Naproxen and Ibuprofen both work quite well for me for muscle and joint pain. I can't really take either for more than a day or two at a time, though, before I'm wrecked by reflux and gastric pain.
I don't really like opiates, but when I had some pain that was stopping me sleeping recently, codydramol did the job (dihydrocodeine and paracetamol/acetimenophen).
I can't think of any folk or herbal remedies that work, although I was taking turmeric extract for joint pain for a while, and that seemed to help a little. Movement and warmth works, though. Gentle stretching, walking, heat.
I've been clear of it for something like ten years now, but the gastric pain I had throughout my early adult years was about the only pain I've ever had that left me unable to function at times.
I take Naproxen now to keep my ankle functioning, but I always worry about it restarting the gastric issues. My sister says that drinking and Naproxen together are not good for gastric issues, but Naproxen doesn't work for emotional pain.
I use Aleve for back pain with some success. I find muscle relaxants sometimes helpful, but the one I had been using is habit forming so I stopped. Weed works sort-of OK as a muscle relaxant, but you end up more physically functional but less mentally so.
Muscle relaxants as prescribed definitely leave me less mentally functional than I'm okay being. I took one last night anyway and my ankle felt pretty good in the night but has gone back to not doing so. (Ibuprofen 800 mg 3 x daily. Does just about nothing AFACT.)
Naproxen worked (is now contraindicated with warfarin) for me for muscular and joint things better than anything I've ever taken, but Ibuprofen does nothing at all except make me mildly nauseous. From which I deduce that people's reactions to various drugs differ, and I wish the medical profession would take this on board.
Agree with acetominphen for headaches (and inflammatory pain in general), though it has no effect for Mrs y, who uses aspirin. See second sentence above.
Not sure what they give you in the hospitals here for minor surgery. When I had my heart valve done they gave me morphine on a pump, which was kind of interesting, but I wouldn't recommend it as a frequent intervention. Didn't stop the physio hurting like hell, though.
Aleve is naproxen, Chris. Tylenol is acetaminophen. Advil/Midol is ibuprofen.
Every time I go back to Japan I stock up with loxoprofen. I can't get it here, but it works better than anything else for me for lower back pain and sinus headache. (Back pain was intermittently disabling for a couple of years but went away altogether after I started running regularly, so I can't speak to it now.)
I'm a big believer in popping a pill to feel better (as opposed to silent suffering the way that nature intended), but I've been lucky so far in that I don't tend to suffer from everyday pains like headaches that benefit from OTC NSAIDs. I only have one experience relating to frequent, unpleasant pain and two experiences relating to what I would consider debilitating pain.
The frequent one is back pain, thanks to a lifetime of poor posture. It flares up once or twice a year at one or other end of my back, then overcompensation to avoid moving that part inevitably migrates it to my whole back. It basically leaves me sleep deprived, in an awful mood and walking around like a half-animated scarecrow.
In terms of truly debilitating pain, I've once suffered from a really bad toothache (ended up having it pulled but had to wait several days, unmedicated, for an emergency appointment), and once from stress-related shingles. Both left me effectively bedridden and cursing god.
In all three cases, the only medicines that have worked have been opiod analgesics and/or a herbal folk remedy that, given where I live right now, would be foolish to put down in writing. All three responded to some extent to trying to stay warm, cheerful, and to distract my rebellious nervous system through displacement activity like talking to people or watching films or whatever.
One of those big breakthroughs for me in becoming more mature and less "everybody experiences life more or less the way I do" was when I realised how much the length and severity of pain suffered on a daily basis varies between different individuals.
Actually, reading unfogged has helped a lot with that.
Excedrin kills my mild-but-annoying migraines. Nothing other than sleep is effective for other headaches. (And sleep is not effective for migraines.)
Any OTC pain reliever takes care of minor burns.
Nothing helps with joint/ muscle pain other than not moving.
My debilitating hip pain which came on during pregnancy and lasted for years after went away within a week when I stopped sleeping on a hippie futon mattress. This solution would probably be obvious to anyone else but my baby made me not very smart.
Daily exercise totally controls all of my orthopedic pain (herniated lumbar disc/IT band stuff/hip stuff -- all related). I do a wide variety of exercise things (yoga, biking, swimming, ballet, running, HIIT-type classes) and don't do any one thing too repetitiously (and am bad at everything except yoga). The relationship is nearly perfect: the more days without exercise, the more the pain comes back.
