Pain management

Dante

Git
SF Pro
SF Supporter
#1
As I am sure people are getting sick of me mentioning (especially those who have REAL pain issues) my side has been hurting on and off for a little over a year, about 60% of the time I am pain free, about 30% of the time I am in moderate pain, enough to slow me down but not stop me, and the remaining 10% of the time my side yoyos between the moderate pain levels to curl up and whimper levels of pain.

I am moving this week and I need to pack everything up, but my side has chosen this week to yoyo, its day 2 and I haven't packed a single cup. The doctor has only JUST prescribed some rather weak painkillers (not even double the strength over the counter stuff), so I am still relying on my own cocktail of over the counter painkillers, which I have updated to include the prescription stuff. My question is how to get any more effectiveness out of this cocktail.

At the moment I am using:
2x 15/500mg cocodamol tablets
2x 200mg Ibuprofen tablets
2x 50mg Pro Plus caffeine tablets.

The caffeine is to boost the effect of the rest (caffeine does that to painkillers, which is why it is sometimes added to paracetamol to increase its potency)

With the change from the 8/500mg over the counter cocodamol to the 15/500mg weak-ass prescription stuff it is just BARELY starting to be effective at eliminating the mid-level pain (rather than, at best, dulling it), but if I move around the pain starts exceeding the painkillers again. Any tweaks or additions you can think of to increase the strength of this would be appreciated.
 

Nick

☆☆Admin-tastic ☆☆
Safety & Support
SF Social Media
SF Artist
SF Supporter
#2
Has the doctor given you any indication of what is causing this pain? I suffer from chronic pain (I say this not to make you feel bad, but to say I have some experience). Increasing your water intake can help a lot. It sounds silly, but it does have a significant positive effect. It seems like the last thing you want to do, because you have to get up more to get the water and to use the restroom but it does help. Cold or heat packs are also extremely helpful, you have to experiment a little to figure out what works best for you. If you find heat works, you might try the stick on heat packs to use while you are trying to work. I'm hesitant to give advice on medications, as that can be very dependent on the person and what works well for me may be dangerous for another person.
 

Dante

Git
SF Pro
SF Supporter
#3
Has the doctor given you any indication of what is causing this pain? I suffer from chronic pain (I say this not to make you feel bad, but to say I have some experience). Increasing your water intake can help a lot. It sounds silly, but it does have a significant positive effect. It seems like the last thing you want to do, because you have to get up more to get the water and to use the restroom but it does help. Cold or heat packs are also extremely helpful, you have to experiment a little to figure out what works best for you. If you find heat works, you might try the stick on heat packs to use while you are trying to work. I'm hesitant to give advice on medications, as that can be very dependent on the person and what works well for me may be dangerous for another person.
No indication of whats wrong, getting them to even think about it is like pulling teeth, it took them a year to bother ruling out a kidney infection (by that point if it WAS a kidney infection it would have killed the kidney), so far it is not kidney infection, probably not kidney stone or gall stone, and they just kinda decided it wasn't cancer without testing for it, the whole investigation reeks of "meh".

As for things I have investigated, I have massively increased my water intake this past 2 months, and it has helped on the moderate pain days, heat helps a tiny amount, but the main thing is to lean away from the pain, take any pressure off that side, especially at the back and stop moving, that and suck down as many painkillers as I can, however, everything I have tried except for is only effective on the moderate pain days, on the extreme pain days the only way to keep the pain down is to do the lean away and stop moving thing.

I have been basing the painkiller cocktail on what you can take together.

Cocodamol takes up the max dose of paracetamol you can take (they use the paracetamol to limit how many tablets and thus how much codeine you can take so you cant abuse it), the ibuprofen obviously takes the max of ibuprofen, I know you can take ibuprofen and paracetamol together but I dont know of any other painkillers that you can take at the same time as these other 2, or anything other than caffeine that will boost the effect without massively intoxicating you, I was just asking if I missed anything.
 
#4
I think I've mentioned this before, but acupuncture is probably worth trying.

The US Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced in January 2020 that acupuncture would be covered nationally by Medicare for the treatment of chronic low back pain.
https://www.cms.gov/newsroom/press-...-chronic-low-back-pain-medicare-beneficiaries

I know what you have isn't back pain, but acupuncture works well for a variety of pain conditions.

Community style acupuncture offers some affordable treatments. www.POCAcoop.com (US) and www.acmac.net (UK) have a listing of affiliated community style clinics.
 

Please Donate to Help Keep SF Running

Total amount
$70.00
Goal
$255.00
Top