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Any Recommended Muscle Relaxers?

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Chronic Pain
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Posted 2/18/2014 2:58 AM (GMT 0)
Hi Guys,

I have been battling with my injuries for 13 years now and I have yet to find a muscle relaxer that works for more than the first few days. I was hoping you guys might have experience with other drugs that might work.

I have tried:
Xanaflex
Skelaxin
Norflex
Flexeril
Baclofen
Valium*
Forgetting at least one here

Thanks! I'd like to be able to suggest something new at my upcoming appointment.

*Valium does a decent job, but the doctors don't like to keep me on it due to addiction and reduced efficacy fears...even though the rest lose efficacy in days.
Posted 2/18/2014 4:23 AM (GMT 0)
There's Soma(which I haven't tried) but I've heard that many docs don't like Rxing it.
Posted 2/18/2014 3:23 PM (GMT 0)
Have you ever been prescribed Robaxin? which is Methocarbamol. It has been around a very very long time, but allot of people find it very effective. You might want to talk with your doctor about it, if you haven't already tried it.???

White Beard
Posted 2/18/2014 6:27 PM (GMT 0)
One of my pain docs refuses to let me take Valium ever, even at half the lowest tablet - because of the potential for addiction. But another rehab doctor agrees with me and my PCP that who cares if we become dependent, and low doses occasionally aren't going to make us addicts.

A lot of CP people like me aren't ever going to get better or at least not completely or for a long time. We can't function at all without relief from cramping or various types of pain. I don't take Valium daily and not unless I really need it, but it's the only thing that works for me without side effects or interaction with the little bit of tramadol I'm allowed. I've tried just about everything mentioned here.

I've been using Valium for years PRN and still don't need more than 2 mg once a day even when the spasms are at their absolute worst. I figure this isn't a highly controlled pain pill and probably isn't really in my contract, if I can even find that after so many years.
Posted 2/18/2014 8:53 PM (GMT 0)
I never understood,...and still don't,....some of the doctors' rational that they won't prescribe certain meds for fear of possible addiction. Fear of not even knowing if that would ever happen. And as Alcie pointed out, when is the rationalization understood that so many of us have chronic conditions, degenerative conditions, that we aren't going to get better....

Taking a medication for life that let's me function and have a quality of life seems like a fine trade-off, as long as we're doing it while being supervised, monitored, and with respect for the meds and our practitioners.

They would rather write some of us off, just in case, maybe, possibly, some of us could perhaps become "addicted"....(so let's not face that word, and let's not differentiate between "addicted" and "dependent"....that would be too much trouble),....because, as we all know, being dependent on pain med is far worse than taking nothing at all for pain and being stuck in our beds....

There's just no logic to this, and it sounds so heartless....even harmful, to put a patient through this when it doesn't have to be this way.....




M.
Posted 2/19/2014 2:02 PM (GMT 0)
Thank you for all the replies. In the past I've found that asking for Soma is like asking your doctor for a prescription for rock cocaine.

White Beard I have a call in on Robaxin, we shall see. I believe I have tried it before, but not in awhile.

...similar experiences all around, eh? I have personally know one doctor "selling" prescriptions. Although not a PM he wrote virtually every patient 120 10mg Oxycontin and 120 Soma. All day, every day, for years. He did eventually appear on the evening news, rightfully so. Like I said though, not a PM and it went on like that for years, despite complaints to authorities.

Now contrast that with a doc that is a PM. Mine have always been so conservative. But I started the journey of pain pretty young and I understood I needed to keep upping my pain thresholds. I didn't ask for a narcotic until I was with my current PM for 7 years. . .and still I can't get muscle relaxers that work. I have muscles that have withered and atrophied in their spastic state which has been constant for 12 years . .Makes me think I should have bought.
Posted 2/19/2014 10:43 PM (GMT 0)
think i've tried all of the above and so far flexiril seems to work the best,(for me anyway) my wife is on soma and has been for a few years seems to help her out. not 100% but enough to take the edge.
but then again her doctor isn't crazy about rxing to her but being the only thing that helps her.
good luck to ya..
Posted 2/20/2014 4:01 AM (GMT 0)
Like with pain meds every one is so different in there reaction to different medications, I have tried a vast number of antispasmodics and I have had the best results with Baclofen. although I am on a pretty high dose of it 30mg, every 8 hours, for the most part it works really well and has kept my spasms under control! I was getting all them all the time, and just about every where, from my feet, legs and thighs, to my back, neck and arms and hands. Now I only get them on occasion and they usually don't last near as long! This is one medication that doesn't make me sleepy or dopy or feel out of it, like allot of the others did! But yet allot of people don't like it because it makes them sleepy. So what works for one person might not work for another.

I hope you can find something that will work for you therabidweasel, as I know how painful muscle spasms can be! Nothing more painful than waking up in the middle of the night with both your calf muscles knotted up like rock hard base balls! Or your feet trying to curl up into themselves!

White Beard
Posted 2/21/2014 12:22 AM (GMT 0)
I've also had poor results with muscle relaxants. Either they did not work, or I'd develop nasty side effects, especially apnea, swelling in the face, neck and arms, and rapid weight gain. One of the worst, for me anyway, was Flexoril, but as you can see by our board, many people find this medication incredibly useful and beneficial.

I have a Rx for Baclofen, and so far, while I cannot take it often, it's been the only one I could tolerate without swelling up like a tomato.

Sometimes, even if we've tried something before,....if enough time has passed, introducing it into our system again at a much later date, has been effective.

Might be worth a shot?



M.
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