I don't think, having gotten my body into the state that it was in, I would have been able to return to all the exercise I'm doing without PT, but once I was 80% well it was actually a bit harmful. When I was mostly better, the kind of exercise I'd want to do naturally was more beneficial than repetitive movements that wound up stressing exactly the places that hurt, and going to PT was time I could have spent exercising. I suspect that every orthopedic problem I've ever had, including the RSI I freaked out about here, all stemmed from a pretty minor knee twinge that knocked me out of exercising for two weeks, that then I tried to get back on too soon, leading to a downward spiral of inactivity and worsening pain.
My hysterectomy worked great on my period cramps. For that matter, it also fixed my labor pains.
I rarely take OTC painkillers, but I was a big fan of the epidural. Most pain that I have is orthopedic/structural things post-childbirth and keeping in shape helps best.
I had a bad sinus infection last winter that took twelve weeks to clear. The doctor wouldn't give me antibiotics, and Tylenol didn't really touch it, and I couldn't take anything else. Useless sinuses.
SPouse has long had sciatica. Eight years ago they found a benign tumor around her lower vertebrae and removed it but it didn't do anything to improve the pain. I noticed it was fairly regular and seemed to track menstrual cycles. When she switched to implant after our last kid the pain episodes became much less frequent although still flare up every now and then. We've never convinced a doctor there's any connection there though.
Have you tried giving a doctor opiates before trying persuade them?
re: 15
I have chronic sinus pain which is a total PITA.* It peaks sometimes, and most of the time is just a low-grade sinus headache, but when it's bad, it's bad. No sleep. Constant misery.
* I am supposed to take steroid sprays and anti-histamines every day, but it's hard to be consistent.
I had a bad sinus infection last winter that took twelve weeks to clear. The doctor wouldn't give me antibiotics,
Why not???
16: I'd believe it, given my experiences in the post-partum tides wave of hormones.
18: I was expecting a Moby-esque joke after the asterisk
18: Ditto for chronic sinus pain. My GP practice wouldn't even let me see a doctor for it, let alone prescribe antibiotics. I got shunted off to the nurse, who told me to buy an OTC nasal spray that makes not the slightest bit of difference. Since then I've just put up with it, and take loxoprofen if it gets too bad.
Where I was living before, when it flared up I'd get prescribed a big jolt of antibiotics followed by a very low dose for several weeks, and that worked every time. Probably not so good in terms of encouraging drug resistance, though.
I'm not sure why it would encourage drug resistance if you took the whole script. Not that I'm an expert.
I hate to get a bit hippie, but yoga has restored my back and neck to something like mid-20s, if not showroom floor, condition.
Don't worry, you sound like a soccer mom, not a hippie.
19: Doc believed it was probably viral, plus I was pregnant, so everyone was crazy conservative with the meds. Sinuses basically swelled shut -- once they cleared a little I was able to use the neti pot. After 11 weeks.
I guess studies have shown antibiotics to not be effective against even probable bacterial sinus infections. Still, if it's chronic, you'd think they'd try the antibiotics.
25: At least soccer moms contribute to the economy by purchasing all those SUVS, lululemon leggings, coconut aloe water and such.
I think I'd find a doctor who would give me antibiotics before I shoved a spout up my nose, but I've never been pregnant.
And at this rate you never will be.
I'm on a low dose of a tricyclic anti-depressant for pain (I have a joint problem where one of my joints is basically disintegrating). It's somewhat helpful.
Previously, I was in enough pain that I'd get three hours of sleep a night when I was lucky, and basically couldn't function at all. Now, I'm in constant pain and I'm tired all the time because the quality of my sleep sucks, but I'm at least able to get 80% to 90% of the amount of sleep I'd normally get.
23: I'm assuming that a very low dose doesn't actually kill all the bacteria. Low-dose antibiotic therapy is apparently supposed to reduce biofilm formation and bacterial adhesion in the sinuses and have some sort of immunomodulatory/anti-inflammatory effect, rather than achieving bacterial eradication (or so I was told).
Just thinking about this is making my sinuses start to ache again. Thanks, guys.
Jumping in to commiserate on the sinus pain. I actually had a sinus infection/viral infection that led to me going partially deaf in one ear, which is no fun and I do not recommend, but it also got me to an ENT who took my stories of chronic sinus issues seriously. The upshot of that was a visual examination of my sinuses with some sort of medieval torture device (long metal tube up the nose) which made me pass out. Fun. And a 12 week course of nasal steroids which did seem to help.
