Shoulder pain 4 shoulder surgeries and fusion in the neck and.....

Hey Mikesgurl...

Welcome to the board. I'm sorry, though, for everything that brings us all to this place :(

It's sounds like your pain levels are way too high. While I don't know much about your particular pain issues - I'm a veteran to chronic pain, unfortunately.

My first thing is - are you seeing a pain management doctor? If not - that would be my first advice.

Second, you are on "relatively" a very low dose of narcotics. Have you tried anything else? Many of us here take an "extended release" (ER) med... something like morphine, oxycontin, fentanyl and so forth. On top of that - many of us also use a "breakthrough" (BT) med for the times where we have a pain surge... that can be percocet, oxycodone, instant morphine, dilaudid and so forth.

I don't know if you have muscular pain, too.... but my muscle relaxer also works to decrease my pain. In fact, right now it works better than my narcotics!

Finally, most of us come here seeking support - and many of us have formed very close friendships - for the exact reason that you write. I really don't talk about my pain issues w/ anyone except my friends here. It's very hard to talk about it w/ someone who doesn't suffer from chronic pain. Even if the people in our lives DO understand pain issues - it's often easier to have an outside source to vent and share the good/bad times. So - we welcome you here... and hope you'll stay and let us get to know you.

Again, welcome.... --Tina

Thank you for your replies, I am currently in pain management and have been for quite some time.  I feel like I have tried just about everything.  I have a tenz? not sure how to spell it but it only seems to make the spasms worse and muscle relaxer put me on my rear end if you get my meaning, and the one that was suppose to be one that didn't cause a lot of drowsiness made me vomit.  I have since being on all of these meds developed an ulcer so anitinflammatory medication has been taken off of the table.  I have an appointment with my surgeon on the 22nd of February and am not looking forward to what he might have to say.  I keep going back to the words of several surgeons that refused to help me in the beginning which was "you will be lucky if you can continure to brush your own teeth".  I don't feel that getting to this state is an option for me, I keep seeking ways to get better but have failed at finding a complete recovery.  It seems that I get something repaired temporarily and something else goes horribly wrong.  Until I see my surgeon I will just continue my pain management which I have to say my doctors there are wonderful and are truly trying to help me find relief.  In the beginning of this going down hill quickly I was determined not to become dependent on medication but it is truly the only way I can dress myself and make it through the day.  I feel myself becoming more and more frustrated and at times truly depressed.  I don't want this life, I want to go back and be the woman I was when I was serving my country and exercising, I can't even do a wall pushout without excrutiating pain I can't even imagine getting on the floor to do a true push up.  I am afraid I am going to wake up one day and just be thankful that I CAN brush my teeth and that scares me oh so much.  I can barely hold my grandchildren at all just sitting in my lap, the fear of dropping them is more than I can bare when they are with me.  I know I am rambling but I fear if I don't, the bottling up that I have been guilty of as of late will be the end of my emotional stability.  I am so thankful that I found this forum and would like to be able to contiue coming here to vent.    

Hello Mikesgurl!

Welcome, and we do understand all that you have said about your suffering. There are choices though, and only you can determine which is the lesser of the two evils. Of course we become dependent on long term pain med's, but for many of us it is a blessing and gives us some sort of a better quality of life than if we did not.

Forget the related stigma that often comes with the scripts of such med's, and remember that while they may reduce your pain, they will not in many cases remove it completely.

Look at all of your options, and ask what your chances are for a good outcome with surgery. For some our pain is so bad, and if we chose not to have surgery, then we may end up far worse. I don't know all of the med's you have tried, but I agree with Tina that 10mg of Percocet every 6hr's seems awfully low for the type of pain that you describe. Have you tried other pain med's such as those that Tina described to you?

There is also a pain pump and might very well be a better way for you to go. Don't give up, and please seek out pain management that best suites your pain. All of us here suffer from pain and mostly on a 24/7 bases. We understand!

Take care, and please follow up on a report back to us. We invite you to make this your family of support.

SE

Went to pain management today....  the decision was to stay on the same dose until I see my surgeon.  My PM doctor called and had the appointment changed from the 22nd to the 15th with my surgeon.  I will call tomorrow to confirm the new appointment.  The pain management doctor apparently did find a place to press and make me scream.  I am thankful that she is so understanding about my pain but would just like to go into one of those appointments and have them give me a miracle medication to make it all stop.  I am in a way looking forward to the appointment with the surgeon.  I don't want to think about another surgery but it is looking as if there might not be another option.  All is well though I still have my positive attitude today.  I pray the positive attitude stays with me permanently, don't like the way I have been feeling about it all lately.  I pray this finds everyone having a better than expected day.  Again just trying to stay positive and hold on until I can get some answers or solutions.  Have to be up by 4 am which is the usual rise and shine time so I need to put myself to bed. 

I finally got in to see my surgeon.  As to why I am having so much pain was explained during the visit.  I am now bone on bone in my clavical.  It's called acromioclavicular, or AC, arthritis.  He gave me if I recall correctly 3 injections in the joint so I am trying to recover from that right now.  The injections should  relieve the pain but he wants to go in and cut off the end of the clavical so I'm not chipping away at it all the time.  I'm not thrilled about the idea of having it done but he said its at least a start.  He's pretty sure that's not all we are dealing with but we will try to deal with one thing at the time for now.  This is my left shoulder, he said we would also address the right shoulder at a later date.  He said there are to many things to try to take on at once but I am mentally better just knowing that we can get started on doing something to relieve some of the pain.