Busted!

[Dragon_Dreamer]

I tend to have reactions to strong medications, myself. Vicodin and Percocet, even Ceftin (I think that's the name the doctor said, the bottle said Cefuroxime axetil) has caused me to throw up for upwards of half an hour.

I also have what has been re-classified in the last month as Reactive Airway Disease (before, they were telling me it was chronic bronchitis), which, when I have flareups, means that I get the codeine cough syrup and an antibiotic. Luckily, my family has seen the same group of doctors since the 1960s, well before I was born. They know I won't abuse the codeine, and it *works.*

Back when I had my wisdom tooth surgeries, I *asked* for T3s, because of the reactions. My doctors had cautioned me that I might have a reaction to Percoset or Vicodin, and I told the dental surgeon that. He didn't listen, of course, and I did end up vomiting profusely in both cases. The third surgery, he prescribed something else, but I forget what. No reaction, but a month later the FDA pulled it off the shelf. Figures. :P

Still, I'm happy to have docs who know about my sensitivities, and who are more than happy to trust me. And I'm more than happy to keep earning that trust.

[DeltaSierra]

Toradol has been a lifesaver for me for my migraines - thankfully, I only have to take one, and usually no more than once or twice a month. It stops them in their tracks, whereas multiple other prescriptions my Dr and I had tried didn't.

I can't take opiates, they (especially morphine) make me to a very good Linda Blair impression, complete with spinning head, projectile vomiting, and hovering 3 feet off the bed. Scares the interns tho....

[Misanthropical]

They do though. Most of them see fibro and immediately shut you down regardless of anything else. I could come into the ER half-decapitated from a car accident, holding my brains in with my hand, and they'd look at my chart, see fibro, call me a drug seeker, and send me home. Obviously an exageration but that's how it feels sometimes.

And try being YOUNG with fibro. My sister has it as bad/worse than me, and she's only 23 (it's her birthday today, squee!). She's been flat out told to her face by medical professionals that she's 'too young to be in this much pain'.

I didn't know pain had an age limit? Do your nerves not work until you're middle aged, or something?

I ran into the whole "you're too young" bullshit a lot when I was younger. I had chronic pain because of circumstances beyond my control when I was a child. It wasn't till 7 years ago that I was ever prescribed pain medication by a doctor who thought it was beyond ridiculous that I should be left in so much pain.

So, before that doctor, I was always treated like I was drug seeking. I would see my doctors for the pain and not once ask for a specific medication and get treated like I was making it all up and wasting my doctors time and sent home. Mr. Mis told me it was because I can be in horrific pain and a person would never be able to tell by looking at me.

I have a pain specialist now who makes sure I am not left to suffer in pain. My children have asked why I take pain medication now and I told them I earned that right by being left in horrific pain for over 20 years by doctors who didn't see my pain as any big deal.

I do think my surgery proves I was not a liar and I would love to put that pain on the doctors who left me in so much pain for so many years and see if they can deal with it not knowing when it's going to strike and when it does knowing it will last for weeks at a time.

[Seshat]

Keeping a registry of patients being seen by pain management specialists would be a good idea, since those docs need to know if their patients are trying to circumvent the treatment plan (many forms of chronic, non-life threatening pain are best treated with non-narcotic or non-pharmacologic methods).

It would also be a good idea from the POV of patients who DO need pharmacologic methods, or who need pharmacologic methods for breakthrough pain.

That way when LewisLegion (for example) comes in seeking assistance for breakthrough pain, they can see that she's only asked for it once in the last six months, that her pain management specialists estimates she could suffer severe breakthrough pain more often than that, and which drug/s her pain management specialist recommends.

... le sigh.

[Mishi]

@Seshat + Panacea, we're actually getting a prescription database here pretty soon, it was mentioned in the SundayMail this weekend as a countrywide program.

[tropicsgoddess]

That BPL got old busted! When I broke my foot a few years ago, they gave me Vicodin. That stuff would knock me out within 30 minutes and then when I would wake up from it, I felt like I was in a fog.

[LewisLegion]

So, before that doctor, I was always treated like I was drug seeking. I would see my doctors for the pain and not once ask for a specific medication and get treated like I was making it all up and wasting my doctors time and sent home. Mr. Mis told me it was because I can be in horrific pain and a person would never be able to tell by looking at me.

So sorry to hear about your treatment, Mis. It's horrible what people can be put through unnecessarily.