Of course now I have a sinus infection again (toddlers are gross). I hope it goes away.
Jumping in to commiserate on the sinus pain. I actually had a sinus infection/viral infection that led to me going partially deaf in one ear, which is no fun and I do not recommend, but it also got me to an ENT who took my stories of chronic sinus issues seriously. The upshot of that was a visual examination of my sinuses with some sort of medieval torture device (long metal tube up the nose) which made me pass out. Fun. And a 12 week course of nasal steroids which did seem to help.
Of course now I have a sinus infection again (toddlers are gross). I hope it goes away.
Jumping in to commiserate on the sinus pain. I actually had a sinus infection/viral infection that led to me going partially deaf in one ear, which is no fun and I do not recommend, but it also got me to an ENT who took my stories of chronic sinus issues seriously. The upshot of that was a visual examination of my sinuses with some sort of medieval torture device (long metal tube up the nose) which made me pass out. Fun. And a 12 week course of nasal steroids which did seem to help.
Of course now I have a sinus infection again (toddlers are gross). I hope it goes away.
I have a frustrating amount of experience with this--really crummy back/hip stuff. PT, working up to Pilates, has been super helpful long term, but i think if it stopped I'd go right back. Also mechanical traction. Tylenol is terrible unless you take it WITH something else, except IV Tylenol is great. The real secret I have, though, is dextromethorphan (robutussin), at a higher dose than you would take for cough but a lower dose than a teen would take to get high.
Also magnesium. Here's my reliable pitch for magnesium.
I had all that sinus stuff and just got the fucking surgery and I can live again.
I also have like, an electric neurostimulator implanted in my back, but that's mostly good because I can turn it up and make my leg shake as a party trick.
Give me the full pitch on magnesium. Why am I supposed to take it? How much? Which kind? Is magnesium a good fit for my lifestyle?
13% of the Earth of made of Magnesium, so it should be easy to find.
It's flammable and very hard to extinguish so they won't let you bring it on a plane. Especially not wrapped around a Galaxy S7.
Hey, parodie, how are you doing (sinuses aside)?
13, 24: that said, there's a reason nobody offers "Graham technique for a pain-free back" classes:-)
Moral of the story: pain life is an unpredictable bitch.
Fixed.
38: Me too. In my late teens I was getting chronic sinus infections. Almost as soon as I was over one I got another. Surgery, unpleasant as the recovery was, worked like a charm.
SO, MAGNESIUM. My approach to supplements is normally "stop telling me to eat rocks," but over a lifetime of a bunch of dumb conditions, I have had many supplements suggested to me, some by actual doctors treating me. Two have made an actual difference, Vitamin D (but my Vitamin D is low normally, so that makes sense). The other is MAGNESIUM.
I've been prescribed it for mood/anxiety/related fatigue, for chronic neurogenic pain, for muscle cramps, and for fucking TINNITUS. It didn't work for tinnitus. Everything else, it's made a noticeable difference, and not just over a period of time--like, especially for pain it kicks in pretty quickly. It's also supposed to help muscle endurance, migraines, and PMS. I don't know what else.
I think magnesium glycinate is supposed to be the best but I think it can upset some people's stomachs. I took 800mg of that for a while. I actually had to take it at night because it was that relaxing. Now I do some calcium/magnesium citrate/zinc complex which seems fine.
Vitamin D just comes automatically with milk.
Also the doctors who prescribed it to me are not doctors who are particularly conservative in their treatment styles so I believe it is a real Medical Thing.
45 That's damned young to be snorting all that cocaine, AL.
Also, orgasms are legit good for non-migraine headaches.
So basically my arsenal is: magnesium, orgasms, and Robo-tripping.
I was once in a hospital with robots that went around delivering medicines, but I don't see how you'd trip them. They have four wheels and barely a couple of inches of ground clearance.
I wrote this post and then took a bunch of drugs and went to sleep for 5 hours. Sorry! But what a nice list you have made for me so far.
I have lots of different kinds of pain, with poorly understood root causes and that interact with each other in poorly understood ways. (And I'm pretty sick right now so I feel very whiny about it.)
A year or so ago I had a few bouts of near-debilitating lower back pain. The doc gave me codydramol and naproxen, both of which nauseated me so badly that they were only worth taking when the pain was worse than feeling like I had to vomit for hours at a time.
