Posted 7/30/2008 11:00 PM (GMT 0)
Hope things are going better for you. I feel for you with the uncontrollable pain. I've been on Kadian in the past & am prescribed Actiq now. I'm not sure if there are different manufacturers of the generic Actiq, but I've found that CVS seems to charge the least for the generic out of the places by me. They charge less for generic Actiq than for Fentora; as someone mentioned, you do have to stay on top of your oral hygiene. I have sealants on my back teeth. The Actiq ruins them about half of them every couple of years; but for $10 a piece, it's still worth paying for sealants over getting cavities.
As for other meds, maybe Dilaudid would work for you on the really bad days. It takes longer to kick in than the Actiq (about 30 minutes, compared to 10 for Actiq) and doesn't last as long as Kadian (only about 3-4 hours), but it's awfully strong & has helped me be able to get out of bed & take care of myself on the very worst days. I'm not sure how it compares with Norco [I've never heard of that med], but when my pain gets completely out of control, I can take the Diluadid for a few days until I'm feeling better & then go back on my normal routine. It is even harder to get off of than Actiq -- and Actiq is no picnic to quit if you take it consistently for several months -- so hopefully you wouldn't have to take it for too long but at least that way you can get the pain back under control & live a more active life.
PS -- I always worry about asking for my meds to be upped or changed, too. I see people get kicked from the pain clinic I go to & worry that might happen to me. The thing is, though, that if you listen to how addicts talk about pain meds & how normal people in pain talk about them, you'll see there's a pretty big difference. Most of the one's I've talked to who've ended up getting kicked from the clinic aren't asking for specific meds; they're asking the doc for "whatever's the strongest thing there is". That's a crazy concept to the rest of us. Non-addicts don't want their lives to be a blur. If your doc's a pain specialist, he's trained in how to tell the difference. If not, there are psych work-ups that can be ordered to show you don't have an addictive personality (my previous doc ordered them on all his patients prior to writing any Schedule II's). One thing that might help you to remember is that your doctor already has you on a lot of strong medications, and he wouldn't keep prescribing them to you if he thought you were drug-seeking.