As most of you know- its a long road right? Well I was silly enough to think that I had maybe hit a rest stop. After trying Neurontin and Lyrica with mild success (they had the usual suspects of side effects and work for a couple of months but lost effectiveness just as I thought that I might have found my holy grail). I tried Savella. That was a disaster. I was sick for days- and I don't mean nauseous, I mean something is really wrong having a reaction should stop taking and call your doctor sick. I had similar experiences with Cymbalta and Paxil (I took Paxil years ago for migraines- which it turns out was the beginning of my Fibro). I have taken Zoloft for 4 years with success and it too lost its effectiveness. And then I tried Effexor, Lexapro and...
AS most of you I have had numerous doctors of all different types. Right now I am seeing a pain mgt doc. We have just increase my Topamax to the largest allowable dose of 400mgs/day Tramadol 300mgs/4hours, 1500mgs/Robaxin- 3 times/day. And even though it worked really well four months ago when I first started it, its not working now. And this is exactly how it went on the others. But each time I go in to see the Doctor he keeps asking me how the Savella was or he says "So the Savella really didn't work huh?" and the last time he asked me what other anti-depressants I had tried, well his pen went into overdrive trying to keep up! I am all for exhausting my options- but I have given it the old college try don't you think? I went into it on Vicodin asking for better pain treatment, and yes, I was hoping for something in the Narcotic group that would work for sure quickly and get me back into my life since I had already lost over a year of it trying to get the dx and treatment up to that point. When he said that he didn't think that was a good idea I went with what he said because he was the doctor and lets try it. But now I believe I have literally tried it all. Up to this point I have been able to side step his suggestions of the anti-depressants because there was still wiggle room to up my current meds. But now I am at a cross roads. It was hard for me to get off the Zoloft once it stop working (actually it was worse that hard). And since the Zoloft didn't actually help the pain the good it may do is not worth the bad it will do.
So I need some advice on how to nicely, but firmly, explain to him that anti-depressants are not an option for my future treatment as they have not been successful in my past treatment; and I need to know how to ask for pain medicine without asking for pain medicine. I don't need to be humiliated and degraded on top of miserable. I am no longer interested in pain prevention- that ship has sailed. Now I want pain control. And I need him to realize that at this point, the pain levels are intruding in my life to the point that it is being interrupted. And that can't happen. I am all alone, and because of that I have to support myself. I have to work. I have to pay my bills. I have to pay my mortgage. I have to keep my job. And I have a great job in a small area so getting another job like this if I lose this job would literally be impossible (literally-I would have to take a job that pays literally half). I guess now that I am reading it- my life looks pretty sad. So he better get me some good pain medicine so I can go out and embellish it a little huh?
Well thanks for letting me unload- I don't post often but it seems to be pretty lengthy when I do. As I said- I am all alone, but when I am on here I don't feel so much so. Thank you.