Chronic Pain

[edlegg]

in my early 20's I was in a automobile accident and broke my back. A few years later I started having problems with my neck. After years of meds, pt and just about everything out there I had a cervical fusion. I am now 50 with chronic pain, fibromyalgia, myfascial pain osteo and so on. Meds have only put on weight with no relief in site. What can I do. I can't walk, it hurts to sit. i'M SEEING ANOTHER SURGEON. I've just about given up and am sick of th fibro label. Anyone out there sound familiar?

[nanoman7]

I'm sorry to hear of your condition and can relate to your frustration. i have simular issues.

I had been able to get myself to a relative level of comfort but then experienced two rear end auto accidents 8 months apart ( 6 years ago) The list of recommended surgeries is mind boggling , I did have several Neck fusion ( failed ) Hernia repair ( failed) ,Then doctors started adding FM, Maxifacial, RSD, DDD, and a host of other compounding conditions knees, hips, neck, back, shoulders...
Everything is chipped or outrightly broken.

PAIN - I a in a steady state of extreme pain and have been able to get my levels to a 7 on a scale of
1 -10 with 10 being in steady state of sceaming.
I take opiod medications and self inject nerve block medciations as well as something called
PLO B - L - T cream. The cream is a mixture of lidocaine, benzocaine and tetracaine and helps on just about any place you put it. Mine is a % mixture of 20% 8% and 4% it can be adjusted to some degree.
I apply it like butter on toast leave it on for long periods of time then shower. It stains clothing and be some areas of the body that have thinner skin is sensitive to the point of a chemical burn. testicals,
however you can apply it anywhere you just have to to remove it sooner in the more sensitive skin areas. 5 - 15 minutes. BUT on the back Knees and thicker skin areas you can leave it on for hours. It tends to soak in about 1 - 2 inches and numbs the areas.

Also Light massage is helpful to try and keep muscles from locking up and melting.

It is very important to find a doctor that truely understands PAIN and i suggest as a part of medical teaching they should break a bone or something on each student and let them know what pain feels like... Its so easy for a Doctor to look from the outside in BUT the best Doctors realted to pain are those that have had a personal life experience to relate to. It is very sad that people with pain have to suffer because there are NUTS in the world who abuse drugs so Doctors and patients suffer the complex systems that needed to be put in place for prescribing proper medciations.
Meds for pain should exceed the need then be backed down to a level of pain tolerace NOT the other way around of increasing pain meds slowly to the level of benift. HIT the pain HARD and back off!
If you don't break the pain barrier the patient gets to level of nothing will help..I know this first hand because I am on a very thin line on a daily basis and enjoy that one out of ten days when I drop to a
5 -6 level and can get more then 3 - 4 hours sleep

I hope something i wrote above is helpful in any way.