This is my first time posting on a thread, so please bear with me. I'm a single mother of 2 wonderful children, and I've been dx'd with Lupus, hx of dvt's, antiphospholipid syndrome, Raynaud's phenomenon, RA, scoliosis, kyphosis, and some discs in my lower back are screwed up. My PM dr office is currently working to get me set up with a surgeon for my lower back, but have no idea as to what he/she is planning on doing. I understand that a lot of these surgeons do something called a spinal fusion for the initial surgery??? Anyways, as far as my meds are concerned, I'm currently prescribed 240 norcos per month, and have been on several stronger meds, which include methadone, fentanyl, butrans patch, and now, exalgo. The strength of my norcos are 7.5/325, which have done pretty good as far as breakthrough PM. As for the stronger ones, it went like this: the methadone made me have preventricular contractions of my heart (which I also have a mechanical mitral heart valve), so my PM dr didn't like that at all!!! Although, the methadone was good for PM. The fentanyl was wonderful!!! Fentanyl has, so far, been the only stronger med that has allowed me to cut way back on my norcos, due to the very high success rate that worked for me
! Then, the allergic skin reactions began where ever I put the patches onto my skin...I would scratch around it so badly, especially at night, that I would wake up in the mornings with blood on my fingernails & around the patch! So, my PM dr took me off of that, and proceeded to put me on the butrans patch...might as well have stuck a patch of water onto my skin...didn't do jack squat:(. Although, I did like the idea of only having to change it every 7 days! Now, my PM dr has started me on the Exalgo ER. I enjoy only having to take 1 pill once a day, but these don't seem to be helping, either. My dr has increased my dose 2x already, and he said yesterday that if this last dose increase isn't working within a month, then he's going to do another med change. All of this explaining has finally gotten me to my question: What could possibly be next? Or, what has really worked for anyone in my similar set of circumstances? Also, at the beginning, when I first started seeing my PM dr, he first started me on Ultram, but quickly went to the norcos after about
2 wks of nothingness with the Ultrams. Does anybody have any suggestions as far as what could be next in my line of treatment? Thank you to anybody who responds to my question!!! I really appreciate any help that you can give me ahead of time