Pain All the Time

fuzzybuddy said:
I've had back issues since I was kid. I question being "addicted" to pain medication for chronic pain. Are diabetics "addicted" to insulin? Of course, I'm not talking about opioid abuse. But I do know that if you have chronic pain, and you are on a pain med, most docs assumed your "addicted". Normally, I don't like doctor shopping, it usually leads to the wrong doctor. But I would get an appointment with a reputable pain management specialist.
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I have said that for years fuzzy ........ If the little white pill makes the pain go away ? One will continue to take the little white pill.

Now, is that addiction ? Or necessity ?
 

If you take any narcotics for your pain, I agree that you should take whatever you need to that will relieve the pain, so long as it’s legal. I would advise against driving while any of that medication is still in you. We have stiff penalties here in PA for driving under the influence. After you take a pill, I would recommend waiting at least 6 hours before getting behind the wheel.
 

fuzzybuddy said:
I've had back issues since I was kid. I question being "addicted" to pain medication for chronic pain. Are diabetics "addicted" to insulin? Of course, I'm not talking about opioid abuse. But I do know that if you have chronic pain, and you are on a pain med, most docs assumed your "addicted". Normally, I don't like doctor shopping, it usually leads to the wrong doctor. But I would get an appointment with a reputable pain management specialist.
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Most doctors don't believe you are addicted. They use "dependent" instead. That was the case with me (or so I thought). I knew I wasn't addicted in the usual sense because I got no enjoyment out of taking pain relievers, but kept taking them because I was afraid of what would happen if I weaned myself of them. As it turned out, no withdrawal symptoms of any kind because I took it slow, reducing the dosage gradually over a period of weeks!
 
I'm 88 and have had excessive foot pain after a doctor hit my feet when I asked him to trim my toenails. I heard from his nurse he has been doing this to patients for years and she observed it happening.

However, I've licked the pain now. I take 3,000 mg of Tylenol spread in 1,000 mg doses 3 times per day. I also take 200 mg of Gabapentin before I go to sleep for the night. I also walk 8,000 steps each day. Finally, I play Civilization VI from Steam.com every day for hours. It distracts my mind and eliminates all the pain. DISTRACTION is better than drugs for pain. If I get a pain surge any time during the day or night, I go to that game and all the pain is GONE!!

I reported the incident to the police 3 years later. They told me that, if I reported it to them within 2 years of the occurrence, they would have arrested and prosecuted the doctor.

By the way, Gabapentin is far better than opiates like morphine for pain relief. Opiates can be addictive and also have lots of side effects.
 
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Sorry…had to look up that tylenol dose. Mitch is in the top limits…not sure if that dosage sustained over time is recommended. I have seen people who damaged their livers with tylenol…respect the recommended dosages.
 
Muskrat said:
Sorry…had to look up that tylenol dose. Mitch is in the top limits…not sure if that dosage sustained over time is recommended. I have seen people who damaged their livers with tylenol…respect the recommended dosages.
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At 88 "time" is irrelevant. I do not have too much time left. My Geriatrician told me that, if I contract cancer or heart disease, he will NOT treat it since I will be gone in the near future.
 
Muskrat said:
Sorry…had to look up that tylenol dose. Mitch is in the top limits…not sure if that dosage sustained over time is recommended. I have seen people who damaged
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Agreed... this from medline.gov... (note the AGE mention)

"Adults should not take more than 3,000 mg of single-ingredient acetaminophen a day. You should take less if you are over 65 years old. Taking more, especially 7,000 mg or more, can lead to a severe overdose problems."Jan 1, 2021

Acetaminophen overdose: MedlinePlus Medical Encyclopedia​

 
At age 88 I've been written off as DEAD many times. However, I'm still alive. Every year my doctor tells me I have just "one year left" and I just ignore it all and keep LIVING!

I wonder if anyone else here is 88?!

My Geriatrician prescribed that 3,000 mg of Tylenol each day PLUS 200 mg of Gabapentin each day. I also take FOUR Senna Plus tablets each day to have regular bowel movements and 81 mg of Aspirin daily to prevent a stroke. I had one 15 years ago whereby I could not speak for 60 minutes.

