What's some popular relievers for cp?? I know everyone's different, but what's the most popular?

It depends on too many things-like what type of pain. From your list it sounds like you might have either nerve pain or inflamation causing pain in which case you have tried the most common things.
Tramadol is a non narcotic pain reliever.

sorry, straydog, I was just wondering what others are taking as I am new to cp.....why does it seem that everything I type is wrong and a moderater is telling me I'm doing something wrong, hmmmm, I'm certainly NOT feeling all the "love" I was promised upon joining this forum!

Blondie, I don't remember not one Moderator or member judging you here on this forum. We are here to help and assist members, but in order to do that, it would help if we had a little more background on your health problems. Pain Medications cover a wide area of health problems.

Fibro can certainly be treated with different med's than maybe lower back pain. so it would help if we knew what type of pain related health condition you are suffering from.

I see that you are a fairly new member, and maybe I missed your introduction. Could you please tell us a little about yourself and what your pain is related to?

I do agree wholeheartedly in that the question is very general and we could guess all day long as to what you are seeking for an answer.
Also we do not seek out the so called most popular pain med's when seeking treatment. (narcotic or non-narcotic) I would advise you to visit with you're PM or PCD, who should be familiar with your case history and what would work best for you.

Again, could you be a little more specific in your request and what are you being treated for?

Thanks!

SE

Blondie, I am not sure what you are talking about as far as mods telling you that you are doing something wrong here at the forum. We do have forum rules in place set out by the administrator of the forum that we all must follow. And we do ask that all members become familiar with the rules. By having the rules in place it makes rowing the boat in one direction a lot easier.

However, with that being said, again the question you posed about pain medication is just too broad of a question for anyone to answer. I am not trying to be flip. There is not a group of favorites in pain medication that I am aware of, it is not a personal preference thing, its what your drs are willing to rx and what works for the person. Since we all metabolize medications so differently its impossible to tell you what will or will not work for you. CP is a very individual type of illness and treating it works the same way. What may help me have no effect on you at all. It is a matter of finding what works the best for the patient and mostly done by trial and error. Since you are new to CP you have a long road ahead of you and hopefully your PM dr will be able to pinpoint what works the best for you early into the program.

I notice you have Fibro listed in your signature line and can tell you first hand the most of the traditional pain medications will have little effect on your pain, as they tend not to work well on nerve pain. Medications, like Lyrica, Neurotin, Cymbalta and so on have been favorable to many of the Fibro people here at HW. It is a matter of titrating the dosage upwards to get the best benefit. I do hope your dr is able to get you on something soon that gives you some relief.

Although I resisted for years, I just had my first treatment by acupuncture. it was very helpful I have been to dozens of pain doctors, used up to 300mg morphine er daily, and tried everything. I am seeing a doctor of Traditional Chinese Medicine and was very impressed. This is day three I have cut back 1/2 on my morphine as I konw it will take a long time to taper off it, but so far so good, it may be something you should try. I have been told however that it should be done by someone with traditional chinese training, many chiropractors have attempted to add it to thier bag or trticks, and take quick fix courses. A doctor of traditional chinese medicine has five years of study and a much better background. The only down side is that although people claim that they do not really feel the needles I did experience quite a bit of pain in certain areas. In fcat I had to ask the doctor to remove one of the needles from my finger it hurt so much. But today on day three I am in a lot less pain and will be going back Friday for another session.

Welcome to the forums Blonide. :)

You do have some options when it comes to non narcotic pain relief but just like narcotic relievers, they all have their own set of risks.

Celebrex is commonly prescribed as an NSAID, and has less stomach effects than ibuprofen. This is due to the fact that it has less cox1 side effects, but still affects maintains much of the cox2 effects, which is what helps with inflamation.

Presnidone is a steroidal anti inflammatory that is stranger than ibu, but its generally only safe to use for a short period of time (mainly for flair ups). If its used for an extended period of time, it causes hormonal dependency and can weaken your body's own anti inflammatory effects and make you more susceptible to getting sick as it can also cause immune system issues (again, if used for a shorter period of time, this shouldn't be an issue).

Someone mentioned Tramadol and that can be a good help for Neuropain. It is considered a "mild" narcotic with very weak narcotic activity similiar to darvocet (although its a safer drug). Its main mechanism of action is through the moderately weak serotonin and nor-ephedrine repuptake inhibition, so it acts similiarly to but not exactly the same as an anti depressant. The other alternative is what I use for chronic pain called Tapendatol (Nucynta). It would be considered a low end "moderate narcotic and stronger than tramadol in that respect, but its narcotic activity is weaker than that of percocet and morphine. However, like tramadol it has a second mechanism of action, which is that it is a moderately strong nor-ephedrine reuptake inhibitor but has only minor action on seratonin. Both medications can however cause serotonin syndrome, thought that more common happens with tramadol than tapentadol/nucynta. Both medications are good (for some people atleast) in treating chronic pain as due to their lower opioid action, the body builds tolerance slower.

Blondie,

Thanks for the post. I am so happy that you are less unhappy with us moderators! But I know how pain can take you over. We have all been there and know exactly how you feel.

I hope you get your meds squared away and that you are finally out of pain, or at least, have the pain lowered significantly. Please know my prayers are with you.

By the way, I think you are someone I would like to get to know better, so post often, ok?

God bless.

