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Posted 11/22/2013 4:27 AM (GMT 0)
how much pain meds do you guys get a month what dosage and what kind...i dont think im getting enough they dont last me because i have to double up because they dont touch the pain
Posted 11/22/2013 5:35 AM (GMT 0)
Early on in my Fibro journey my doctor convinced me to try taking Vidocin. Before long I was taking 1/2 of a 10 mg pill every 6 hours. He only prescribed 30 at a time, but he'd give me two prescriptions a month. This went on for nearly a year. Then one month someone in the office refused to refill my prescription when I was down to just 3 or 4 pills on a Friday. I decided not to take any over the weekend to save the few I had left for work on Monday. Mondays my doctor isn't in the office so I knew I couldn't get any until Tuesday. I was in AGONY that weekend. I was cursing my doctor and his entire office staff. My pain was HORRIBLE. Then I woke up on Tuesday...and my pain was nearly gone, maybe 20% of what it had been.

After doing some research I discovered that long term (and by long term I mean weeks, not months) use of opioid types of drugs can cause a viscous cycle where they end up causing more pain as they are leaving your body than they were originally curing. Therefore the more of the drug you take, the more you need to take to get pain relief. Since then I've only ever taken an occasional 1/2 of the pill, limiting myself to three a week at most. I won't ever let myself become physically addicted to them again.

For my very worst pain I'll take 1/2 of a 10 mg Vicodin and 600 mg of Ibuprofen. I've found that most of the time 600 mg of Ibuprofen helps more than anything else. Most days since I've started watching my diet, walking and going to an acupuncturist I don't need any pain killers at all.

Joy
Posted 11/22/2013 6:34 AM (GMT 0)
I take tramadol for break through pain. I'm always at a level 3-4 which is tolerable for me. If it goes higher I take tylenol and use topical pain relief. When those don't help then I reach for the tramadol.
I take 300 of gabapentin at bedtime so I can sleep.
Posted 11/22/2013 7:03 AM (GMT 0)
You will find out we are all different in how we control our pain. For myself I am like Namian I went down that road taking heavy narcotics for many years. I was miserable and didn't realize I was causing myself more pain with the meds. I felt like I was in a vicious cycle and couldn't get out of it. Finally my dr's realized what was going on and it caused severe depression those meds. So I was able to get off the heavy narcotics, but I still needed something for pain. So I was introduced to subutex. It's a synethic narcotic and works fairly well. I sometimes even forget to take it.

There are many here ale to take narcotics well. I wish I was one of them,but I realize I have a addictive personaility so I am very careful what I take. If your doubling up on pain meds, then you might want to reevulate your situation before it comes a big issue with them.
Posted 11/22/2013 7:48 AM (GMT 0)
I take 50mg Amitriptyline and 300mg of gabapentin...this takes edge off pain for me..I get some weird pain everyday, but then I have a couple of pain free days a month
Posted 11/22/2013 1:49 PM (GMT 0)
I take tramadol during the day, and a half a "baby" hydrocodone at night. (5/500, 0r, since I halve it, 2.5/250)

The best pain relief help I have is a muscle relaxer. Again, I take a half tab before bed.
Posted 11/22/2013 4:04 PM (GMT 0)
I have other health issues as well as Fibromyalgia so I normally have to take something for pain just to function daily. I take Tramadol along with Ibuprofen, Soma and Gabapentin. On really bad days, I take Lortab 5/500 for breakthrough pain. I try to stay away from the Lortab because I don't like how it makes me feel but some days I have no choice.
Posted 11/23/2013 3:51 AM (GMT 0)
I too have a few other health issues as well.( knee and neck) I am unable to take Vicodin, Percocet, anything with Tylenol, Valium and anti inflammatories. Therefore, for severe pain I take dilaudid. 4mg and get 90 per month. I do not use all 90 though. When I do take the dilaudid I usually take 2 at a time. For the most part, if I do need to take it I only take them at night because I work full time. I also have tramadol but hardly ever use this. I often have alot of muscle spasms in my neck and shoulders and take soma as needed.
Maybe you can talk with your dr and see if they can change your meds or up your qty. my dr told me it made more sense for me to take (2) 4mg if I had extreme pain than to up my Rx to 8mg because there are times I may only need the 1 pill(4 mg)
Hope that makes sense :)
Posted 11/23/2013 9:39 PM (GMT 0)
I only started taking ER pain meds in January. From May 2010 to Feb 2011, I was maybe taking 1 percocet a day, and tried a few muscle relaxers. I wasn't getting it filled every month, though, as that doctor would have mood swings and suddenly freak out and refuse to write a new script. Prior to that time I never took anything, as no OTC's helped. I did also take Darvocet, which seemed to help a little, but of course they stopped making that...