I also rest my neck for 10 minutes twice per day on a "Rest Cloud." My neck is bent forward 45 degrees due to severe arthritis which also causes pain in joints all over my body. I've learned to stretch all joints for a few minutes when I wake up in the morning to keep them functioning.

In addition I also walk 2,000 steps twice per day to prevent using a wheel chair.

I also play chess at Chess.com and Civilization VI at Steam.com to keep busy most of every day.
 
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5.40 am w/t oz sat 29.04.23

A writer I know of developed P. neuropathy and somehow got onto onion skin infusions and swore by them - anything is worth a try I suppose?
 
I am now off of all narcotics. I had a nerve ablation and even though it didn’t completely remove all the pain, it certainly lowered it. I can’t do a lot of the common things I used to do, but I can sit and have a friendly conversation without having to get up and leave the room for awhile until the pain quieted down.

A friend of mine that I met in the hospital also met a woman and has started dating her. He was a train engineer and in the middle of last winter he was pulling 78 cars through the yard and was supposed to unhook 30 of them at a certain marking on the track. However,the couplers froze together and he couldn’t get them to release so he took a 12 pound hammer and used it in an attempt to break the ice around the couplings, so the cars would separate. He said he hit the coupler so hard he broke a bone in his neck. He’s been in constant pain since. He will never work again and he’s only 40 years old.

The lawyers are suing the railroad company for $15 million and they offered $12 million, so he thinks the company will give up the $15 million. However, it’s like he said, his quality of life has decreased over 50%. I wished I had someone I coukd gave sued, but financially, I can’t complain. I gave nothing to spend my money on.
 
Mitch86 said:
Just to add to what I posted before, I now use MedMassager on my feet every day after I make a urine. The foot messages have eliminated ALL pain through out my body. I have stopped taking Tylenol Arthritis pills and Gabapentin pills.
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What sort of massage / massager is it ?
 
Murrmurr said:
Nerve replacement? Maybe sometime in the future, but I don't think they can do that yet.

Imagine how great that would be, getting damaged nerves actually removed and then replaced with brand new ones cloned and grown from your body's own nerve cells, functioning perfectly.

Or maybe not so perfectly. Imagine you could say, "Yeah, you know what? I tend to be a little clumsy, so I wouldn't mind if the nerve you're putting in my big toe was kind of on the sluggish side...less *responsive* than the old one." 😊

I've had 3 surgeries, BTL. The emergency one immediately after the accident, then another a few years later to correct and adjust the first one, and then another in 2016 to replace old hardware, shave off a bunch of arthritis, and straighten my spine more. And during that one, the surgeon spotted a tiny, probably genetic deformity of a nerve root that was an obvious source of pain, and he did what he could to make that less deleterious.

Weeks of physical therapy always followed the surgeries, but I was lucky to get excellent PT technicians. Probably because the fall happened in a state park and it was due to negligence, so the state provided the therapists (and ultimately covered the costs). I haven't had really good physical therapy since 2016. The only thing on offer is the one-size-fits-all routine that hurts more than it helps, so I do my own routine here at home. Mostly body-weight traction, certain yoga positions, and some Tai chi soft-moves for balance.

I've also had acupuncture and lots of chiropractic and massage therapies. The relief is always temporary. Since pain is an energy thief, and my liver damage is, too, I take energy-boosting supplements everyday; mostly B vitamins but also iron, niacin, ginseng, and taurine. I also take several hundred mg of magnesium every other day and I drink a lot of herbal tea.

There isn't much anyone can do for nerve pain because medical science doesn't know as much as they need to yet. As long as pharmaceutical companies are allowed to fund the research, all we're ever gonna get is pills that are more magical than the previous ones and barriers to obtaining unprofitable, more natural ones like opiates.

"I asked them if I had to go home and suffer." The industry doesn't care about your suffering. Your doctor might care very much, but s/he has to play ball with the industry. His or her career depends on it.
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I was sent to John’s Hopkins in Baltimore to be evaluated for nerve damage. The Neurologist that contacted me, actually it was his PA that I spoke to told me that before they would bring me in and go over everything of where we were to where we are, I needed to contact all the hospitals, doctors, clinics and so forth that treated me and collect all the data they had in their files.

