Imrmom-Ignorant people shouldn't breed! Nuff said!!!

I myself, yes I do take pain meds because they help and make my day easier for me. I flat out told my dr I dont pain meds to make me high, I want pain meds to help me cope day to day,I'm on hydrcodone right now and I have ben on others and nothing seem to help or it would only help a bit. As for the hydrocodone, its doing the same thing now, not working so well. You have to understand I have 4 bad disc in my lower back and suffuer also from bone spurs ,so w/ Chronic pain everyday and the disci problems my body really hurts......... And being on lyrica, I was on it and its not fun to come off of...very bad reactions. good luck

Imrmom,I want to ask do you refuse to take pain meds or your dr won't give them to you? I'm just curious.....thanks

Okay Now for My 2 cents....wasn't going to....but I care too much
To the everyone who answered this question - sincere love and hugs to you. It breaks my heart...some of you I have never seen upset before this post entered the board. Sad.

Imrmom....I realize from what you have said (aside from your original post) that you did not intend to be offensive. There are 2 sides to every coin and you could have found your answers on Google. What is NOT on Google - We here post how we really feel, feelings and painful body feelings and how we cope with them day to day in an effort to help one another. We do not judge or question each other but have full - total acceptance for each other here. We all have a complex combination of illnesses and some of us only have a few days or months left to live. We are honest as you can see from the posts. We have nothing to lose and everything to gain from helping each other. The keys here are trust, respect, help, and support. Imrmom - my friends are hurt and angered by your first post and some of them will have flares because of their upsettedness over it. Please consider their feelings and not just your own when posting in the future.

I would like to see you included in this group and I am sure this awesome group of men and woman would be more than happy to help, support, or just listen to you in the future ;)

I do apologize to anyone offended by my post.

Super HUGE GROUP HUGS ALL AROUND !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Smooches too,
Eva

Wow, but not shocked about your cousin. He has a connection at a pharmacy and doctor. Then there are these pain clinics setting up all over the place. No doctor, just nurse and physician asst. giving meds. This makes it hard for those of us who are looked at like addicts and not given anything. I myself cannot take pain meds. I take tramadol and robaxin. And my doc monitors me closely on those. Crazy world we live in.

Siqbue ,Yes he must have connections he has everything. And he's in Canada too .

FMsucks -you are just not a nice person

JM -no my doctor wont give them ,I suppose he would if I really insisted and I also am doing OK without ,I get those days when I think I just want to quit but I am quite a happy positive person and I always find some way to get on with it

Another question which some of you have kinda answered ,I gues people tolerance to drugs is all different but do the pain killers make you tired ? groggy ? Or you just feel better ?

How do I do it without drugs .20 years ago there were no drugs ,no Lyrica nothing and like I said why bother to mention the pain to doctors most just thought you were nuts .
So I had to get used to the pain .Youd be amazed really how much you can ignore ,I learned to sleep thru pain everything because there was no other way .I raised 4 kids and kept up a house with Fibro .After the kids grew and I was done and went on strike and told the hubby Im done .now there are drugs like Lyrica which took away some of my pain amazingly but by that time I also had MCTD.Believe me I cant control the pain as well anymore cause I dont want to I do get panic attacks now when Im in alot of pain

OK let's break down why we were offended:

1. "What do you do when you have a remission ? Go to rehab?"

You started right out being sarcastic/hostile - asking if people go to rehab suggests strongly that they ARE addicted and would need treatment.

2. "Doesnt having to go to lots of doctors to find one who gives you pain meds set off alarm bells with anyone? My cousin comes to the coast with huge bottles of oxy contin hundreds of pills .What doctor ould give someone that many pills ? And what pharmacy would fill them?I was scared to drive with her she was so stoned. Oh and she gave me the chronic pain suferers cannot become addicted line "

Again you make "accusations" as if they have anything to do with us. I have to assume you think we'd know the answers, since you chose to ask us the questions, so I have to assume the accusations are intended for us. Personally, I've never gone to "lots of doctors" - only get my treatment and my meds from my PCP. The only reason I know that people with fibro go to lots of doctors is that they are seeking a diagnosis that no one is wiling to give, or have a doctor who "doesn't believe," or have multiple medical issues that require multiple specialists. I don't know anyone here who has gone to "lots of doctors" trying to get pain meds.

