to the point where I still want to know what to call THIS but I don't need to know... but I understand that need to know what the fuck this thing ruining your life is called. What always killed me was that it was always possible some obscure disease that was easily treatable was causing this. At this point I have nerve damage so if the underlying condition was treated, the pain would likely remain permanently, but that thought used to drive me nuts.

 

[TheMatador]

After two years of undiagnosable pain, working with him is an amazing relief. I dread the day I have to move away and find another doctor.

sounds like me, but i am moving out of the state next month
im going to love it out there, although i have confidence i won't have much of a problem finding a PM doctor that will continue my Opana regimen, or something equivalent, it still sucks finding a new doctor though and going through all that shit to make them finally trust you...just as i have that, im moving, but i guess its for the greater good...

 

[onlywant2nod]

I would like to get some advice or opinions on my poor health and past major surgeries and pain specialists too.
I sure got a "shit" deal in life alright(sorry had to add some humor)I am now 37but in 1990 my life was just beginning I was 19 only and developed ulcerative colitis which I think had alot to do with weak digestive history in my Dad's side of the family(I caught most of his dna I think because I'm also a junky which started after getting addicted to morphine after my whole colon was taken out in 1994.

I was lucky but unlucky at the same time back then, lucky because I was living near a hospital which had the best colon/rectal specialist in the US. When I woke up in pain which was quickly turned into relief with the morphine pump and great euphoria, the disgusting colostomy didn't bother me for the week I was on the pump, on the bad luck side my specialist said my colon was the worst looking sick one he had ever seen or taken out and was scared it might rupture during the removal which is why I was in surgery for a long time, I forgot but I think 3 or 4 hours.

Needless to say, I was from 130# down to a mere 90# and looked like a starving person in africa. My specialist told me while I was awake enough for a few days and euphoric and wide awake and talkative enough to talk, he said well good news is, you wont have to have that shit bag the rest of your life but you were so bad off that I even had to remove about half of your rectum or sphincter(sp)muscle so you may have to deal with this the rest of your life. I was too in love with the pump to understand what all he was saying, all I cared about was how was he going to get rid of that colostomy which I told him I would have to kill myself if I had to live with it for my life or ever again god forbid. He said "dont worry" I've been doing this modern surgery since 1982 when it was discovered.

A "j pouch" he said it was called, he was and still to this day is a cool doctor and I still have to see him every 6 months to dialate my rectum or it keeps trying to close up. For most who are unaware of stuff like this, a j pouch is a pouch made out of some of your small intestines and hooked up to your rectum so you can live a normal life without the isolation and embarassment of the dreaded colostomy. However the j pouch while not as good as a new colon, is much better than that death bag. However the pouch internally has its problems as well. I still have to use the bathroom/spend more time trying to go than normal people who take 5 mins to shit and wipe and leave, where as me, I have one embarassment to deal with the rest of my life, that is since I have no colon. When I feel the urge to go, I dont know if its a fart or turdies and when I pass gas everytime I'm in a public bathroom its alot louder than normal people, my doctor said that its because of the way the pouch is fashioned and there is no way around that.

So I'm stuck with fear of being in a bathroom too close to people, especially if I'm with family and we get invited to a dinner etc and of course when I eat alot of times right in the middle of dinner etc I have to get up and go to bathroom and if its close to the table where everyone is sitting and worse yet some people I dont know. I suffer the embarassment or finally get so sick of letting myself get backed up bloated to hell with gas that I override the fear and just let the toilet bowl rip like a harley going down the street ha ha. Relief yes but I hate having to explain to some unsympathetic looking people right in middle of eating why and what my health issue is.

I also have to deal the rest of my life with scar tissue building up inside on my intestines, which once so far hung up on another part of my intestine so bad that it totally blocked anything from getting through. That time was hell, I wound up in the er on my damn birthday of all things, not even able to hold down water and to boot they wouldn't give me shit for pain because i was on that damn suboxone and treated like a worthless addict at a corrupt uncompassionate shit hospital close to me which I will NEVER go to again. I will drive 3 and a half hours to my colon specialist who works out of the nicest hospital in Illinois.

Sorry for such long details and long story but I figure if I explain in a bit more detail what I've been through with my poor digestive system, hopefully someone else out there with ulcerative colitis(large intestine)or with crohns disease(small intestine) will know where I'm coming from and maybe be able to tell me if I should prepare for the worst or if things will only get worse as I get older.

Will I end up needing to go to a pain clinic or specialist in the future?
I'm on methadone maint 230mg 1x daily at a methadone clinic and on 20mg valium 2x daily to control my anger/nervousness, yet surprisingly I dont have any major constipation problems with opiates, probably because no colon and my little stools are so loose as it is, I'm actually glad to be on some opiate therapy to slow down things some so I only have to maybe use the bathroom 10 times a day compared to 20 or more times a day before I developed a junk habit.
Sometimes I almost wish my condition would get worse only just to the point where I will be on STRONG pain meds the rest of my life so I can get high and my situation and depression will go away then if I end up bad enough to need a pain specialist.

