Docs pretty sure it's fibro

Hi Zap2!

And welcome to the Fibro Family! I am sorry you are having to deal with this disorder but at least with friends who understand it is a lot easier to live with.

Comparing pain relievers is a very hard thing to do but it's a question I think all of us have considered at one time or another. I know I have but I'm also lucky to have a doctor who is easy to talk to and work with concerning my pain relief.

I went searching online for a comparison chart on pain relievers. I must admit that about 98% of the sites were illegally selling prescription drugs like crazy! I don't know about others but as for me it's sickening. These are a large share of the folks that make getting pain relief almost impossible for those of us who clinically need it. <stepping down from soapbox> But I did find one that's pretty good. Here's the link. It shows the relative strength of pain reliever from tylenol to NSAIDS all the way to Dilaudid. This might be a good reference at least.

www.vaughns-1-pagers.com/medicine/painkiller-comparison.htm

For me I use percocet for B/T pain. I'm on oxycodone extended release (aka Oxycontin) which is nothing more than a time release form of percocet. But it acts faster. The tramadol or Ultram ER (the time release form) is much milder than most prescription pain relievers so you have a lot of different choices out there as long as you have a good doctor who is willing to work with you.

Please understand (my disclaimer here ;-)) I am not advocating that everyone needs to take narcotic pain medications for chronic pain or anything else. But I do believe that there are good forms of pain relief available to those who need and/or want it. With a helpful medical team you should be able to realize a reasonable amount of relief, enough so you can live your life with quality. (my beliefs here) But there is so much dishonesty, fraud and sleaze out there that it becomes hard for the system to work on our behalf. It's hard to be patient but try not to be timid if you are not getting enough relief from your prescribed pain reliever. When you are first prescribed a new medication your reaction to it is the only way a doctor knows if or how it's working. If we don't tell them that it's either too much, too little, or just right (the Goldilocks method) they have no way to know it's not doing the job for you.

I know this is way more than you asked for but I get going and don't seem to stop on this topic. I do hope you are able to get your med's to a level that is helpful to you.

Again Welcome and Warm Hugs,
Chutz

Hi Zap and welcome to the forum. I can't answer your question about pain relievers as I haven't found instant relief myself.

The pain killer comparison chart is very interesting and I am glad the Advil rates higher than acetaminifin as I do not take anything with acetaminifin in it. Some stuff I never heard of either but I am afraid of most of the narcotics.

thanks everyone! its great to have a place to talk with everyone. I call my doctor today and asked about increasing my dosage of lyrica, and its not doing want it once it. Hopefully he'll call back tomorrow(normally he's very good about calling back, but I don't think he was in the office I called today)

As for pain killer, I know some people use narcotics, some don't..while tramadol has a lot of narcotic like effect, I don't think it has a such negative view like other stronger narcotics. I was just curious, how did people who use strong narcotics bring them up to the doctor? I know theres a lot of worry by doctors that people are looking for drugs, so things like narcotics are tough to bring up, so did the doctor suggest them? Or did you bring it up yourself? I'm not convinced I want try them yet, I'm hoping lyrica/tramadol can take care of the pain,but if the don't, I want to be able to talk to my doctor about all the options.