Your cousin IS wrong about chronic pain sufferers becoming addicted - there is nothing special about chronic pain that makes us immune to addiction - the truth, and probably what she was attempting to express, is that treating PAIN with - say it with me now - PAIN MEDS is not inappropriate, and we have no more or less risk of addiction than the general population.

As for driving with her - can't say as we weren't there - but one person's addiction is just that - it has nothing to do with me or anyone else here. It's pretty common to confuse your own experience with the universal experience, and I think that's where you've gone in invoking your cousin and her medication.

3."Why do you insist you cannot become addicted ? People with surgeries take them for legite reasons and become addicted ,so therefore if you go into remission you will then be an addict ?"

Again your words suggest that you are referring to people here - and that we have said these things. Anytime you say "you" we're going to assume you're talking about "us." I personally insist that I cannot become addicted because I'm 61 years old and have had plenty of chances to become addicted to multiple substances over my lifetime - but never did. People who have surgery, like people with chronic pain, are at the same risk for addiction as anyone else in the population - so some of them - a very small number - WILL become addicted. Again as we have pointed out, you confuse physical dependence with addiction.

"My doctor believre the theory that there is something wrong in our brain with the pain receptors that is why Lyrica it works on that pat of our brain."

Without commenting on the difficulty of understanding this sentence (oh wait I just did), your doctor has some of it right. Fibromyalgia is mostly likely related to brain chemistry, and there have been differences noted in the pain receptors on MRIs, but the truth is that no one knows what causes it, and no one, including doctors, researchers, or the FDA knows why certain medications work for some of us. All that's known for certain is that they do.

"There is many many write ups online saying that pain killers dont work."

Yep - and they're all full of it. Anybody can write anything and get published these days - and on the internet it's even easier. There is a lot of crap written and we have to be smart enough to sort out the truth from the crap-with-an-agenda.

"I personally have never tried them so I dont know."

I'm pretty sure this would have been a good first sentence - and then a good place to stop.

"As you know there are still even doctors out there who dont even believe in Fibromyalgia."

And your point is...? Saying this kind of thing makes it sound as if you are challenging the diagnosis - which I assume you're not since you have fibromyalgia - so what IS your point? This comes off just sounding like more sarcasm.

"I suffer very much from Fibro and also have MCTD .I am hoping for a remission .But I have not been offered opiods by my awesome doctors and am quite happy with that ."

Hope is good. Happiness is good. If you're satisfied with your treatment I'm sure we are all happy for you. But that has nothing whatsoever to do with anything else you're talking about.

"I believe everyone should make there own choices ,so please make yours but please dont encourage anyone who is in pain to find a doctor to prescribe addicting drugs."

First, you started out belittling other people's choices, so it's more than a bit disingenuous to come back a few lines later and say we should all make our own choices. For what it's worth, I have NEVER, EVER seen anyone here suggest to anyone else that they should find a doctor and insist on being prescribed narcotics. I have, however, seen a lot of people who are suffering, whose doctors REFUSE to prescribe effective pain meds and tell them "there's nothing I can do for you" - and that's just wrong.

"Oh and by the way depedance is the same as addiction."

Sorry - not true - not even close - even if you spelled it right. :)

"Try going off your drugs cold turkey and see what happens you will soon find out you are addicted."

Try going off your Lyrica cold turkey and when you recover from the seizures, brain zaps, pain, and other nasty effects, we can talk again.

OK - that's it for in a nutshell. You came across as hostile, accusatory, and judgmental. Most people are going to have issues with that. If you really wanted our opinions and thoughts, you could have just asked for them, and we would have been happy to have a rational discussion, but that's not what you did - so you got what you got.

I do believe you have just been put in your place - Thanks Peace

I will answer this one tho


Another question which some of you have kinda answered ,I gues people tolerance to drugs is all different but do the pain killers make you tired ? groggy ? Or you just feel better ?