Lindaloo

Well, I guess the think is though, is I'm looking for something I don't have to be on the rest of my life.  I want to get back to where I was a few years ago where I kept my cp & fm at bay by taking supplements, exercising regularly, eating right, getting enough sleep, and reducing stress.  My regime DOES work, taking 6 - 8 tramadol/day plus 2 -4 xanax, plus gabapentin, but I don't want to take this every day for the rest of my life.  I think my dr thinks that this other dr can give me something, such as suboxen for a temporary treatment so that I can, once again, be free of meds.  I am concerned that I will never be free from meds, cuz, really, even during that 5 year period where I took zero medication, I took over 3,000mg of ibprofin per day.....that's what led me to the dr in the first place.

I welcome your thots and advice, thank you!! 

Blondie, concerning your situation, I would have to agree with straydog. Suboxone is not a good choice for pain management unless other narcotics have failed, and even then there are some considerations that really must be carefully weighed.

Please take what I say only with a grain of salt as I may know a lot about the "synthetics" but I'm surely no expert or qualified to give professional advice.

Suboxone was traditionally used as a alternative to methadone for addiction treatment. Methadone tends to have prolonged withdraws, especially at the doses needed to treat an addict (in referring to addict, I'm specifically referring to those that ventured into drug seeking and consumed several times the amount of drugs needed for pain management in order to cause emotional numbing or euphoria. I say this because using prescribed amounts in accordance with doctors can lead to tolerance and withdraw, in which if pain levels receed, a person might need to be weened of through tappering, or in select cases might elect to have their doctor put them on subonex for a short period of time to help with withdraws....this however is not addiction, rather the expect "price to pay" for the pain relief).

Suboxone/Subutex is Buprenorphine. It is dervived from thebaine (the same parent that oxycodone is derived from) and is not a full sythetic, though its properties fall much closer to full sythetics than semi sythetics. It is considered a PARTIAL morphine receptor agonist and not a full one like methadone, hydrocodone, and oxycodone are. Despite being only a partial agonist (therefore sometimes called a partial opioid), Buprenorphine has an exceptionally high affinity for opioid receptors. It binds very tightly to them, far moreso than morphine. HOWEVER, it lacks the efficiency of morphine in its ability to kill pain due to the fact that it only partially "activates" the receptors. The best way to think of it is to consider morphine as a large strong magnet, and bupe to be a very small but extremely strong magnet. The larger magnet does a better job covering the recepot and getting rid of the pain, whereas the very small but powerful magnet might be clung tight but leaves part of the surface uncovered, resulting in reduced efficiency.

For this reason, Bupe remains actively bound to the receptors far longer than traditional opioids. In doing so, these powerful tiny magnets also prevent the opioid receptor sites from being able to recieve molecules from other opioids like hydrocodone or oxycodone. Therefore if you are in extreme pain and the Bupe only partially did the expected job, if a doctor were to give you a shot of morphine, it would be almost ineffective because the receptor sites are blocked by those little Bupe magnets. Supposedly, a single dose can block the receptor sites for 24 hours and repeated doses can block them for about 72 hours. As I had discussed, Bupe does have some pain relieving abilities, but they are more limited compared to stronger opioids. The fact that Bupe binds tightly and for a long period of time "satisfies" the physical craving of an addict by warding off withdraw symptoms, and partially satisfies the mental cravings. The abuser cannot get high until the bupe flushes out so for addiction treatment, it can be a wonderful thing.

There is another thing to consider. Due to limited use in treating chronic pain with Bupe, the effective dose and long term effects are less understood.

There are medications which act very similiar to Bupe like tramadol and tapentadol which stay in the system fro 6 to 8 hours, do not block the receptors (therefore breakthrough pain medication like oxycodone can still be used), and like bupe have multiple mechanism of actions (noradrenaline). Noradrenaline (via norephedrine reuptake) is a secondary action that Bupe has contributing to pain relief. However, when other alternatives like tramadol or its more potent cousin tapentadol are available, it would be far better to try one of those options first.

One other word of warning. Bupe can supposedly cause intense euphoria if a little to much is accidently taken. Keep in mind, its used to ween people off very high doses of opioids. It has to satisfy the craving of the user. The user will likely get no euphoria but someone opioid naive might get sick from the rush. Just food for thought.

Just my grain of salt :)

Yes, you're right, thank you V, and thank you "grainofsalt" you both encouraged me. I appreciate it and love encouraging others too I think I'll take your advice grain, and ask first if I could try something like oxycontin or vicodin or something for breakthrough pain instead of going completely to suboxen. right now i take tramadol (6 - 8/day) 8 lately cuz I've been in extreme pain due to extreme marital stress. And, my dr wants me to add 2 .5mg of xanax and 2 100mg of gabapentin. It does work very well, I must say. So, I don't.......I may cancel that appt with that "addictionologist" cuz, like that one person replied that I don't want to get a "reputation" for being an addict.

However, I'm afraid of narcotics cuz 5 years ago, my dr had me on Tylenol 3's and vicodins for 10 years and they took away my pain but made me SOOOO crabby! Narcs just DO that to me! I think I'm gonna post a new post asking why and if anyone knows if certain "narcs" don't make you "as crabby'?

Hugs,
Marla

All-Seeing Eye,

have you tried tramadol? (And, I think that's what suboxen is supposed to do, at least that's what that "adictionologist" says)