Most severe chronic pain patients learn to hide it very well. Not because they want to mask it from people (usually) but because it just comes to a point where you need to live life. Does that make sense?

Like, someone breaks a leg. It hurts badly for a few days. They take it easy, use their crutches, grunt or groan faintly on occassion, and are usually up front about the pain they're in (how are you feeling? Oh, it's better but it still aches quite a bit), etc.

Now, say that same pain from the broken leg never goes away. EVER. In a few months you'd never know anything was really wrong with that person. When asked how they're feeling, in order to not sound like they're constantly whining the person has learned to answer 'fine'. You can only spend so much time grunting and groaning and taking it easy...life needs living. Chores need done, work needs gone too. People around you, who are only themselves used to acute pain, become uncomfortable because pain is supposed to get better, and when they started to wonder if you were faking it, you hide it in order to maintain your relationship. They can't fix it, anyway. So, you either give up and sound like a constant whiner and collapse under everything...or you suck it up. And for those who suck it up, you'd never know the amount of pain they're in just by looking.

I still laugh and joke and goof around...but me doing these things does NOT mean I'm not in a lot of pain. Trust me, if you can TELL I'm in pain, I'm at the point most normals would be in the hospital asking for morphine.

Heck, I got bit several times by a dog through the hand and on the arm and barely blinked even though it hurt like a frakker. No one there even knew I had been bit until I mentioned it a couple hours later, and had to have my BFF help clean it out.

Honestly, it's not right leaving anybody suffering in pain until they're so used to it you can't tell they hurt unless it's horrific or they point it out. I don't care what their age is. Pain is a serious problem in this country, and no one seems to want to do anything about it.

A few months ago I woke up feeling really weird. So strange I went an hour trying to figure out what was wrong. Then I realized...something wasn't wrong, it was right. I wasn't in pain anywhere, and it was so alien that I couldn't recognize it at first. THAT shouldn't be allowed. Feeling good should not be so foreign that people actually forget what it feels like.

[Seshat]

Most severe chronic pain patients learn to hide it very well. Not because they want to mask it from people (usually) but because it just comes to a point where you need to live life. Does that make sense?

<eloquence snipped>

A few months ago I woke up feeling really weird. So strange I went an hour trying to figure out what was wrong. Then I realized...something wasn't wrong, it was right. I wasn't in pain anywhere, and it was so alien that I couldn't recognize it at first. THAT shouldn't be allowed. Feeling good should not be so foreign that people actually forget what it feels like.

You put it very, very well.

There's another reason we chronic pain-ers tend to 'hide' it. After a while, you get sick of the sympathy, and worse, the pity and distress, of the people around you.

You also get sick of the people who accuse you of 'bunging it on' or 'whinging' or 'acting up'.

When my own illness was developing, I was living with my birthfamily. Who insisted the latter, so often that I began to doubt my own sensations. I actually trained myself to not notice the pain, because I started to believe I wasn't feeling it.

And LL? I envy you that period of painlessness. But also .. yay for you!

[LewisLegion]

Thanks hon. It only lasted a couple of hours, unfortunately. It was a result of the Cymbalta they put me on. The other result was horrible nausea and vertigo and sleeping issues...which did not balance out the only two hours of no pain it gave me, alas. So I'm not on that any more.

And yes. The sympathy can get just as frustrating as realizing you can't do things you used to be able to do easily. And you definately do begin to doubt yourself (hence my 'can I walk normally or am I just limping because I'm used to limping' experiment). Maybe I'm making more of a deal of this than it is. Maybe I'm really not in this much pain. Maybe it is all in my head.

Bleh. Anyway, sorry, didn't mean to thread-jack so much

[Seshat]

Meh. If you're thread-jacking, so am I. And I suspect this window into the world of people with chronic pain is interesting to at least some people.

I'm sorry to hear about the Cymbalta: it's been a wonder for me. I had complete insomnia for the initial few days of the uptake period - my family dragged me to the doctor to get a script for high strength benzos to counter it. (I was so sleep depped I was unfit to make any decisions, even one to go to the doctor.)

But after the uptake period, it's been amazing.

[Misanthropical]

So sorry to hear about your treatment, Mis. It's horrible what people can be put through unnecessarily.

Most severe chronic pain patients learn to hide it very well. Not because they want to mask it from people (usually) but because it just comes to a point where you need to live life. Does that make sense?

