Thank you both! How sweet and kind of you. The nerve ablation was plus and minus--it worked, but it took six weeks or so to kick in, and while I waited, the pain was higher. I still might still talk...
I double the suggestion of applesauce! Very, very rarely do I get a pill stuck, but it's an awful feeling when it happens! My wife suggested keeping a ziplock bag of crackers beside the chair where I...
I used to post more often here, then my pain leveled out and there wasn't much to say. I hope to both help and ask for help, again. Well, I'm back because the nerve pain in my right side is out of...
James, I just read this post by the new one. I urge you to resubmit your info about the cream to help others that suffer with shingles pain. Yes we can mention Amazon on here & along with info on...
Happy holidays! We're spending Christmas and Christmas weekend babysitting a friend's adorable crew of three little dogs and one big one, not at our house, just going over to her house a few times a...
I haven't posted as much lately because my chronic PHN (post-shingles) pain is what it is, at this point. No better, no worse. My palliative care doctor has run out of ideas to try, so I'm just...
Last year when I was on morphine, constipation was a constant struggle. I got used to giving myself enemas, but one day, a Fleet enema did nothing. Time to panic, as blockage was always a fear. So I...
I had dexamethasone (I think) steroid shots in three or four intercostal nerves for shingles pain a few months ago. As soon as the short-acting anesthesia wore off, I had immediately increased pain....
I hope for improvement for those who are suffering, and that things continue well for those who are doing okay. I saw my palliative care doctor Monday and we decided that we've run out of options for...
Early last fall, I was on Lortab/Norco and the doctor also wanted to switch me to something more long-acting and with less tylenol. He went with morphine ER, and personally I found it to work...
30c potency? That sounds like a homeopathic dose, and unfortunately, there's no scientific evidence that any such dilutions work. Bummer. I started an antiviral within hours of seeing the rash and...
Well, the Lyrica honeymoon ended. After about ten days on 75mgx3, my pain started to increase and I started getting side effects like when I'd tried 300mgx5 gabapentin per day--major fatigue, brain...
Thanks, therabidweasel! I too wish there was a better way to control nerve pain. I'm using a Lidoderm patch too, and it also helps a little, but not enough. After a couple days on Lyrica 75mg x 3, it...
Well, after seeing my doctor and then fighting with the insurance company a bit, I've been on lyrica a week now, 75mg x2 per day, and it seems to be just as Vickie and Skeye said. Same pain relief...
Had an MRI a few days ago and found my brain mets are still stable, which is good news that I can stay on the drug I'm on, but bad news that I have to keep watching and waiting and worrying, ready to...
Thank you both. I'm going to see my palliative care doctor tomorrow and sounds like it's at least worth discussing with him and maybe giving it a try....
I'm not on that plan, but for fun I checked my cost. With just three prescription medicines, my annual cost would be $10,958.58 for the cheaper of the two plans, $11,659.98 for the other. Wow....
I've searched and read all the old discussions on this topic, but I'm wondering specifically about this... I'm currently taking 900 mg gabapentin (neurontin) for post-shingles pain. Not helping...
This sounds like what my doctors called radio-frequency nerve ablation, and the time I had it done, to the intercostal nerves, was an easy procedure. Lie on my stomach, topical numbing on my back,...
I use a prescription 5% lidocaine patch for post herpetic neuralgia. It's one of those things where you don't realize it's helping until you don't use it for a couple days. In other words, helpful,...
I'm one of those who is on gabapentin, 1200mg a day for post-shingles pain at that time, and didn't realize how much it was helping until reducing the dose for a few days. However, I was recently...
What Vickie said, but when you're feeling well enough, you might want to explore your insurance more. There are gold, silver and bronze plans on Obamacare that cover different things and you can...
"I have also consulted with plastic surgeons, they said if nothing else works, they can surgically cut that nerve intercostal..." Back when I had the nerve block, I wondered why the intercostal nerve...
I have a regular palliative care doctor who prescribes narcotics if I need them, but he sent me to another pain management doctor for an injection, because he doesn't do injections himself. When I...
I had a nerve block with alcohol and radiofrequency both at the same time last fall. Don't know the protocol there in Asia, but here they do one or two short-term tests with short-acting local...
