arthritis and degenerative discs in neck / upper back Posted: 04-23-06 15:48pm
I have arthritis and degenerative discs in
neck/upper back, usually in some pain but
sometimes(once-twice a week) experience
horrible pain in my neck which radiates
down the spine, seems to come and go with
no apparent reason- can't afford mri, been
to two orthopoedists, not sure they
believe how much pain i'm in, as I saw
them on "good" days, say opiates will only
make it worse, robaxin and
anti-inflammatories don't even make a dent
in severe pain, community health clinic
won't prescribe any more pain meds, can't
take tramadol, flexeril, or amytriptilene-
saw pain specialist, she thinks could be
problem w/ facet joints, though I could
barely understand a word she was
saying(thick asian accent), gave me
methadone, good for pain but impaired my
ability to think- no problem w/ percoset
and others, though... Also, I was told by
a nurse at uci burn clinic I had one of
the highest tolerances to pain meds she'd
ever seen, that was the first time I was
ever seriously injured (10+ years ago),
but another doctor told me that's only
possible if I were using- so: a) possible
diagnoses? B) can I have a natural high
tolerance? And c) will opiates make my
back "worse"? I'm getting desperate here,
out of insurance til october, pain is
getting to me- irritable, depressed,
interfering w/ my school work, can't surf,
really frustrated with the doctors i've
seen... Help!
|
disabledcoastie
Experienced User , Rather EHEALTHy
Joined: 13 Dec 2005 Posts: 68 Location: West Virginia
Posted: 04-23-06 17:26pm
Yes different people have different pain
tolerances, you could have a high
tolerance for pain. There are doctors
out there who believe in treating the
pain, but they are getting harder and
harder to find, due to new federal
regulations regarding the regulation of
narcotics. Remember if you don't have
pain all pain pills do is make you high
and get you addicted. When you take
your meds you should have no other side
effects other than reduction in pain.
I have taken up to 180mg of morphine a day
+ 40mgs or so of percocet without any side
affects and not much pain relief either.
The key is take only what you need,
normally during warm weather I take very
little narcotics, whereas in the winter I
take alot, which proves that you can take
the narcs and not get addicted. The
opiates will not make your back worse
unless while taking them you futher injure
yourself by doing things you aren't
supposed to. Taking opiates takes
discipline, you cannot do anything while
taking the pain meds that you can't do
without them, that is harder than it
sounds, because you feel good and want to
do the things you have been missing while
in pain. As far as your depression
goes, and you can't take amytriptilene,
there are other anti-depressants that have
the effect of raising your pain threshold
and easing the depression. I take
nortriptilene as I couldn't take
amytriptilene. Possible diagnoses are
several you need imaging studies
performed, as a guess I would say one of
the discs have ruptured, or the facet
joints have worn to the point that your
spine is no longer stable. What ever
the reason you need to take it easy until
you can be diagnosed. Talk to your
doctor and be honest about your insurance
situation, most doctors do some amount of
pro-bono work, I would suspect that you
can get some treatment that way until your
insurance kicks in. Good luck and i'm
sorry this is so long.
