LymeNet Flash: Help! Solutions for pain medication management...any?

This is topic Help! Solutions for pain medication management...any? in forum General Support at LymeNet Flash.

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Posted by sunny33 (Member # 6500) on :

Finally got an appointment in to a pain clinic...was wondering what others have found for the chronic EXTREME pain. I take Neurontin now, but my pain levels are exceeding the Neorontin capabilities...Please help!

Posted by Robert is king (Member # 5171) on :

It's great that you're going to a pain clinic and I hope that they're understanding when it comes to Lyme. I have lived with chronic pain for years and I just recently found a pain specialist. She doesn't know much about Lyme but she's very willing to learn.

Anyway, when it comes to pain the thing that works for me better than anything else is methadone. It's a powerful drug, but if used properly under the supervision of someone with experience in its use there is almost no chance of abuse or addiction.

Opioids are frightening to a lot of people (and I don't know if you'd had any experience with them), but that is because they are misunderstood by a large part of the medical community. My quality of life is immensely better now. I hope your appointment goes well.

Posted by Robert is king (Member # 5171) on :

Also, you'll probably get more responses if you post this on the medical board. It's more active than this one.

Posted by Aniek (Member # 5374) on :

It depends what kind of pain you have. Neurontin helps with nerve pain, but not muscular or inflammatory pain. A good pain clinic should know this.

I'd suggest writing down all of your pain symptoms, with a description of where the pain is and what it feels like (burning, stabbing, aching, etc.) and the level of the pain on a scale of 1 to 10 (10 is worst possible pain you can imagine, like a gun shot). A good pain specialist can take this information and know what the best meds are.

For pain treatment, I think it is more important that they concentrate on the pain symptoms, and understand that you are being treated for Lyme elsewhere.

What has helped my muscular pain is Flexeril combined with myofascial release (hands on work) building to stretching and strengthening. Exercise is crucial to my keeping pain down.

Posted by riversinger (Member # 4851) on :

If you have extreme pain, opiod is the most likely choice. There are a number of long acting opiods available now. I'm sure the pain clinic will be familiar with them.

Sometimes trycyclic antidepressants are helpful, as are muscle relaxants. It depends very much on the source of your pain, and also your individual body chemistry what will be helpful.

Every drug, even within a class, has a slightly different action. If one doesn't work, get them to try something different.

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Sonoma County Lyme Support
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Posted by Mary J (Member # 4234) on :

See mention of opiodes. I have tried Duragesic 25 mg and 50 mgpatches 3 times in the past year or so.

Each time I experience a significant drop in pain but have unbearable headaches and dizziness.

Last time I tried a patch, I took Gravol at the first sign of dizziness/nausea. Gravol took care of the nausea but not dizziness and headache.

Removed the patch each time within 24 hours but of course the dizziness remained for about 8 hrs.

Anyone have any suggestion how to better manage use of Duragesic patches? I would like to try again as they are so very effective for the pain.