I switched to a PMD, and from Feb 2010 until I think Nov 2012 I was taking up to 2 percocet 5mg/day and muscle relaxers. Then she bumped me to 3. Also, nausea meds, and Baclofen (daytime muscle relaxer) and Tizanidine (nighttime muscle relaxer). It wasn't nearly enough for the pain, for sure, but during that time I was trying a bunch of different treatments, pretty much all of which were my idea. Some of those things are at least a little helpful, so now I do a variety of things, and take my scripts on top of that.

Really in all this time, and even now when I can take more per day, I had to choose when to use the pain meds and when to just power through the best way I knew how. Not that it's the ideal, but I think it's the reality. Some PMD's will say their goal is to have you at a 3 most of the time (I wish), but mine doesn't even have that as a goal. Her goal, as she said it to me, is to give me enough meds to keep me from doing anything crazy, like experimental surgeries or…

This past January my PMD finally gave me ER meds - but in reality, I never doubled my doses or ran out of medications early in almost two years with her, and she knew that I tried and continued to do a variety of things to help my pain. Without those two factors, I don't think she would have ever increased my medications, even though she knew that I wasn't getting sufficient pain relief. Most doctors seem reluctant to prescribe, and when they do it seems they have to be cautious to the point of leaving us in pain, which I understand in theory- but in practice it's really hard for CP sufferer's!

Now I take 15mg Opana ER 2x/day, and 7.5/325 percocet 4x/day, plus muscle relaxers as needed, Gabapentin, muscle relaxers, Lidoderm patches and Voltaren gel, and a few targeted supplements. We have figured out that I do not get the same level of relief that others do from medications. The perocet really only reduces pain for about 2.5 hours for me, rather than the 4-6 for others. It's always been that way, even when I first started taking them.

For now I spend most of my days around a 5 on the pain scale, if I keep my brain busy it's an effective 3-4 - so I can't afford to not keep engaged mentally activity almost every waking minute, so I have a lot of hobbies. Mornings suck - I wake in extreme pain and it takes 2-4 hours to get it down, and my last 4 hours or so every day I'm back to bad pain, with 4-5 nights a week reaching excruciating. For me this is pretty good pain relief, but it's been a long road getting here. But, it also goes to show that we have to give up the idea of ever having "enough" to eradicate the pain, though I think there are a select few who can achieve that.

Sorry this is so long, I'm recovering from trigger point injections and prolotherapy, so I have too much time on my hands today.
Posted 11/26/2013 7:59 PM (GMT 0)
im the same way they have tried a lot of stuff with me muscle relaxers anti inflammatory nuro blockers pain meds...the pain meds only give me pain relieve for 2-3 hrs my pain lately has been excruciating i cant even do the dishes without being in tears it wakes me at night, in the mornings im so stiff it kind of gets better throughout the day (with pain meds) and gets worse at night before bed...my doc has just like a week ago said without a doubt its fibro and i have been seeing her for about 8 months... with a lot of experimenting...i went to a pain management and it was like starting all over again i had already done about 4 months of physical therapy and they said we will try it for a month and see if it works i said i already did it for 4 and it did nothing it just caused more pain they didnt listen at all very frustrating...
Posted 11/26/2013 9:58 PM (GMT 0)
Personally, my pain is like a roller coaster -
I keep a brief pain & med diary & sometimes when pain med wears off I am in agony & sometimes I feel -relatively! - OK.

Believe that is the nature of fibromyalgia - never predictable !!

When I feel really bad, I (also) take muscle relaxers & break thru meds.. seems when weather changes, no matter what I take, I hurt - a lot ..

Wishes to all for pain relief !
Posted 11/27/2013 3:18 PM (GMT 0)
I'm going to be totally honest with you OP: my most pain free days are when I am not taking pain pills. There is something about them where they make things worse. It might be that it slows down the bowels, the light sleep it causes at night, or the high toxicity it causes. All I know is that my best pain relief is from my fent patch. I am still on a relatively low dose, but there aren't highs and lows. Some people really like the Butrans patch, although I found they didn't agree with my body - I think I am allergic to the adhesive and it literally broke me down systemically. It also made my pain pills redundant. Meaning, the Butrans is strong enough that it hogs the receptors so nothing else can be absorbed.

Good luck to you!
Posted 11/28/2013 4:51 AM (GMT 0)
I have Fibro and I take Lyrica 75mg 1 in the morning and 2 in the evening, I take a 30mg Kadian at bed time, and I can take up to 4 Lortabs 5/500 throughout the day as needed for breakthrough pain, but I only get 100 Lortabs per month, which is fine, because I RARELY take 4 per day! I also get Lidoderm 5% patches, which I place on the areas where I feel the most pain. I do not have the option of doubling my dose without my doctor's approval, because I'm a Veterinarian and if I fail a drug screen, I WILL lose my license!! I have also found that once they got my Lyrica dose correct, that I did not require as much narcotic pain medications to keep me comfortable.
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