I made the mistake of asking the doctor for an antispasmodic (baclofen) that my father occasionally takes for his back, but in this country is only used to control very bad spasticity such as with MS, and the doc wouldn't consider just giving me a lower dose. Fortunately, I know about its mechanism of action, and where to find a non-prescription but much messier version of that same action: in a booze bottle. Alcohol does lots of things to you, but among them, it agonizes GABA-B receptors, just like baclofen does. I've never experienced faster, cheaper, or more enjoyable relief from severe pain than a bottle of ale gave me when my back was acting up during that period. The only problem was that I couldn't work drunk.
Unfortunately, the likely underlying cause of that problem has found a different way to express itself, and now I don't have lower back pain, but I do have sciatica. Booze doesn't work on sciatica. I've started a program of PT but it's early days and my particular issue is likely to take months to resolve, assuming good compliance, which is not a good assumption with me. So for now my major relief from the sciatic pain is stopping at every bus stop on my walk home from the tube.
As for hippie shit, ginger really does work for nausea, and peppermint oil helped a lot when I had a touch of the IBS in the past.
I'm super-close to gently suggesting my dad try pot for his stuff but BUT my mom would be pissed. She had to deal with him as a young stoner and does not want to deal with him as an old stoner.
The only problem was that I couldn't work drunk.
I think I could go to work drunk without anybody knowing. I don't really interact face-to-face with people. But my ability to do my job deteriorates very quickly in the presence of alcohol. It's noticeable to me even after one beer.
We're in one of the states likely to soon legalize pot but I don't know SPouse's feelings on trying that when the sciatica is bad.
I'm working remotely so I could totally work drunk and no one would know, but so far I'll just have one drink towards the end of the day while still online. Which also occasionally happens when on-site too via sanctioned events.
And also I feel like my data are going to be really useless for anyone else since my stupid body is so weird. But anyway, here's my big-guns list to date:
(pain)
- Tramadol works moderately well for nerve pain, for me, but doesn't do anything for anything else.
-Dilaudid is nearly completely ineffective
-Morphine is great
-Oxycodrone and hydrocodrone dull pain but make me itch all over which is only sometimes worth it.
-Crazy lotion made out of ketamine and lidocaine and who knows what else works well on both muscle pain and nerve pain, but doesn't last super long, is pretty sketchy, and so far I've only had one doctor who even knew about it
-Lidocaine patches work well while they're on, but only for the area right around them
-Tylenol 2 (acetaminophen/codeine) works well on moderate pain but also puts me to sleep
(muscles)
-flexeril (cyclobenzaprine) works well, but knocks me out and stops working after a week or two. (if your pain was from one specific thing this would probably be okay.)
-robaxin (methocarbamol) works well for chronic tension, does not knock me out mentally, and keeps working long term
-TENS units are great while they're on but don't do anything long-term
-and I just started taking baclofen yesterday so I don't have a report on that yet.
I have also been having very idiosyncratic full-body muscle spasm things that are very terrible, and nothing helped, and it was super miserable and that I recently discovered valium/diazepam completely eliminate. This is the best thing that has happened to me in many months. I may have a yearly party to memorialize The Day I Found Valium.
(doctors are jerks about this though, and/or you really can't safely take that much valium at once, so I am still going to have spells in between doses where the spasms return. That's okay. 2-4 hours of sleep is so much better than nothing. Hooray!)
Has anyone had good results with turmeric? It seems to be increasingly popular. With hippies. And soccer moms in yoga pants.
Non-medicinal list:
-CBD extract works well for pain and muscle tension and nausea (but actual regular pot doesn't, for me)
-ginger for nausea (and I forgot ondosetron on my list, it works intermittently)
-cold/heat for muscle tension, some of the time
massage, but in careful and specific ways
-hot tubs/hot baths
licorice tea also for nausea.
licorice tea also for nausea
I can vouch for this. Just the smell of licorice tea nauseates me.
Well, one of us has an atypical response to licorice then. I call not me!
58: If SPouse ends up doing the pot-sciatica experiment, I'd be interested to hear about it. I hadn't even thought to try pot for it, again, because I couldn't work high any better than I could work drunk. But now that I'm thinking about it, the sciatica doesn't bother me nearly as much at work because I never do one thing movement-wise for a long time (sit/stand/walk). So the pain just selectively ruins my weekends because anything recreational I'd try to do involves standing (cooking, chatting at parties), walking (hiking, shopping, museums) or sitting (movies, nights at the pub) long enough to really kick up the sciatica. Not only could I do all of those things high, but they'd be even nicer.
Also interested to hear how the baclofen works out, E.