Once I had everything together, I had to send it all at the same time in one complete package. I could do this either via fax or if the files were too many or too big to place it all in a box and ship it directly to his office. I closed to do it that way. It ended up weighing over 6 pounds of documents, but the x-rays and any other lab work data had to be sent separately. It took me all but 2 months to get everything together.

After the PA received all the information, it was almost another 2 months before I heard back from her. She said the doctor would need several more weeks before he would make an appointment for me, which he finally did. When he spoke to me, he started back from day one and went through each doctor, procedure and test I had done and tried to make some sense out of all of it so I could understand it all. He was very thorough.

He started talking about doing a nerve replacement or what he called nerve transfers and grafts by using nerves from another part of my body. It’s all still fairly new procedures and not a lot of data available on it as to its success or failure rate, but he said, he has had some very good success using it, especially repairing damaged nerves. He also thought it may be good for me to have a nerve ablation done that may aid in lowering the amount of pain in the nerves that are giving me so much pelvic or facet pain on both sides. I liked that idea.

I had the ablation done in September and yes, I did get some relief from the facet pain. More than anything else that was tried. I guess the best part was that he also went over my medication list and removed 2 meds from the list without adding any new ones. Gabapentin was one I was happy to get rid of. In December when I saw him again, he ordered a new MRI. I see him again later next month for further review.

As for where I am now, I do get more sleep than I was getting before and now that the Gabapentin is gone, I don’t get nauseated like I did when I used it. My average daily pain number is probably around a 4, although on some days, it can rise above that, but I certainly do have relief. Overall, my level of quality of life has gone up. I can actually go to a show or have dinner out and sit for 2 hours without having to get out of my seat and go for a walk until the pain subsides.

We are moving along, which is a hopeful sign. I no longer feel like we are stuck in the mud and just spinning our tires.
 
Lewkat said:
I have spinal stenosis and for the past 2 & 1/2 months have suffered agonizing pain from a pinched sciatic nerve. Neither physical nor occupational therapy have helped. My doctor keeps feeding me Vicodin and Valium, but come Monday, I am calling a neurologist who specializes in spinal problems and sports injuries. I need something more than drugs to handle this pain.
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Hope that sciatic pinched nerve has settled down for you. I aggravated mine by driving too long without a break earlier this year. I’ve been seeing a chiropractor and that helped but what really surprised me was the results I got from acupuncture.

The first two clinicians I saw did me no good at all but the third gave me back mobility in my left shoulder while also further improving my sciatic issues. I’ll see her again next Tuesday and plan to get contact info to see her as needed later.

The clinic is operating through Kaiser and I’m only allowed six visits so i might have to pay out of pocket but that would be worth it. If you ever decide to try it get a recommendation you trust so you can avoid the duds.
 
MarkD said:
Hope that sciatic pinched nerve has settled down for you. I aggravated mine by driving too long without a break earlier this year. I’ve been seeing a chiropractor and that helped but what really surprised me was the results I got from acupuncture.

The first two clinicians I saw did me no good at all but the third gave me back mobility in my left shoulder while also further improving my sciatic issues. I’ll see her again next Tuesday and plan to get contact info to see her as needed later.

The clinic is operating through Kaiser and I’m only allowed six visits so i might have to pay out of pocket but that would be worth it. If you ever decide to try it get a recommendation you trust so you can avoid the duds.
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After many different tests to determine the root of all this pain and lo and behold, my back is a total mess. I have several areas of stenosis, bulging lumbar discs with a cyst on one which is putting pressure on the nerve plexus in my pelvic area. So, I was lucky to get a great pain management doctor who gave me a shot right to the root of the sciatic nerve. Well, it's like night and day. I began walking without a cane or a walker, cut out the drugs, and felt fine.

Then a couple of weeks ago, I couldn't get out of bed and walk due to severe pain in my left knee, radiating all the way up to my shoulder and back to my toes. Here we go again. More x-rays and an MRI. Off to the orthopedist, and he gave me a shot which fixed it immediately.

