How I keep qaulity of life with chronic pain

Hi. I have been in a motorcycle accident , and lost my lower right leg.
It is chronic pain. This is not totally off topic , but a little bit random.
I take pain meds. I find the most helpfull way to deal with my pain is to go on and off the meds.

Not advice, just what I do. If I go two days off the pain meds the pain is there, about an eight on the scale from 8-1o. I have found that I avoid dependency on pain meds, and when I take the meds they are much more effective. I have learned like in life if you take the ups with the downs that it is beneficial. I see pain as not something totally bad. Face it if you have chronic pain your in for a ride.

You can use meds, become dependent, then the meds lose their potency, and you have to up your dosage, or if you don't have them for a few day's there is the withdrawals. if it has to be a battle, I find that a little pain is part of the journey. Pain like i said for me is not a totally bad thing. It keeps me angry, it lets me know Im alive, and instead of sitting around all day on pain meds, it gives me a little bit of a challenge in life. It's hard, but I like the the two polar extremes. It keeps me going, it keeps my spirit alive. Pain can be my friend , it let's me know I'm still alive, and helps me keep my edge.

The result is after a day or two when I do my pain med's the relief is worth the fight I had to go through to get it. Just like sometimes lifes ups arent worth the downs when the downs are happening , but then the up's come and seem to make the downs worth while. It's a struggle, but I like that. Like I said it keeps me on my toes, gives me a challenge, keeps me mad, and focused.

Result is no dependency on meds, and when I take them wow, they feel great. Now Im not in pain as like a ten on the scale, that might be another story, but this is just my story.

"instead of sitting around all day on pain meds..."

That part struck me as odd. In general, pain meds are supposed to allow one to live life more fully, rather than to sit around all day because of pain. My personal rule for taking any pain medication is that it allows me to be more like the pre-pain "me" than without it. If it made me "sit around all day," and some of them have, I'd request a change, but fortunately I've gotten off those quickly and found something better. For me, it's all or nothing. Either the pain medication improves my overall quality of life, in which case I'd see no reason to stop taking it until conditions change, or I'm off it for good.

Hello and welcome. I wonder, what are you angry about? Why would you want to stay mad? Denying yourself pain relief for a few days so that the meds 'make you feel great'? Really? Sounds more like an addictive behavior than taking meds every day does. Sort of like denying then bingeing. All about controlling something that is beyond ones control. Far from acceptance.

I'm just down to the bone 24/7....luv not being fake, luv this war, luv myself.
Pitmom, thanks for your response to this post. I just wanted to answer your question. Men our more violent then woman. The world is dangersous place, god created the world and said it was dangerous, but it was good. He made man dangerous to step in front of a bullet for somebody, to die by doing the right thing no matter what, Now that is a dangerous man. I don't write much on the internet, cause the misinformation is rampid about any one subject, nothing is informal unless your sure of it's source which is pretty much impossible, cause, people can lie as easy with the words that come out of thier mouth as they can by using a typewriter. War is neccesary, no the kind you think maybe, Just that life is a war, and our soul's are the front line. As far as an addictive tendency by stayin off meds, so i avoid dependency and " feel great". no. I'snt that the point of the meds ...to feel great! Will I surely do. Not zombied out.....just my method

Post Edited (freeofpain) : 4/29/2015 3:19:12 PM (GMT-6)

I'm curious if any studies show that taking a medicine five days a week instead of seven prevents dependency, or if there are anecdotal examples of people who have taken medicines five days a week, then stopped cold turkey with none of the withdrawal symptoms they would have had if they'd taken the same dosage seven days a week.

I actually used to follow the rule of not taking pain meds two days in a row... did that from 2005-2008. While I think it may be salient to not developing tolerance (as it is not always in system, brain isn't going to adapt to a new norm), the problem is that I more or less spent the days in bed when not taking the meds.

As tolerance is a significant problem, I agree it is important to consider one's level of use from the start. I regret spending about 3 years on oxycontin and now think that meds would be more effective now if I didn't.

agree with your 2 cents mel. healing thoughts.

Of course, whatever works best for an individual is what works best for them. I wonder, though, if we're talking about two, probably three different problems that the five-day-a-week schedule is supposed to address.

There's tolerance, where one's body becomes acclimated and needs more of the same medicine to achieve the same level of pain relief, even though there's no increase in the underlying pain.

Then there's dependency/addiction, and there's really two sides to that. There's physical addiction, where one goes through withdrawals upon stopping the medicine, even though one has no mental craving for the medicine. Then there's mental addiction, where one wants the medicine psychologically.

A five-day schedule might be useful for the latter, to prove to oneself one can go without--though two days seems pretty short to really show anything. But that's something an individual can only decide for themselves.

I'm most curious if there's any evidence about preventing physical withdrawals. I was on morphine for several months and then other treatments reduced my pain so I didn't need it, so I had to go through physical withdrawals. Yuck! I had zero mental craving though and was just thinking how glad I was to not need it, right through the withdrawals.

If I ever need to take morphine again and there's a chance I'll also have to get off it later if they come up with some other temporary miracle treatment, I'd rather not go through withdrawals again. But I'm just not thinking five vs seven days is enough to prevent withdrawals, but I dunno. Is there any actual evidence of this?

I think we've all got our own struggles and battles every day.