I treat my sciatica with grumpiness and stretches learned in physical therapy. The latter helped me keep it from quite taking hold when my ankle was particularly bad a few weeks ago, though I'm still closer to the line than I'd like to be. I should post this comment and see what everyone else has said while it's been sitting here waiting for me.
Nothing, apparently. Everyone's in too much pain to comment.
41: yeah, okay, Samsung's branding problem may be more severe than originally believed. (Reading somewhat obsessively about the battery problems was useful in soothing local acute emotional pain. I could probably list all my remedies for psychological suffering, but that would get tedious. I have no physical pain advice. I'm so uncannily healthy in all the non-psychological ways that I wonder if it's zero sum for some people.)
Well, I'm in a very manageable amount of pain at the moment but I'm about to take more drugs and go back to sleep.
One thing I haven't tried, but kind of want to, is acupuncture. Except now I'm so spasm-y that I don't see how that would work. I don't really want to break a needle off in my back.
53- my ex-roommate worked in a hospital with drug robots. I found the topic fascinating (and I just realized I've been picturing R2-D2 in my head). She described the robots and then said "and you're not allowed to kick them." What? Why is that a rule? Do people like to kick them for some reason? "I don't know, but it's in the training. Don't kick the robots. If you do, it will take your picture."
I got a huge kick out of the idea that in robot culture, kicking is the ultimate insult, and having your picture taken is the ultimate punishment.
It was also a hospital where the elevators all stopped on every floor, on Saturday, so no one would have to do the work of pushing a button.
Lots of doctors are Jewish, I hear.
Anyway, I was never tempted to kick the robots, but I hadn't heard about the pictures. Thanks for the warning. If I ever do need to kick a robot, I'll cover my face.
My BiL is currently semi-immobilised by sciatica. If this is still on the front page by the time they work out how to alleviate it, I'll let you know.
Yeah but then shouldn't they be not doing the work of being in the hospital?
I fixed my sciatica by labor, so indirectly the hysterectomy cured that, too.
Oh, or patients or visitors I guess. Never mind.
My dad had some minor surgery which cured his sciatica. He was in the hospital overnight is all and he was past 80 when they did the surgery.
I treat my sciatica with grumpiness and stretches learned in physical therapy.
I've been using grumpiness a lot longer than stretches; no luck with either so far. The grumpiness ends up being a compounding factor; when my leg is hurting, the energy required to keep myself from biting the heads off my students and colleagues really wears me out by the end of the day. I think I actually miss my stamina more than the absence of pain.
I don't use pain relief that much. Maybe for a bad hangover if I have to work. I do use caffeine though.
I don't like to take medicine in general.
For me, both the Swope FM response to grumpiness leading to exhaustion and sral's on the effects of functioning on very little sleep are a big deal. I do not have a solution to either.
The only thing that consistently helps my chronic lower back pain is heavy lifting (squats and deadlifts). I need to get back to the gym desperately.
Re peppermint oil for IBS--I gave that a try a while back. Regular dose didn't seem to have any effect whatsoever. So, being the genius that I am, I doubled the dose. For the next two hours, I was on the can every 15 minutes. At the end of those two hours, the only stuff coming out perfumed the air with the smell of peppermint. So for a little while there, I was the only person on the planet who could truthfully state that his shit didn't stink.
Now I'm experimenting with acacia fiber, which is a soluble fiber. (Psylium husks as used in Metamucil are insoluble and just make the problem worse.) You have to titrate up over a couple weeks, but so far things seem promising.
If you crap continually for two hours, that's not a regular dose in a couple of senses.
IMX naproxen/Aleve is good for pain, adding Scotch was a bad idea. I was lucky with the bleeding to death thing but scared my son.
My dad managed to almost bleed to death without the Aleve.
They are bleaching the room next door and the smell is very intense. They don't like us opening windows because of the humidity and mold problems.
Should I avoid breathing bleach for the next few hours?
is this the "We are all old and need to complain thread about our aches"?
I have a meniscus tear so Im having knee surgery on Nov 3rd. I'm going to German on December 16th so I hope to be off crutches and out of pain by then.
I opened a window and propped open the door like a renegade.
||
God I am so tired of all the hand-wringing about the recent Walking Dead season premiere.
|>
92: Try magnesium. Or if that doesn't work, morphine.
Or peppermint oil plus a TV in the bathroom.
Anyway, it hurts a little when I walk but Pokemon Go is giving out candy at 1/4th of the usual kilometers, so I'm going to have a nice, metric walk.
