Hi you definitely need to see a specialist, they will treat you and either treat your pain by them self or send you to a pain clinic for pain treatment. You are definitely undertreated for pain and something has to be done. If it gets too bad, go to the ER and bring any evidence you have supporting your condition (x-rays,medical records, MRIs etc.), then tell them your docs name so they can call him and get all of your info, this is so that they do not think that you are drug seeking and just blow you off.
I suffer from very severe chronic daily headaches which I have had for about
2 years now. They basically completely destroyed my life and after some ER visits and a hospitalization for a week (getting their most intense headache treatments and then being discharged with them telling me that there was nothing left for them to do, quite depressing for me) I was still the same, ( that is laying in bed in excruciating pain all day barely able to function, I went to school 1-1 and 1/2 days per week). I spent all of the 2 years trying a large array of preventatives and none have done a thing for me. None of the triptans worked and nor did toradol. After the hospitalization i was given 4mg Dilaudid 1 time per day to take at bedtime so I could fall asleep. Eventually my doc gave me two per day so I could have some semblance of pain relief, that is 3-4 hours of pain relief during the day and then sleep. I then decided that enough was enough and that I needed to get my life back. I was about
to graduate (if I could get back to school and do my work), and I NEEDED to get to college next year. I went to my doctor and told her that I needed pain relief while we search for an answer for my headaches. because it was now apparent that an answer may never come. Flash forward to now and I am on 20mg of Methadone (10mg twice a day) and Dilaudid 4mg up to twice a day for breakthrough pain. It has literally saved my life. I am now in college and I have not missed a class yet, in almost a month. That would have been unconceivable 9months ago. I am so grateful for this I strongly advocate the use of opioids for people suffering from chronic pain, I believe that it can literally SAVE LIVES. I also take 150mg of Lyrica twice a day as well as 100mg of Topamax, I have taken countless other preventatives. I am not sure how much the Topamax and the Lyrica are helping but I am doing well now so I dont want to change anything and rock the boat. Now that I am on the Methadone, triptans worked to a limited degree and I also take Maxalt melt tabs, but they only work for a couple hours. I also take Toradol which seems to help also. Both the Maxalt and Toradol only help if the breakthrough headache is only moderate in severity. I take reglan for nausea also. I have taken so many other PRNs other than these I dont think I could name them all, but they did not work, or they had terrible side effects.
I hope that you can find relief soon, just make sure to get yourself to a specialist, and go to the ER if the pain gets too intense (remember what I said about
bringing your evidence). Good luck, I know what it is like to suffer and have no relief, it is really wearing on you and it feels terrible, but keep pushing on and you will find relief.
Good luck and I hope you have a pain-free day,
Circa
Post Edited (Circa1988) : 9/17/2007 11:22:08 PM (GMT-6)