Now, I am doing a few weeks of P.T. as my back is still a problem, so we'll try to lessen any further problems. With me, Mark, it's old age and I've got to accept that fact. Just do what I can and hope for the best.

I am glad you've found something that works for you as well. It helps tremendously to have little or no pain to deal with.
 
Born_To_Lose said:
I was sent to John’s Hopkins in Baltimore to be evaluated for nerve damage. The Neurologist that contacted me, actually it was his PA that I spoke to told me that before they would bring me in and go over everything of where we were to where we are, I needed to contact all the hospitals, doctors, clinics and so forth that treated me and collect all the data they had in their files.

Once I had everything together, I had to send it all at the same time in one complete package. I could do this either via fax or if the files were too many or too big to place it all in a box and ship it directly to his office. I closed to do it that way. It ended up weighing over 6 pounds of documents, but the x-rays and any other lab work data had to be sent separately. It took me all but 2 months to get everything together.

After the PA received all the information, it was almost another 2 months before I heard back from her. She said the doctor would need several more weeks before he would make an appointment for me, which he finally did. When he spoke to me, he started back from day one and went through each doctor, procedure and test I had done and tried to make some sense out of all of it so I could understand it all. He was very thorough.

He started talking about doing a nerve replacement or what he called nerve transfers and grafts by using nerves from another part of my body. It’s all still fairly new procedures and not a lot of data available on it as to its success or failure rate, but he said, he has had some very good success using it, especially repairing damaged nerves. He also thought it may be good for me to have a nerve ablation done that may aid in lowering the amount of pain in the nerves that are giving me so much pelvic or facet pain on both sides. I liked that idea.

I had the ablation done in September and yes, I did get some relief from the facet pain. More than anything else that was tried. I guess the best part was that he also went over my medication list and removed 2 meds from the list without adding any new ones. Gabapentin was one I was happy to get rid of. In December when I saw him again, he ordered a new MRI. I see him again later next month for further review.

As for where I am now, I do get more sleep than I was getting before and now that the Gabapentin is gone, I don’t get nauseated like I did when I used it. My average daily pain number is probably around a 4, although on some days, it can rise above that, but I certainly do have relief. Overall, my level of quality of life has gone up. I can actually go to a show or have dinner out and sit for 2 hours without having to get out of my seat and go for a walk until the pain subsides.

We are moving along, which is a hopeful sign. I no longer feel like we are stuck in the mud and just spinning our tires.
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I've had the RFA (radiofrequency ablation) in a nerve root in my lumbar spine. Had awesome results the first time, none the second time, and the results were mediocre the third and last time. Results depend entirely on accuracy, and the doctor who did the second procedure ablated the wrong nerve-root. That wasn't his fault; the target vertebra has two nerve roots. We're only supposed to have 1 nerve root per vertebra. He couldn't see the smaller nerve root because it was behind the larger one, plus no one would even suspect there were two there.

The one nerve root laying on the smaller one is the main cause of my relentless pain. And it's not like you can just remove one of them; they're both pathways to my lower limbs and stuff, each the root of a network of nerves.

But the results of ablation therapy are temporary, anyway. The longest an RFA lasted me was 9 (glorious) months.

About nerve grafting: Right! I'd forgotten all about limb reattachment. My great-aunt's husband was a surgeon renown for hand-reattachment and reconstruction back in the 70s and 80s, when advancements in imaging (and nerve study) were really starting to take off.
 
Lewkat said:
After many different tests to determine the root of all this pain and lo and behold, my back is a total mess. I have several areas of stenosis, bulging lumbar discs with a cyst on one which is putting pressure on the nerve plexus in my pelvic area. So, I was lucky to get a great pain management doctor who gave me a shot right to the root of the sciatic nerve. Well, it's like night and day. I began walking without a cane or a walker, cut out the drugs, and felt fine.
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That's the procedure that helped get me out of a wheelchair....twice.

But I haven't even needed a walker or a cane since my last surgery. That was in 2016, I think.... '15 or '16.
 