That really was a pause/play! That said, a TV in the bathroom is not relevant: it's the TV critics declaring, in print, that TWD is and has been for several seasons a loser, and has jumped the shark entirely now, that are tiresome. At least I did hear one critic acknowledge that her assessment was not in accord with anyone besides other professional critics. So maybe they'll tire of their pronouncements.
There's a pedestrian footpath at Heebie U that everyone always quotes as being 3/5 miles long, which sort of amuses me. So obstinate!
Hours a week of Pilates, plus a lot of walking to and fro with groceries, is necessary to keep me from curling up like a sad limping asymmetrical armless pillbug. And right now I have a drippy cold and can barely rake the sidewalk and I'm going to be so stiff and limpy when I get back, woe.
I am trying magnesium. Can't tell if it does anything. What I love for getting to sleep and relaxing stiff twitchy muscles and tendons is gabapentin. One of the putatively stronger drugs -- oxycontin? -- did nothing for me, to the point that I couldn't remember if I'd taken it.
I had 6 years of sporadic chronic abdominal pain that I mostly treated with ibuprofen (2400 mg day), and then switched to Naproxen, which I found to be much more effective. Two years of daily yoga helped keep the pain semi under control, but then I moved out of a yoga studio and haven't kept it up. At its worst the pain was totally debilitating and I had it treated with a shot of toradol, which helped but isn't exactly a good thing to do on a regular basis. I also have constant neck and shoulder pain which I mostly ignore, although twice it's seized up and needed immediate treatment with muscle relaxants, neck brace, and PT.
My sister has chronic migraines that seem impervious to any and all treatment, and she's tried some pretty interesting treatments. She gets botox every three months to numb the nerves, and she has an electroshock headband that shocks her forehead. She's had a particularly bad spell and if none of her new meds start doing anything, the next step is installing electrodes under the skin that permanently stimulate two particular nerves. It sounds kind of weird--they will put a battery pack under her collarbone, but it beats months of lying in a dark room and vomiting.
I'm also worried I have arthritis in my hips, but there's not much I can do about that. If I walk too much my hips hurt and feel stiff. I also have almost no hip flexibility, and this has not improved with yoga or intensive hip stretching. In fact, stretching just makes them hurt but not in a good 'stretched' way.
This thread is making me feel like the luckiest man in the world.
There's a corridor at MIT people claim is infinitely long.
I have one theory why some antidepressants work. They drive down your libido so if one of the reasons you were upset is that you and your partner couldn't agree on frequency of sex, it brings the unsatisfied one more in line with the other. Then there's one less thing to be upset about.
Since we have arrived at the pharmaceuticals/sex nexus, I'm asking whether anyone has experience using Viagra off-label for anorgasmia rather than erectile dysfunction.
104: It seems like it would be more likely to work the other way.
105: Just figure what they do for premature ejaculation and do the opposite.
104 seems like a race to the bottom.
A: "I can tolerate our infrequent sex by medicating my libido away."
B: "That's the most unbelievably depressing thing I've ever heard."
A: "Do you want to fuck?"
B: "No... too depressed..."
I'm told that libido is a use-it-or-lose-it thing, and it's important to break the cycle of abstaining and then habituating yourself to abstinence. I should consider something more intensive to fix my own constant libido die-offs. Maybe sterilization.
"a race to the bottom."
I don't think anal is any more likely in that situation.
Also interested to hear how the baclofen works out, E.
Well, me too! But the spasms I've been having are the super-crazy severe ones that cause involuntary movement, not the normal stiff neck kind. (I mean I have those also. Hopefully they will all go away.) I have no idea if I'm on a high or low dose.
Ultrasound and traction for slipped disc
I had sciatica from a slipped disc before and it took surgery to fix it. But this time around, steroid shots seem to be helping.
This thread is making me feel like the luckiest man in the world.
Yeah, me too (luckiest woman, I mean). I almost never feel enough pain or discomfort to actually seek a remedy. But I figure I'll pay for it in the end: one day I'll wake up feeling wonky; next thing I know, doctor will tell me I have only 6 weeks left to live.
In the meantime: whatever cannot be ameliorated by a hot cup of coffee, strong and black, can probably be addressed with an Ibuprofen (the only over-the-counter remedy I ever take).
re: 22
I've had the full medical workup on it. Some kind of chronic inflammation caused by an allergy to something they can't identify. Sinuses are tiny/blocked, but they don't want to do anything invasive, because (apparently) there's a reasonably high risk it'll make things worse, and I'm not quite bad enough for them to take that risk.
