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Chronic Pain members - Welcome, please introduce yourself
Chronic Pain | Last Active: 10 hours ago | Replies (7051)Comment receiving replies
It makes me want to scream and cry when reading stories of people being in chronic pain. I have degenerative disc disease and so far have had 3 spine surgeries, 1 laminectomy, lumbar fusion L4-S1, and cervical fusion C4-5. I've been dealing with cervical radiculopathy for about 15 months while experiencing a heart attack and triple bypass. Nerve pain is the worst. There needs to be a delineation between opioid abusers and people who need pain medication to manage their symptoms and life. It's simply maddening. I imagine if the people mandating the laws, government, had any of this disease, there would be plenty of opioids available. People have to be accountable for themselves and I don't think the blame goes entirely to doctors.
In 2007, when I had my last surgery, I had the medication I needed. Today, if you ask for hydrocodone, there seems to be a stigma surrounding your request. Things need to change. I can get a script for 30 pills, but if you're having a bad flare up, that amount wouldn't do much. I usually take, tylenol and ibuprofen and supplement with some hydrocodone if needed.
Replies to "It makes me want to scream and cry when reading stories of people being in chronic..."
You are experiencing the same thing I just went through. I fractured another vertebrae and was in excrutiating pain. I asked my spine doctor if she could give me something stronger until the fracture healed and she said no. I asked her if I could take the pain medication I was on every 4 hours instead of every 6 hours and she said no because I would run out of the pain medication. So all she would do was prescribe Lyrica and a ton of X-Rays and a MRI. Even after finding out what was causing the horrible pain she still didn't try to help with the pain. I sent her a note in the health portal we use and asked her for an explanation of why she wouldn't help with some kind of treatment to ease the pain and she wouldn't even respond to the message. I think it may be time that I look for a new back specialist. But more importantly, I think its time the government hear our complaints. I just don't know who to contact about it. If anyone out there knows who I can contact at the government level about the the laws and regulations please let me know.
But I can tell you that I do have luck with a product called StopPain. It's a roll on and I've used it for my shoulder that has a torn rotator cuff. It does a great job on that pain. I've only found it at Walgreens. You also might ask your doctor about writing a script for those pain patches. Good luck to you. I hope you get some relief real soon. God bless you.
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@retirement75 Amen to everything you said! I am exactly there right now, in a very bad flare and feel very nauseous and haven't slept. Things just aren't cutting it, but I'm still living and breathing, so I consider that enough for now... chronic invisible pain is the worst, especially when you have layers of it.