Sounds like we are birds of a feather, Frank, but I've got at least 25 yrs. on you. So, I consider myself lucky under the circumstances. Oh, I've had some back issues on and off at different times, but nothing like I went through since the beginning of last year. I turned 90 last January, and it all went to hell in a hand basket. I couldn't believe it. Now, in a week, I'll turn 91, and I am on the upswing. Go figure.
 
I have had pain for so long, it's expected when I wake up, if I get some sleep. I have learned to live with it. I did find that Motrin works better for me than Tylenol. I wonder what my liver looks like. The doctors tell me that for someone who has taken so much medications that my blood numbers are good and not to worry.
 
Lewkat said:
Sounds like we are birds of a feather, Frank, but I've got at least 25 yrs. on you. So, I consider myself lucky under the circumstances. Oh, I've had some back issues on and off at different times, but nothing like I went through since the beginning of last year. I turned 90 last January, and it all went to hell in a hand basket. I couldn't believe it. Now, in a week, I'll turn 91, and I am on the upswing. Go figure.
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I spoke too soon. Took a header last night and wound up in the dog's bed. She wasn't't too happy since she was sleeping in it at the time. I really rammed my left side into the heating unit and now comes some more terrible pain. My P.T. promptly changed my bedroom around, so that there were no obstacles for me to negotiate. Nothing serious, thankfully, just muscle pull and inner bruising of soft tissue.
 
Born_To_Lose said:
I have had pain for so long, it's expected when I wake up, if I get some sleep. I have learned to live with it. I did find that Motrin works better for me than Tylenol. I wonder what my liver looks like. The doctors tell me that for someone who has taken so much medications that my blood numbers are good and not to worry.
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So many people suffer from chronic pain. I do too. I am taking 1800mg of Gabapentin. They allow me 12 50mg Tramadol pills a month. I micro-dose THC. I take 10 supplements each day. I use a couple herbal products also. It is a 24/7 thing for me. I do get about 6 hours sleep at night with meds. I take a nap each day for a couple hours, and then it takes me a couple hours to bring my pain level down enough to function. I too have almost gotten use to it.
My Dad told me years ago that getting old is no fun. That is true much of the time, but I find I appreciate EVERYTHING more now. It really is the simple things that bring us joy. Petting the cat. Talking a walk. Talking and being with my best friend, Misa. Playing around on the SF. :) Having a warm cup of coffee, which I am going to get right now. :)
 
I purchased this foot massager from Amazon and now my foot and leg pain are finally GONE:

MedMassager Foot Massager Machine.

I also use 650 mg of Tylenol Arthritis 3 times per day plus 200 mg of Gabapentin before I go to sleep each night.

I also play Civilization VI from Steam.com and online chess from Chess.com to ameliorate my pain.

I'm 88 now and will be 89 in just 2 months.
 
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When I was Christmas shopping about 2 weeks before the holiday, I tripped over a loose tile in Macy’s In Jacksonville, Florida. When I went down, much to my surprise several people came to my aid. When I was finally able to stand up, I had no feeling in my left leg and foot, which has happened before.

The store manager told me I had to be seen by a paramedic while I was still there or they would deny my claim. I asked them how they knew I was going to file for a claim and the manager said because everyone does. So I had to sit there until the paramedics showed up and they wanted to take me to the hospital, but I didn’t want to go. Again, the manager said if I didn’t go, Macy’s probably wouldn’t pay my medical expenses.

OK, I went to the hospital and I was there so long that when I left, it was daylight. The Neurologist said I probably had a pinched nerve. I got an Uber to take me back to the mall to get my car. Last Friday, I got a truck load of forms to fill out. I dropped them off at my lawyers office. I wasn’t going to do fill them out.

When I got my car home, the $450 cashmere sweater I had got for my girlfriend was in the car. I never made it to the checkout, so I haven’t paid for it yet. I’m going in to the store tomorrow to settle my debt. I’m hoping they don’t recognize me and ask a bunch of questions. Later, I have to go to the neurologist’s office and get my epidural. He also wants to get an MRI done. My gf is going along because I have to have a driver to take me home.
 


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