You guess everyone's tolerance is different? Well considering everyone's body chemistry is different let me tell you straight up we all react to drugs differently there is no guessing about it. I can only speak for myself but my tolerance is high to the narcotics due to metabolism issues so everything I put in my body (besides the predisone) reacts backass backwards - no the narcotics do not make me tired or groggy they wire my ass even worse than it already is. Same goes for the weed but with the weed yeah gonna admit I do feel high - not the effect I am going after but it happens.

I take pain meds. Tramadol for 'daily use' and Vicodin for those times when the pain is off the charts. I don't like to take meds of any kind, but I do take tramadol every day because it controls my severe RLS and takes the edge off the fibro pain. I take Soma to relax muscles, which helps relieve some muscle pain (pain causes muscle tension, which causes muscle pain which causes muscle tension.....). I'm trying Neurontin, which doesn't seem to be doing anything for pain and is making me extremely 'stupid'. Don't want to stay on it too long if it's not going to work, getting off it is not fun. I only take Vicodin when the pain is so bad that I am nonfunctional. I take it and go to bed because I can't handle the side effects when I'm awake. I don't have to take it often, so it's a non-issue. Is tramadol addictive? Yes. Is Vicodin addictive? You betcha'. Am I going to quit taking it? No. Not unless they come up with a treatment that actually works to relieve my pain. It's a quality of life issue. If I take pain meds, and they improve my quality of life to the point that I can have some semblance of a life, then I don't give a crap if I am dependant on them. I take them as directed (actually, I take less, but my Rheumy prescribes them, so I don't have a contract with a pain management clinic and don't get in trouble for altering my doseage). I don't feel 'high', I actually feel somewhat 'normal', which I can't say when I'm not taking pain meds. Although I wish they worked better, and did more than just take the edge off the pain, I have no intention of giving them up. My pain is my pain and this is how I choose to deal with it because it works for me.

i have a lot of pain meds...doc gives me refills for 6 months at a time; 30 days each prescription. i've had my hydrocodone and darvocet scripts since march and have not refilled them yet. yeh, that is addiction NOT. i use them very sparingly when i just can't take it any more. otherwise, i use ibuprofen.
i have said to others that i don't see what the excitement is over some of these drugs as they just put me to sleep...what fun is that. but like someone else said; i guess they do different things to people who take them to get high vs. people who want relief from chronic pain.
too tired to type any more...just my two cents.
if you have a doc that will not give you ANY sort of pain meds for fibro...he doesn't really understand it...

What PeaceN2You said.

In reference to your response to my post here, I am not trying to hang you. The problem I have (and maybe others have) is you are acting like you're better than everyone else because you're not on pain pills. I want to be able to post and I want other people to be able to post in a SAFE, non judgmental environment.

Also, you say you can just ignore the pain? Not all of us can do that. That is amazing you can do that, but please, don't act like you're better than anyone else because you feel you can do this. I would say most of us do our best to ignore the pain, and there is nothing wrong with any of us taking something to help us ignore the pain. Lyrica works the same way - I have never heard of Lyrica curing someone completely of everything that hurts. Same goes for pain meds.

Tolerance and reactions depend on the individuals. Some of us can't take drugs like Lyrica because of the horrible side effects and risks. Some people do better on different pain meds than others. My doctor is much more comfortable prescribing me some vicodin for when things get bad than Lyrica because of my body chemistry. For me, prescribing a few pain pills is safer than me taking a drug like Lyrica.

I don't think any of us should have to defend our own medication choices to anyone. I don't care if you take 20 vicodins a day or no meds at all. I just want people to be pain free and happy and not to be judged for pursuing a pain free life, with whatever means they can.

You defend smoking illegal drugs ,nuff said as some of you might say

you seem alittle defensive. alot of people really need the pain meds. we may need them but we are not addicts. Im so thankful without mine I would not be able to move or have a fairly decent life. You can not ignore the pain. I wish I could.

LOL on that last comment.

Okay Folks, it appears that the true meaning of the message has come through and it also appears that the comments have degraded as the day has gone on.

I think it is time that I stop reading this silliness and just remember my own rule of thumb: Everyone has their own pain and it is no one's right to judge another.

It seems that annaleep was writing at the same time that I was.

Sorry anna, I was not laughing at your comment.

I found comment #42 to be funny and very telling.