On the other hand being only 37, sadly I feel like I've been through the mill and feel like I'm a 50 or older male who never will get much out of life, with just a ged due to slight autisim I always attended a special school and have poor educational skills and never got far in school either, I could go on and on. But I'll end this with the hope that as bad as my life has been the past few years, that something hopefully will break through or come through soon in the end that will give me a "big breath of fresh air of opiate joy life" breathed into me soon, because shit is just pileing up lately and everything is going wrong in my life now, I mean how much worse can it get before something happy happens to me.

With the holidays coming soon, everyone out there wish me good luck and that something great will happen for me finally and my shattered life might be able to be opiated back together again or something brings me a new business that rakes in alot of money to pay of medical bills etc, win mega millions. After all I've been through so far in life I feel something big and great should come my way before I die.

Wishing you all on this board good luck for those of you suffering from what I did(chronic ulcerative colitis) or crohns disease, that you wont have to have that awful bag. If you are suffering find a colon/rectal specialist before its too late, I wish I could give out a hint of my specialist but I promised him I would not tell anyone else where he practices now, reason why is because he is getting up there in age and is stressed out with working at the hospital overtime too much and hardly gets time to spend with family even. However he has taught his specialty to specialists out of mayo clinics and there out there you just have to find them. Dont let some lousy uncompassionate hospital plain old doctor tell you like one told me. "you're colon is a piece of shit and needs to come out and we sew your asshole up so you never have to deal with that again and you get a bag on the side of you the rest of your life"

When I heard some doctor at one hospital I was at tell me that, he walked out and my Mom came in and I said get me outta here and get me to my colon specialist who I saw when I had my first few colitis flare ups, I dont care if I have to be driven 3 or 4 hours from home just get me there. That's what we did and I'll never regret it for my life, I was also treated well for my pain by compassionate nurses and my colon specialist as well and his partner who he was also training too in his profession.

That's all folks, gotta sit on the porcelain bowl again while I read "junky" some more. Gotta love Burroughs stories.

 

[sweetbeatlvr]

^^^ sounds like you've been through alot too. i feel for you.

i don't have what you have. but i get bouts of partial bowel obstruction, at times, and it is horrible. i compare it to when i gave birth. definately no picnic.

is your pain more constant with your condition?

i have a question for you... does the methadone maintanence help with your pain all day, just taking it once a day?

i've actually considered going to a clinic, because of having such a hard time finding a doctor to really help me. just didn't know if i'd get all day relief?

best wishes to you, i hope everything works out for the best.

 

[TheMatador]

^^^^^^^^^
i have always had a pretty fast metabolism and methadone has always helped me with pain relief for 24 hours

 

[Desdenova]

desdenova... do you have a diagnosis yet?

it didn't take me 2 years, but it did take quite awhile, and several, several tests (that showed nothing), before i was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia.

what kind of symptoms do you have?

No, no diagnosis.

After seeing a neurologist and having an EMG, I was told I have muscle degeneration in my right calf, with myopathy in my calves and biceps(I'm 19!), and he believed Mitochondrial Myopathy. Nerves were fine though. So he ordered a muscle biopsy of my calf.

The results were not normal, but not enough to indicate anything

So, I went to a Neuromuscular Specialist. He could find no signs of Myopathy in my EMG, and no weakness or degeneration in any muscles. Basically had the opposite opinion of the Neurologist.

He said it's probably not Mitochondrial Myopathy. But, he said even if it was, the treatment (no cure) only has a success rate of 2%. So if he could diagnose it as that, he'd tell me the exact same thing: Stick with pain management, most likely for the rest of your life

As for my symptoms:
Constant pain in my chest, random stabbing pains in my legs, severe weakness (it's actually difficult to walk up a flight of stairs, my legs ache and my heart pounds and I breath heavy like I just went running, sorta hurts my knees too), slight tremor in my right hand, some muscle twitching, back pain if I stand for more than 15 minutes, terrible insomnia (don't know if it's related or not), heart palpitations and out of breath when I lay down, hot flashes, and my stomach muscles don't pass food as fast as they should.

Basically, a whole barrel of fun.

I have finally gotten to the point where I still want to know what to call THIS but I don't need to know... but I understand that need to know what the fuck this thing ruining your life is called. What always killed me was that it was always possible some obscure disease that was easily treatable was causing this. At this point I have nerve damage so if the underlying condition was treated, the pain would likely remain permanently, but that thought used to drive me nuts.

