This past Monday I had yet another appointment with my Pain doctor. She’s really a family practice doctor who happens to specialize in pain. She treats a number of people, even so rather well known people – so she’s gained a good reputation as a pain specialist.
She’s disappointed that the many pain meds that she’s put me on haven’t been helping all that much.
We aren’t going to try the synthetic marijuana again. When I told her that I was out of it for a few days after trying my first one, and that the same thing happened when I tried it again she thought the side effects were too much. It’s surprising though, considering that I’m on some very heavy pain medication you’d think the nabilone wouldn’t have hit me so hard. Oh well.
She also talked about weaning me off some of the pain meds that I’m currently on – again, since they haven’t had spectacular results. When she said she might take me off some of my meds I was terrified. They have helped me. Much more than she realizes.
I’ve been in pain on and off since 1992. I never had any pain medication at all. So that means I had no form of relief until I met this pain doctor in January 2006. With this latest Crohn’s flare that’s being going on since the fall of 2004 I was in terrible terrible pain. It was just getting worse and worse. Before being started on some pain meds in January of 2006 I could barely function. I was just lying on the couch all day. Not being the tiniest bit productive.
When I started taking the pain medication I got up off the couch. I started this blog and within a few months several others. I found a way to make money from home. Now, while I’m still not all that physically active, at least I can tolerate sitting up and moving around my own home. I can think more clearly too. When the pain wasn’t being controlled everything was just a fog and my concentration levels were very low.
So the pain meds didn’t help me get back to work. Unfortunately not. However, they did help me get a bit of my life back, not as much as I hoped, but through my work on the computer and the earnings I’m bringing in I feel like a contributing member of this household again.
I don’t think she’d ever completely take me off my medications. Well, if I really started to improve and get better certainly I wouldn’t need them anymore, but while I’m still sick I’d better stay on some. I can’t imagine going back to being unproductive and in constant severe pain 24/7 again. I’d lose my ability to make some income too.
Yes I still have some days when I’m in severe pain, and most days there’s at least moderate pain. The pain meds have cut my pain levels by at least 50% when they are working. Unfortunately, Crohn’s is a disorder that affects your digestive system and I know for a fact that my body doesn’t always absorb the pain medications that I take. How … well lets just keep it simple and say pain meds float. Ok? So, on the days that the pain meds move too quickly through my system it’s literally like I haven’t taken any pain meds at all.
I think after explaining the “digestive problem” to her, and that the pain meds have helped to some degree she understands. She did take me off the nabilone that I only tried twice. As I said the side effects were really bad and literally put me back on the couch with a spinning head and blurred vision, and she took me off another medication called Tramacet which is a mild morphine derivitate – similar to tylenol with codeine (I’m allergic to codeine so I couldn’t take tylenol #3, and this med was like tyl #3).
Well see how I do without the tramacet. It definitely didn’t do as much as the other and much stronger pain meds that I’m on.
Maybe I should put a disclaimer at the end of my posts? “This post has been brought to you by the benifits of strong pain meds.” It might help explain some of my stranger posts. LOL
They need to make sub-lingual pain meds! Skip the whole digestive system all together!! I hope you start feeling better soon! But I do have one thing that is sure to put a smile on your face!!!
Twenty Five Hundred Dollars!!
Did it work???
After having serious *digestive* problems myself – I find I have to avoid codeine altogether as is slows the digestive tract down altogether.
Post op when I was having serious pain issues they gave me some medication that I took under the tongue – and went direct into the blood stream that way – it might be worth asking if there are any similar that you can use ?
Tricia, I could relate to so much of what you said here! I have fibromyalgia and the IBS that many times accompanies it. I take pain meds on a daily basis, too, although I try every few weeks or so to go without for awhile, so that they will work better when I do go back on them. I hate hate hate that week or so that I’m off them (it’s what I’m doing right now…ugh), but I think it may help with keeping me from abusing them. It would be so easy to do that, because I feel so much better when I take them, of course, although I’m never totally pain-free ever.
I feel for you and hope that you can find a good method of relief soon!
Robyn – yes that kind of did help. LOL
I can’t think of any sub-lingual pain meds and I’m a nurse. There are many sub-lingual relaxants like valium (ativan etc). perhaps that’s what you were given MsDemmie?
Kylee if the pain meds are helping you might be doing more harm pain cycle wise by going on and off them. I understand that you don’t want to get addicted or too used to your pain meds, I don’t either. I think it’s better to try to slow down on them than to stop them completely for a short while though. Pain runs in cycles and pain meds try to break that cycle … when trying to treat a pain cycle that’s severe it’s really hard for the first few doses of pain meds to get on top of the pain and control it … I bet in the first day or two that you go back on your meds you take more than you usually do, or your maximum dosage to get control of the pain again. That’s not good either.
Is it a strange co-incidence that I used to work in a Pain clinic for ten years and that just prior to working there until now I’ve been a chronic pain sufferer thanks to the crohn’s disease? Strange huh? I have a weird insite into chronic pain through my experience in treating other sufferers as a nurse and through my own experience with crohn’s.
BTW I’m still in pain and I’ve been very sick over the last several days. I’m getting fevers every two hours or so. It’s crazy. That’s why I haven’t been writing very much over the last few days. Sorry!
Hi Tricia, Thanks for this insightful article on pain. I have digestive problems as well as a few other health problems with my feet and balance. I’m in the UK, so not sure what its called in the USA, but I take tramadol for all my pains, as I too have an adverse reaction to codeine!