I'm in a lung rehab program that meets three times a week, and it's been helping my breathing a lot, but last Monday one of the arm/shoulder exercises messed up my shingles nerve pain. Ouch! Took...
Vickie wrote: "although having any kind of surgery or procedure is about as up close and personal as it gets." I got to thinking more about this and I figured out why it would bother me. I expect my...
Definitely seems out of line to me, unless a specific patient asked for it and he also agreed. The only time a doctor or nurse has ever touched me is to shake hands or do some specific medical test...
If you refuse a medicine or treatment, are you labeled noncompliant? Does it matter? Just asking, because I've refused things lots of times in the hospital or to a doctor, "prophylactic" antibiotics...
Just got back from a short trip to Wasington DC with my wife. We took the train and I found that the swaying motion was just as hard on my shingles nerve pain as riding in a car, but fortunately we...
I'll add another voice to those who say that narcotic painkillers are (relatively) easy to get off of, if one doesn't naturally have an addictive personalit. It's the person, not the drug. I was...
The two hospitals and the insurance are still wrangling over getting me in the expanded access trial for the cancer drug I need. Sigh. I need the new drug because the one I'm taking doesn't cross the...
Looks like they are. A search for gene therapy pain brings up some relevant results at the clinical trials website. (Hope this URL leads right there, but if not, search for those words from the...
What a tough situation to be in. I can only give an anecdote of one person--me--but when I stopped all opiates, it was because other treatment had removed the pain, and I suffered absolutely no...
Still waiting for the insurance and all the doctors to get together to see if I can get into the trial for the new drug Alectinib that has a good track record for reducing brain metastases. I'm so...
In answer to the question, when I was taking ER morphine last fall, for the first few days or after an increase, I'd notice a slight fading before the next dose, but not what I'd call withdrawals,...
It's been dry with a few rainstorms here, but we have to water the flowers in between. I don't do as well out in the heat, but it looks like I can get into a "lung rehabilitation" program at the...
I'm glad to hear it's going okay so far--if being miserable can ever be described as "okay." I had to go cold turkey on opiates due to suddenly occuring side effects, and it's no fun, but it sounds...
I've often seen people write God as G-d due to their own beliefs. Never considered it would be a way to get around message board rules. Thank you, Vickie, for making this forum a welcoming place for...
I hope all those who have been having bad luck and suffering start to see it turn around soon. Had my regular CT scan late last week to see if my cancer is still shrinking. My doctor's appointment is...
No children or living mothers here, so mother's day didn't have anything going on for my wife and me. My fatigue seems to be decreasing a little--no idea why. Shingles pain is still bad but not quite...
More of the same here, still moving into the new house, unpacking boxes and bringing a few more things from the old house. Got all the flowers planted, just need to finish edging and mulch. Next week...
Of course, whatever works best for an individual is what works best for them. I wonder, though, if we're talking about two, probably three different problems that the five-day-a-week schedule is...
I'm curious if any studies show that taking a medicine five days a week instead of seven prevents dependency, or if there are anecdotal examples of people who have taken medicines five days a week,...
Not much to say here, medically. Same old shingles pain, but otherwise I'm doing okay, not super great, but okay, and I'll take that. Working on planting flowers at our new house. Got three roses...
"instead of sitting around all day on pain meds..." That part struck me as odd. In general, pain meds are supposed to allow one to live life more fully, rather than to sit around all day because of...
"I don't see how a person deals with chronic pain w/o having the Lord in their lives." Just FWIW, I've dealt with nerve pain from cancer and now post-herpetic neuralgia, none of it very well...
Don't think I've mentioned this before... I wanted to live in the country and my wife wanted to live in town, but she lived in the country for me all 20+ years of our marriage. Now there's no reason...
Is it possible for magnesium to help even though one's blood level of magnesium is normal? I'd read eleswhere about magnesium helping with pain and asked my doctor to add it to the things tested at...
Here's a bit of etymology I found to be revealing, from the Online Etymology Dictionary: "Shingles. inflammatory disease of the skin," late 14c., from Medieval Latin cingulus (loan-translation of...