I know how you feel

Basically, I feel like I can accept a diagnosis of some terrible, terminal illness. I would be fine with any diagnosis, treatable or not

What kills me, is that I don't know what's going to happen to my life. Whatever I have could stay where it is now for the rest of my life, or I could be in a wheelchair in a year, or I could be dead in two years. Without a diagnosis, I have no idea how this will progress, as no one won't even guess on what type of disease it is.

This unknown is what really scares me. I just want it diagnosed (whether it's untreatable, treatable, curable, or terminal) so I know what's coming

 

[Kledsky]

Chronic low back pain from surgery when 14yrs old

I had a fusion done for L5 - S1 and lamenectomy (sp?) for spondylolishtesis (sp again?) when i was 14 yrs old.

I got feeling back in my feet after the surgery so it cured my foot drop and numbness, but got severe back spasms and a constant low back ache through my 4 yrs of college.

I've done a lot to try and fix the pain without drugs, physical therapy 4 times, behavorial therapy, aqua therapy, bikram yoga, back brace, TENS unit, new bed and shoes (back kinda ones), massage, all sorts of things to many to name.

None of these worked, so i got a cat scan, xrays, and mri and it was decided that i had severe degenerative facet joints that were inflaming nerves that were running by them. So I got these things called facet injections.

The facet injections were a complete failure. SEVERE back pain for about 3 months after the shots, which on top of the usual muscle spasms turned into a sharp burning pain like i was getting stabbed by a screwdriver and sitting on a coal right below my fusion.

I went into panic attacks and depression and finally gave in and decided to take some pain pills to help, i was very reluctant to take them... Previous to the pills i was only taking wellbutrin and naproxen (ibuprofen used to work great but i get bad heart burn now) So i started on vaium which immediately cured my spasms and helped me out tremendously in calming me down and being able to control myself in life. But i still have a sharp burning pain that never goes away, only some relief when i lie in the fetal position on my side.

So i slowly have been upping the dosages to try and relieve the constant pain.
I'm now on 80mg of Kadian (40 2x's a day), 40 mg of norco's when needed, 20 mg of valium, 300 mg of wellbutrin, 500 mg 2x's a day of naproxen.

I have a doc appointment at Rush hospital in chicago with Dr. Dewald (anyone know of him?), an appointment at Biscup international in Florida and an appt. with Mayo coming up in the next 3 - 4 months. I'm going to see what they say and hopefully there's another surgery that i can have done that will fix this unbearable unlivable pain... I'm 24 now and the pain has been around since 14 yrs old. It has changed me into a completely different person.

I recommend people that are in pain every day not do what i did which was wait 8 years before taking any pain pills. If you're in severe pain that is ruining your life, take the pain pills and at least give yourself a vacation from the pain for a little bit. If you don't do this i think you'll turn out how i was which was a constant anxiety ridden depressed person that feels hopeless and has no social life. I still feel very hopeless but at least i'm not squirming around in my bed crying every night from the pain anymore and can sort of etch out a little life with what i've got.

Anyone who has chronic pain and wants to talk i'd love to please PM me. I know how horrible it is and how destroyed you can feel. I never really get to talk to anyone who i can relate to who is also in chronic pain, it's not the same talking to people who arn't because I don't think many can really imagine what it would do to you over a long term.

Peace, happy holidays.

 

[sweetbeatlvr]

so true kledsky. it does help tremendously to talk to people who have gone through the same experiences w/ pain.

chronic pain, if not controlled, can really throw one's mental state for a loop!

sorry you are dealing with such problems at such a young age.

desdenova... have they ever considered the diagnosis of Fibromyalgia for you? i have experienced all the symptoms you've listed, and that is what they say i have. although, that diagnosis, in itself, is hard to accept, beings they don't know what causes it or how to fix it.

best wishes to you.

 

[LightTrailz]

You also know what is fucking AWSOME .. being told there is no DEFINITE Dx and that you are to be stuck like you are forever with pain constantly attacking and eating away at your joints like some obnoxious rebel force of cancer and your only hope given to you by a doctor in the form of a pill bottle ...

and having to go to work everyday on top of that and listen to people bitch about what problems they have while still being able to have experienced a DECENT youth and have memories of fun times instead of filled with all that pain ... and being too stubborn to go on disability because you think i dont want to mooch off the system . but you know you dont have a choice because the outside world drives you nuts to the point where you feel like you want to SNAP!

and grab that bitch behind the counter and smash them in the face 50 million fucking times because you couldnt help them the best that you could yet it wasnt even your fault but they think it is because you were the first person they saw ! and the persons whos REAL fault it FUCKING was , was off doing god knows what in whoevers bathroom and not being able to YELL AT THEM !

err fuck i got to go back to work ..

see ya.