I had the allergy work-up, it's not one of the 20 or so commonest allergens. So, at that point, it's spray and anti-histamines, with a recommendation to use a neti thing.
is this the "We are all old and need to complain thread about our aches"?
I mean, I think the very title of the OP should have made that clear. Don't go acting all surprised.
Everyone I know who had sciatica and has since been entirely relieved of it was either a pregnant woman who got unpregnant via the preferred progression of things, or someone who's had a steroid shot.
Everyone I know who's had a steroid shot had to argue with a doctor who resisted them about it. I'm conflict averse. Maybe that's the way forward, but it'll be to my advantage to have that argument on a really grumpy, bad-leg day.
Also, I just want to call out an appreciation of 111.
112: That's what that stuff is supposedly meant for.
is this the "We are all old and need to complain thread about our aches"?
I mean, I think the very title of the OP should have made that clear. Don't go acting all surprised.
Everyone I know who had sciatica and has since been entirely relieved of it was either a pregnant woman who got unpregnant via the preferred progression of things, or someone who's had a steroid shot.
Everyone I know who's had a steroid shot had to argue with a doctor who resisted them about it. I'm conflict averse. Maybe that's the way forward, but it'll be to my advantage to have that argument on a really grumpy, bad-leg day.
Also, I just want to call out an appreciation of 111.
112: That's what that stuff is supposedly meant for.
Have you tried Jose Conseco instead of a doctor?
I don't know how to spell his name.
117/118- oh, I know. I just meant, it wouldn't tell you anything about its use in other situations.
Steroid shots for my sciatica were lovely and helpful but then the muscle relaxant I was on may have contributed to the sprain?
When I was with Lee I had a rule about not going relationship-presidential or it could all spill out, but since I'm not I can just plain say that I went on anridepressants in hope of libido suppression. And that was early, way before kids, and basically didn't work or didn't work anywhere near well enough. My personal rather than drug-mediated bad qualities got me through the rest of the relationship.
Steriod shots helped my back but made me tachycardic and depressed/ragey. Baclofen pessaries were great.
Oral steroids made me so paranoid and weepy I couldn't even last three days. Plus I don't sleep. Ugh.
22 It's my impression OTC nasal spray is almost always a bad idea. I couldn't get to sleep at night without it for about ten years though thankfully I didn't do the using-more-and-more kind of dependency some people go through. It was pretty hard to quit.
If you mix it with heroin, you get a snot ball.
I love 70, and also the hospital should probably go ahead and install a paternoster lift.
For a while I was taking ibuprofen for a headache once a week and feeling quite nervous about the frequency. I think it's eased up some. They're ordinary headaches, but even an ordinary headache is unpleasant. What I don't understand is my friends who say "oh I never take anything for a headache. I try to figure out what's causing it." Fuck that. Mine don't ever get better on their own and well I am taking a bold stand that pain is bad.
"I try to figure out what's causing it" is assuming that knowing the cause allows a solution.
Hm, I had a round of sciatica several years ago. Toradol shot in the office, then cyclobenzaprine and ibuprofen with serious rest fixed it. I've had two very minor recurrences. I guess that counts as a cure, maybe?
I seem to get occasional weird nerve pain. I take a very, very low dose tricyclic antidepressant for (no joke) a toothache that I rated as 1-2 on a ten point scale. Apparently, this condition can be really serious and awful for lots of sufferers (apparently, fairly high numbers of folks with orofacial pain commit suicide), but I got the crazy luck to get a really minor variant that mostly just confuses healthcare providers who haven't heard of it. I had a round of something that sounds like heebie's shoulder thing.
I'm feeling all kinds of low-grade injured lately. We joined a gym last January, and I've been going diligently. I'd worked my way up on exercise very gradually and had avoided hurting myself. I was starting to get kind of smug, even. Then, I tweaked something in my shoulder (biceps tendon?) and now it's irritated and I keep ever so slightly tweaking it. And my knees started hurting on my laughably slow treadmill runs. My kettlebell instructor told me to take a week off from all gym activities, then see a personal trainer to get a full assessment and a plan to address my deficiencies. It brings up all kinds of perfectionist tendencies. "An exam? I can do everything! I have no deficits! I'm flexible! And strong!"
All you poor people who have real pain, I know this is utterly trivial.
