Pain beyond endurance!!

 

I'm insane in pain today!!!  As much as I can always type a book for everyone else, I'm lost in what to do to get this pain under control today. It's been building for the last few days and every day is worse.  I swear it's making me the most impossible person to live with!  I don't know what to do!!

I have plenty of left "saved" meds and could easily take an extra dose or two, but I'm afraid of getting used to that dose.  Yesterday, I took my last dose early and it helped so much that I fell asleep in my recliner and slept for three hours straight!!  I NEED that much all the time now, but that's not going to happen with my PM and my next apt is for the RFA at the end of March.  I just heard an add on TV for orthrascopic laser facet ablations (sp?) within an hour and half of here and OMG does this sound better than what I have done now. 

Something has got to give.  I know I can take some of my back-up meds and I'm afraid I'm going to do that even though I know I shouldn't but I'm insane with this pain and I can't take it anymore.  The ER is not an option, as I'm sure so many of you understand.  It's not going to get better and I know that.  I can live knowing that things are going to get worse, but I want something to help me live with the pain!!!!  I ususally know that I've overdone it when it gets like this, but I honestly didn't.  The only thing I did was to sleep with a type of pj's that have a very small (and extremely loose) band around the waist!  The small bands honestly feel like they are using a powercord to cut my back in half.  It doesn't matter how loose it is or anything else.  Of course, I won't do that again, but for now.....what????  I'm sitting on a heated blanket...in a recliner, have taken my meds over an hour ago, and am getting no relief. 

I know I'm whining, but at least I can do that here without being judged for complaining!

Thanks for listening.

Good morning RetiredMom.  I'm retired too, so now I have to help with grandchildren, which causes way too much pain.

I don't take my pain med at night, so in the morning it takes an hour and a half to get going, and I don't really get relief until my second dose of the day.  All I get is tramadol  which wakes me up - reason I don't take it in evening.  I only get 3 (50mg) and need them all to get through the day.  Doc said to take another if I need it, but only prescribed 3 a day, so there's not enough for an extra.  4 Advil (200mg each) is my breakthrough med. 2 wasn't nearly enough to do anything.  (Advil comes in 800mg, which is .8grams, for clinical use. 3.2 grams is max clinical for a day.)

I also take one amitriptyline and alternate between 1 mg melatonin and temazepam half an hour before bedtime.  That combination working well, so I don't usually need Ambien for sleep anymore.  I wake up in the middle of the night in pain, but I'm sleepy enough to go back to sleep.  Amitriptyline helps some people with pain, but it usually has to build up in the system and needs to be taken more than once a day.  Your doc might prescribe one of those meds since they're not narcotic. 

I was taking Celebrex, because some of my pain is shoulder post-op, but it gave me a lot of stomach pain.  It helped a lot, much better than Advil.  None of the other NSAIDS worked at all.

Hi Retired Mom
I would have to agree that taking extra when things are that bad is probably warranted. Maybe you have inflamed something and it's gonna take some time to heal up. I know feeling guilty about taking extra pain meds all to well. I usually go through a bout of self doubt about it until I finally give in and than wish I had of saved myself the mental stress of it all and just took the extra from the start. By the sounds of it, your not the type of person to go crazy taking more meds. Once things are under control you can readjust your dose. After all it sounds kinda of silly to have pain meds and be in great pain when you don't have to be. I would certainly mention it to your doctor. I wish you all the best and hope things get alot better for you. Take care.
Stingray

Thank you all for you kind advice!

I did take the extra and it did help...but I kept it to a very small dose.

Regarding the saved meds...I have meds left from when they changed me from one dose to another...plus, I sometimes fall asleep and don't get the last dose for the day. Since I'm sleeping, I don't see it as an issue to miss the dose. I'm not going to take meds I don't need simply to keep the numbers exact. Also, if I happen to sleep late, I can't take everything as I normally would because it would be too much during a specific period of time. I'm very cautions about keeping things safe with meds. Also, I don't want to suffer as so many here have if the PM quits or decides to stop prescribing meds. I don't ever want to go through withdrawals when I can prevent it....and you never know.

I keep up with the meds I take every day and make sure I don't doubletake, as I'm sure all of you understand. I have to use an app called RemindMeRX on my iphone. It is a Godsend. With this one (I've mentioned it before), the med reminder alerts are sent out and turn red until you take it or skip it. It keeps a record of exactly what time you click to say you took the med and is great for showing the Dr exactly what time you took something or for keeping you on track. I'm sure everybody has been in a meeting or somewhere where they could not take their meds exactly at the time they should. It happens fairly often when you have a large number of Dr's. Anyway, I can click the med when I take it and then look back and adjust my next dose accordingly. I don't want to be too looped to function and I will be if I doubledose.

I have to admit that Stingray was right about feeling silly when you have pain relief on hand just sitting there and are in agony. I did feel kind of silly once I got it under control :) It's so different when you are in the pain and can't think of what to do.

Lindaloo....I am sooo with you on this! I WISH my PM were the kind to understand and up meds when they are needed, but he is not. I stay on the fence with this office and I won't bore you again with the details. I've discussed it here so many times. Options are limited. Realistically I know that I'm not going to cause a problem, but I have this friend who's husband is CP and such an addict to pain meds. He is always in my mind because he was horribly injured in an accident as a trooper (smashed between two vehicles) and then became addicted to pain meds. Now....well he's taken too many and takes too many any time he gets the chance. It's really sad and I would never want to lead myself down that path. I don't think I could...but who am I to judge him?

None the less...thank you All for you advice. I appreciate it and it did help when I needed the support so badly!

Thanks Snowbunny! I had never heard this about the recliner before....even when I mentioned it several times at the PM office. I've told them several times that I spend a great deal of time in my recliner with a heated blanket on my back.

I will try to do better and go to the bed if I can for naps and the like. I can understand the reasoning, but it surely feels better to be in the recliner than in the bed...in fact, I often have to get up from the bed at night and sit in the recliner to get some relief.

I am happy to see you back posting and look forward to "talking" to you again soon.

Again, thanks for the imput!

Hi RetiredMom, I'm glad you got the pain back to a controllable level. I do the same with mine btw if I'm sleeping I am not about to set a timer to wake me up to take a pill so that just goes into my emergency bottle.
Take care and never feel like you have to suffer if you have the solution at hand, I don't want to be one of "those" pain pill people either but I take them when I need them not to get a high.

I have felt like that many days myself. I don't want to go over what is prescribed for fear the doc will think I am using it more for the pleasure feeling instead of the pain. It's sad that people that have abused the pain meds that don't need it have given us who do need it a bad name. I am taking percocet 5-325 mg twice a day and a muscle relaxer, but some days the pain gets so bad it causes me to have minor panic attacks. My doc gives me xanax as well as a daily antianxiety called buspar. Maybe something like that can help. When I take the xanax it seems to help alot.
Hope you feel better soon.