Posted by BarbaraCat on January 25, 2002, at 14:25:01
In reply to p.s. chronic pain » BarbaraCat, posted by Elizabeth on January 23, 2002, at 13:35:04
Elizabeth
> Are you getting any treatment for the fibromyalgia?I take hydrocodone when the pain is bad, although it doesn't really help that much except to improve my general mood. I also take baclofen which supposedly relaxes the spasms. When I'm having a really bad spell about the only thing I can do is sedate myself with enough klonopin and baclofen to render myself unconscious, coming up only to eat and excrete. This, as you can imagine, is not what I'd call a life.
> Compounding the problem, there are several drugs on the market that are labelled as "muscle relaxants" which are really just antihistamines/anticholinergics and don't have any particular muscle relaxant effect; they're just sedating. (Some of them are structurally similar to the tricyclic ADs.)
Do you know of any true 'muscle relaxants'? My pain is compounded by anxiety which creates muscle armouring. Exercise is really my best therapy. If I can just get the muscles loose and my mental place in a nice alpha zone, I can usually start moving and push through the pain, but if I'm really down and hurting there's just no way I'm able to call forth the will.
> I have chronic musculoskeletal pain (in my back, neck, and shoulders) too, although it's not fibromyalgia (the doctor I saw at a pain clinic in Boston thinks that it's related to a slight flaw in some of my thoracic vertabrae which causes them to press against the joints in between. I had a steroid injection in the two joints in question which worked very well (for a week or so, that is), showing that the whole problem is due to those two tiny little joints! (Chronic pain is a very weird and poorly-understood phenomenon.) Unfortunately, this didn't do much good since there isn't a way to correct the problem at this time.
I've heard some good reports on prolo therapy. I've also received cortisone injections which help for structural related problems (old mountain climbing and car accidents), but the pain of fibromyalgia is a different animal. The pain is a migrating, all over deep muscle ache, like the pain felt with a flu. It's accompanied by severe fatigue and weakness, cognitive problems, and depression. I can't tell any longer where the division is between the fibro and the depression. I know they're interrelated, but to what extent are they the same disease? I sometimes get depression without the physical pain, but it's more the agitated sort. I wonder how many others out there are afflicted with very severe somatic complaints -- think I'll start a new poll/thread.
> Buprenorphine works very well for the pain as well as for the depression, and I haven't developed any tolerance to it. Of possible interest, Nardil also relieved the pain while I was taking it. I've also found Soma helpful. Benzos can help as well, although I think they are less reliable.
Isn't soma a benzo? BTW, are you taking the buprenorphine primarily as an antidepressant or as a pain reliever? Thanks for your input, Elizabeth. I always enjoy reading your posts.
Barbara
poster:BarbaraCat
thread:4588
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20020124/msgs/91564.html