Rheumatoid Arthritis Support Group
Rheumatoid arthritis is a chronic, inflammatory, multisystem, autoimmune disorder. It is a disabling and painful condition which can lead to substantial loss of mobility due to pain and joint destruction. The disease is also systemic in that it often also affects many extra-articular tissues throughout the body including the skin, blood vessels, heart, lungs, and...
I'm starting to think something in wrong with me. Pain level has been at a constant high level for weeks now. I've been on humira for 6 weeks, Arava for about 3 months. Pain has only gotten worse. I had injections in hip joint and bursa 2 weeks ago with very little relief, getting another in 2 more weeks. Started with norco and tramadol for pain. Didn't help much and pain kept getting worse, so got referred to pain dr. He rx OxyContin. All that did was make me sleepy. Didn't help much with pain. After 2 weeks on that, he rx a fentanyl patch. That took the pain from a jack hammer to a throb. Definitely didn't bring it to a tolerable level. No matter what I take, nothing seems to help much. I feel like I'm at my wits ends. I don't understand why none of these heavy duty pain killers seems to help much. I keep losing weight which dr attributes to inflammation. Meds don't seem to be helping with RA. I feel like crap all the time and unable to think clearly. I'm sooooo frustrated.
driving i always have to work in. do you have commutes? do you drive on these narcotics?
I had synthetic morphine in the hospital for the neck surgery, it worked. it worked MUCH better than real morphine. i don't even know what the difference is, just how I felt.
but like MTX, narcotics takes away my cognitive functioning (Yes I agree that extreme pain does also)
it is a tightrope.
night time emergencies seem to work for me but it has to be real early in the night, otherwise, I am still impaired (driving wise) in the morning and would have to take a sick day.
right now I am being driven around like an important person in a cervical collar by calling upon a cadre of drivers. i rather be doing the driving.
Ros