steel implants in my ankles, no relief in sight

Hello and welcome to e health forum.

It is regretable that pain management therapies are not taken into account in some places.

In your case, it is not good to continue on opiod pain medications, as they can become addictive. Hence it is common for doctors to insist to reduce the drug dosage.

Management of the current pain can be tried with a combination of a lower dose of opiod medications (like Oxycontin) and a NSAID medication like Ibuprofen (advil) or a plain analgesic like Tylenol.

In addition, measures like weight loss, acupuncture, and physiotherapy will be very helpful to address your concerns of pain management.

Thank you for the reply. I am all for a decrease in dosage of the medication that I have been prescribed. The doctor who I am currently under his care went quite abruptly into the decrease and frankly I felt it a bit intense and reckless. I was prescribed Elavil in an attempt to decrease the level of pain receptors and in turn increase the impact of lower doses of opiate pain medications. I was onboard with this plan as at such heavy doses not only myself but my family was afraid of dependency issues and withdrawal reprocussions. I was prescribed 80mg Oxycontin twice daily and 30mg oxycodone IR tablets 4 times daily for break through pain. I was on this level of intake for close to 2 years. This new Doctor I went to immediately essentially verbally accosted me that my dose was too large, unsafe and basically called me an addict. He prescribed Elavil, cut my dosage of oxycontin in half and started to decrease the dosage of the 30mg oxycodone to 3 doses daily and has continued to decrease both of my medications week by week in a continued rush.
My question; is that aggressive of a decrease safe? The first 4 days I had serious flu symptoms, mood swings, loss of appetite and motivation to get up. I'm doing better now and am seeking a second opinion as now that my doses are getting lower and in a safe regimen I'm left to contend with serious pain and no relief. Have you heard of pain management by injection? From what I understand its basically a light nerve block. Is this effective? Is there danger of further nerve damage? Quite a but of my left foot is numb. If you have any experience with this form of pain management is there an average timeline that its effective for?
I sincerely appreciate your time in speaking with Me.
Thank you.

Thank you for your post, I'm going through the same thing and sometimes feel very alone. Well me and the pain. 4 years ago I basically destroyed both lower leg bones above the ankle, the doctor managed to cobble a functioning leg by removing the small bone fragments and holding the rest together with 18 screws and 2 plates, I now have a low back injury and ML deg. disk, OA in my lower back, and bone spurs in upper and lower back. I getting little help from Dr.s, they usually site my age, 32, as the reason. I am currently with a spine and pain clinic, they are treating my with injections and 2 7.5mg HCs a day, my Dr. has said he will not treat the leg period.