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
