talking about pain relief

[Guest guest]

Oh my, my friend who is so ill, she keeps asking me about my personal experience

with this med and that med. Truth is, I have not taken an antibiotic in many

many years, I never got the kind of sick to need one. Neither did my kids,

sturdy bodies or something, no ear infections here or anything. SHe asks me

about other meds, and again, I have personal experience with so few. I am a

nurse, but- I have not worked, it has been a long time (3 years) and I was still

in nursing school then, I was an aide for 15 years. (and a waitress before

that)

Someone here early on when I first joined asked me what pain meds my doc had

given me...my doc never gave me any pain meds. Not really " pain meds " I got

prednisone for a week.....and ibuprofen. OTC 200 mgs. He tried sulindec for a

couple days, I did not see a problem, but he stopped it. He tried arthrotec for

a couple days, same thing.

I do not understand why- I read posts here- and while my damage is not as

progressive as many- my pain was different. At first it was so intense I passed

out cold once.... The air current in the room made me scream primal screams.

The pain would come and hit different spots and stay 12-24 hours and then slowly

subside. WHile the pain was present it was the most intense pain I could

imagine and knocked me literally senseless. I could not respond to people

during that time. I would have 2-3 days where it wold either be building

elsewhere or subsiding - and it would hit again. I went to ER in an ambulance

but they sent me home and did not do anything for me, or for my pain level.

My nursing school taught us pain is one of the vital signes, but our hospital

was not yet buying into that theory.

I pain meds. I had no insurance....and my doc his office would not make an appt

for me without insurance coverage. I went my entire 2 year wait time for my

Medicare to kick in living that way.

Then I got to start mtx.

I am also bipolar, manic-depressive. I was in therapy off and on for many

years. Many years ago I had knee surgery and I was not given any pain meds for

after I got out of the hospital. WEll, in spite of a 6 inch incision, I

managed.I felt OK enough.

None of this ever was something I thought about much. BUT recently after my

friend became so ill, and last fall when a very beloved famiy member was dying,

I could not sleep. SLeep is SO important for the RA and for bipolar. SLeep

deprivation in a bipolar person can trigger psychotic mania or suicidal

depression. But, it never occured to me to ask for a sleep aid.

I was in a group therapy for wives of Viet Nam veterans the other day and they

began to question me. WHy don't I ask for a sleep aid?

Talking with my husband he reminded me of something we were told one time a

while back when I was in the ER in severe pain. They told me there was a " list "

with my name on it, none of the doctors in our area supposedly were to give me

certain types meds, cuz I was high risk for addiction. Like some secret behind

te scenes list-----a red flag or blacklist or something. Well at the time they

gave me compazine IV and surprise it helped the pain....so I did not think about

it.but now I wonder.

Our group leader at the VA tho- she is a nurse, and I asked her if she thought

there might be such a list, she said maybe, but he also asked what kind of

insurance I had. FOr while I had public aid, now I have Medicare. She said she

had heard public aid patients can have a very hard time sometimes getting pain

relief meds----- and possibly even on Medicare I still might. SHe also said the

same might be true for a sleep aide. GRRR. Can this be true? AT my last

rheumy visit I said something, I was not very nice about it, I asked him why he

let me live with that incredible pain level- for so very long, it literally

robbed me of 2 year, and deprived my kids a mom for that whole time. He handed

me a 600 mg ibuprofen Rx. well, the good thing is the mtx has helped and the

illness has changed some and I do not get pain the same way, now. Now I get a

steady pain instead, but it is nowhere near as intense. It is much much more

low key than it was for those first 2 years.