Re: Georgia, long, pain med

[Guest guest]

Dear Crew and Georgia,

I know that some of us NF2'ers don't get the chronic headaches and pain associated with brain surgery. For those of us who have it, it's just awful, it takes your life away faster than the NF2 if that's possible.

I wanted to tell you Georgia about my medication. For the last 4 years I've been getting a daily injection of nubain. A very strong narcotic. I finally was able to give them to myself, which made it much easier so I didn't have to go to my doctors office everyday. Last August I had another back surgery. My doctor gave me demoral for pain. When I was released I was given more demoral for the pain. It's the only thing that works. Anyway, as it happens my dilatin level went sky high to 25, I had never had it go high before and wasn't sure what was going on. My family just saw me and said "drugs" what the heck is she taking that is making her so out of it. Of course I was called a drug addict. I wasn't very happy since I've always been very careful about what I take and actually give the doctor back half the stuff he wants me to be on.

I went to a drug clinic. When you are addicted to drugs they put you on methadone to ease your body off the drugs. Well the week before the appointment I didn't have anything to help with the pain except Vicodin. I didn't have withdrawls and didn't miss injecting myself with a three inch needle. I was in a lot of pain though. The Dr. looked at me and said, "how long has it been since you've had a pain free day?" I said, "the last time I slept all day." He then asked me how long I thought I was going to live. Not an easy question, but blunt. I said, "If I'm lucky maybe 3 or 4 years." He then told me that methadone is something I should have been on for years. It's not only used to treat drug addicts, but also for chronic pain. It has a reputation because people don't want to be called a drug addict. The methadone stays in your system to keep you on an le!

vel. It didn't take all the pain away, but to be honest, the only thing better is when you get demerol in the hospital and basically don't feel anything, for those times after surgery.

I am no longer embarssed to say I take methadone on a daily basis. It really has changed my life. I was taking my pain injection, then another injection so I didn't throw up, plus all the other ones because of side effects. With methadone, my medication list was cut down to the bare minimum. I take my seizure, stroke, water/pottasium and the methadone. You don't even want to know what I was taking before. The rub of the whole thing is, my injections made me gain weight, gave me a terrible hunger. The added weight made my headaches worse also. Since I stopped the injections I've lost over 70 pounds. I would say 30 of it is because of the injections. The rest is from stress and that is another loooooong post.

I went to a pain clinic too. The doctor told me he had no idea what to do with me and said he couldn't help me. (I know we have to watch our language, but he really is an *#*hole!)

The last thing is that I feel better because I don't have so many different drugs in my system. I feel better, the pain is under control, it no longer controls my life.

I hope this has helped. I'm sorry it's so long.

kari

Mybear7980@...