Shown: posts 1 to 4 of 4. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by missliz on August 21, 2002, at 0:50:25
So I'm already treated for bipolar 2 with a bunch of bells and whistles, then I got to spend the last two years with severe injuries and no life but physical therapy and surguries. I've been such a damn trooper for so long and now it's catching up to me. I had the last surgury two weeks ago, was just ecstatic, then it all caught up to me. Two years of gruesome stuff. Meds have been a real problem- I've been on a lot of mood stabilizers and all of them have worked in my head but had unacceptable physical effects. I think the emotional toll of this "We can rebuild her" project the orthopods put together has probably aggravated the psych med troubles. I'm down to selegiline, Neurontin, fish oil (great stuff!) and xanax. I've got a ton of Vicodin for pain, even my pdoc pushed more on me yesterday, and there lies my concerns- I've always been really good about putting down the pain pills when I don't need them anymore but I've had enough of the stuff in the last five months that I'm getting tolerant, and I have a LOT of really strange type of pain, and it's creeping me out. It's like a big booming bolt of pain that roars along the nerves in my legs. I've had knee surguries on each in the last four months and I'm missing a lot of cartilige, but this seems like a jammed open curcuit in my head. I'm also just crash and burn depressed, I'm supposed to raise the dose on the selegiline tomorrow. I want to gobble Vicodin, which for me means three a day. It kills the pain in myy head. This is scary.
So I understand that Neurontin and Tegretol and the like are already used for chronic pain? I think this worse pain is a part of the depression, and that a psych drug solution may be easier in the long term than narccotics. Or is it? I don't know what to think. I feel totally anhedonic and unmotivated and more drugs just seems overwhelming. People get hysterical about pain pills, but then when when my face was reconstructed the surgeon said just take the damn Demerol. You need it. After six months I just quit it one day because I didn't need it any more and I was fine. No withdrawal. I'm in such emotional turmoil now though and my meds were fine last week, but now need work. I don't want to fall into the pain pill trap.
Does this make sense?
Any suggestions are welcomed. I have three months of physical therapy and I have to pick up the peices of my life and start over. I'm going to start talking therapy, but it's a waste of time if I'm rapid cycling (possible source of weird pain?) and unstable on meds. I'm supposed to try nimodipine as soon as I can deal with it.
Thank you allMiss Liz
Posted by oracle on August 21, 2002, at 11:51:48
In reply to Post surgical pain, crash and burn depression, posted by missliz on August 21, 2002, at 0:50:25
Since the kind of pain you are having has now changed and you have some conserns about the management of this pain, how about a consult
with a pain management specalist ?
Posted by nikioct73 on August 21, 2002, at 17:01:36
In reply to Re: Post surgical pain, crash and burn depression, posted by oracle on August 21, 2002, at 11:51:48
Only 2% of persons taking narcotics for chronic pain develop a addticion requiring medical intervention...your MD's are right if you have pain take the pain med's but you bring up a good point about the Tegretol/neurotin..what is better..to use for long term control..I guess you would have to weight the side effect of both in the longand short term. If you have not had problems with coming off the narcotic's and your Doc has no problems prescribing them to you i would jump for JOY...as for the BP2 ...you on a mood stabilzer??..your right talk TX usually is ineffective when you are rapidly cycling...so you would need that before anything else ...some of the med's used for long term pain management also help a great deal in certain people with BP2...like the ones you mentioned...Good luck..
niki
Posted by missliz on August 22, 2002, at 1:11:38
In reply to Re: Post surgical pain, crash and burn depression, posted by nikioct73 on August 21, 2002, at 17:01:36
Thanks, you all, I've calmed down a lot today. My physical therapist says I may just have a temporary surge in pain because orthopods are guys with power tools and like to knock things around, including nerves. It may blow over in a few days.
My pharmacist, who is actually a really great guy, laughed his tail off at me, then explained about the 2% of people thing and told me that people on pain meds will forget to eat and get such low blood suger they get freaky. He told me to force down some decent food, and he was right, it really helped my mood immediately. And my pdoc raised my selegiline- it's anti convulsant as well as anti depressant and thats why I was doing so well on it for so long.
I think I'm just out of slack for the whole damn business and lost it this last week. If the pain continues to be this bad I just need to get a pain management guy. I haven't been stay in bed all day depressed in years and it scared me.
Well today I got dressed and made phone calls. Maybe it's getting better.Miss Liz
This is the end of the thread.
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