Like, someone breaks a leg. It hurts badly for a few days. They take it easy, use their crutches, grunt or groan faintly on occassion, and are usually up front about the pain they're in (how are you feeling? Oh, it's better but it still aches quite a bit), etc.

Now, say that same pain from the broken leg never goes away. EVER. In a few months you'd never know anything was really wrong with that person. When asked how they're feeling, in order to not sound like they're constantly whining the person has learned to answer 'fine'. You can only spend so much time grunting and groaning and taking it easy...life needs living. Chores need done, work needs gone too. People around you, who are only themselves used to acute pain, become uncomfortable because pain is supposed to get better, and when they started to wonder if you were faking it, you hide it in order to maintain your relationship. They can't fix it, anyway. So, you either give up and sound like a constant whiner and collapse under everything...or you suck it up. And for those who suck it up, you'd never know the amount of pain they're in just by looking.

I still laugh and joke and goof around...but me doing these things does NOT mean I'm not in a lot of pain. Trust me, if you can TELL I'm in pain, I'm at the point most normals would be in the hospital asking for morphine.

Heck, I got bit several times by a dog through the hand and on the arm and barely blinked even though it hurt like a frakker. No one there even knew I had been bit until I mentioned it a couple hours later, and had to have my BFF help clean it out.

Honestly, it's not right leaving anybody suffering in pain until they're so used to it you can't tell they hurt unless it's horrific or they point it out. I don't care what their age is. Pain is a serious problem in this country, and no one seems to want to do anything about it.

A few months ago I woke up feeling really weird. So strange I went an hour trying to figure out what was wrong. Then I realized...something wasn't wrong, it was right. I wasn't in pain anywhere, and it was so alien that I couldn't recognize it at first. THAT shouldn't be allowed. Feeling good should not be so foreign that people actually forget what it feels like.

LewisLegion Thank you and I'm sorry about your pain too.

I learned early on how to hide my emotions from others even though the pain was horrid and the frustration from none of the doctors helping me because they couldn't find the reason for the pain made the pain worse. I think the surgery I went through proves there was a reason. My lower spine turning into a backwards J and the fact I needed hardware put into my spine to fix the problems I was having proves something was really wrong.

And like Seshat said after a while, you get sick of the sympathy, and worse, the pity and distress, of the people around you and you also get sick of the people who accuse you of 'bunging it on' or 'whinging' or 'acting up'.

I have been accused of not caring about what ever crisis is going on at the time because I do push my emotions to the side until it's all over with. They don't see me afterwards sobbing in Mr. Mis's arms about what just happened.

[Seshat]

I have been accused of not caring about what ever crisis is going on at the time because I do push my emotions to the side until it's all over with. They don't see me afterwards sobbing in Mr. Mis's arms about what just happened.

I'm like that, too.

Crisis? Okay. It must be dealt with. You with the cellphone, call 000. You three ladies, one of you got a wrapped pad? We have an arterial bleed to stop. You, you're monitoring respiration. Kneel down here and make sure the kid is breathing, alert me if it changes *at all*. The rest of you gawkers; keep an eye out for the ambulance, and get out of the way when it gets here.

....

Ambulance comes. They take over. I transfer all information, they let me know they have it from here.

I collapse into a shaking, crying heap. All the emotion I had blocked off hits at once.

[crazylegs]

Great. That's the drug companies angling for a new way to make money. There's no reason to give Toradol intranasally. If you can't take it PO, then you probably need an IV anyway.

[Devils Advocate]
I would suggest that in a pre hospital trauma setting it would be useful - anything that can decrease the time for painrelief in that situation can only be a good thing (I've lost count of the number of times that effective pain relief has been delayed, or due to the circumstances of the incident current pain relief isn't possible).
[/Devils Advocate]

[LewisLegion]

I third that. I'm great in an emergency, then I break down later. When the dog got hit everyone was freaking out and crying and I was the one calming them down, caring for the dog, helping the vet (after hours and he had no assistant) etc.

Much later after we got home and I actually got to bed, I bawled like a little kid.

[bunnyboy]

Ah the fun with Opiods and me.

Learned soon after having my appendix out that I do need to have something/someone there to let ER people know the following.

-Sensitive to opioids.
-False veins in both arms.
and the final kicker
-Family history of Arrythmia.

I've had problems with all three.