I don't really get much pain from my medical issues, but when I wake up in the morning feeling a touch hung over (which happens sometimes even if I didn't drink) I treat it with massive piles of stimulants with a bit of painkiller mixed in. Excedrin (acetaminophen, asprin, and caffeine), Sudafed, and black coffee.
I have a probably not-great habit of washing down a couple of Advil with an alcoholic beverage, in an attempt to ward off said hangover-y feelings.
Haven't read the thread yet, but I'm enthusiastic enough to jump to the end to shout: high CBD edible marijuana.
Extended release mucinex is a good off brand muscle relaxant that doesn't mess with me. (It's still used in vetinary medicine at super high doses I think?)
GABA, but be REALLY careful with that; it's habit forming.
But pot really is kind of amazing.
Wow, Donaquixote. I assume the same Donaquixote that AWB and I dragged to the Russian Baths like five years ago?
Normally I have no persistent pains to complain of but I woke up this morning with a bad pain in my shoulder and I blame this thread.
What's the amount of weight variance that is just noise? Is 4 pounds' difference over a year just noise? I can't imagine the doctor's office scales are all that accurate.
128. Have you ever tried using a Paternoster lift while having significant mobility disabilities? (Hint, for some obscure reason hospitals seem to be full of people who have significant mobility disabilities.)
138 At least it keeps the janitors fully employed.
138: I've never used one full stop, not even the one in the Arts Tower - much to my regret.
But yes, I do recognise why they're not more prevalent. Aside from the fixed time for all passengers to get on or off, regardless of speed, there's also presumably consequences to getting bodyparts trapped between the lift's platforms and the building's floors and ceilings. Brrr.
There's a pedestrian footpath at Heebie U that everyone always quotes as being 3/5 miles long, which sort of amuses me. So obstinate!
1 km is not 3/5 of a mile, though, it's 5/8 of a mile.
Anyone tried kratom?
Kratom is:
a) Spiced deep-fried broad beans, a popular Israeli snack food
b) One of the Inhumans, a group of elitist super-powered individuals in the Marvel Comics universe
c) An alias used by Khmer Rouge co-founder Ieng Sary before the KR takeover in 1975
d) The acronym for the Soviet nuclear regulatory authority
Have you ever tried using a Paternoster lift while having significant mobility disabilities? (Hint, for some obscure reason hospitals seem to be full of people who have significant mobility disabilities.)
...and most of them were perfectly healthy until they tried using the paternoster lifts.
Lifts are a staple of action films and thrillers - yet a major disadvantage of regular lifts is that you can't do a sliding tackle down a corridor and into an unsuspecting evildoer's head / upper body. (Even with a paternoster, the timing is tricky if they're ascending. Although I suppose that makes it more dramatic.)
That said, you're much less likely to be decapitated or badly injured yourself if you mis-time the manoeuvre with an ascending lift.
I can't help feeling that there must be, or ought to be, a great fight sequence involving Jackie Chan and a paternoster lift.
"I try to figure out what's causing it" is assuming that knowing the cause allows a solution.
Going back to the night before and not drinking is the best painkiller.
But I need the time machine to kill baby Hitler.
It took me a long time to get the upper hand over my back pain. What I think was the magic bullet ended up being treatments from a particular massage therapist who is a bit more woo than I am but not too much (essential oils and herbs but not homeopathy, genuine in-depth knowledge of anatomy/physiology and technique). She went one step further back in tracing the mechanical cause of pain and I go back every so often to get my psoas released more than I can achieve myself with stretching and other exercise. I had got a lot of physiotherapy but it was not tackling that particular issue and I was stuck. The other essential element is keeping up Pilates and I noticeably disimprove if there is much of a break in the classes.
At one point I was taking a lot of NSAIDs but while they helped with the pain they killed my stomach and also I am convinced they made me (more) weepy and emotionally fragile. I did and do use heat a lot. People have bought me fancy heat packs but I find the humble hot water bottle to be the best (heartfelt thanks, Eduard Penkala).
I will always have to manage my back pain but it is not very restrictive now compared to before. I also have an issue with my shoulder which is taking time to go away.
My record with steroids so far: (this is over maybe a 10 year period.)
Tennis elbow - injected twice - worked well
Lower back - facet joints injected twice - only minor improvement
Shoulder - injected once - worked ok but not for all that long.
When you're trying about 10 things to shift the pain it can be impossible to know what actually helped. If the worst has subsided are gone it's a good time to try and get ahead of the game with judicious amounts of the recommended exercises or whatever that you were in too much pain to do before.
I started taking magnesium about a week and a half ago, and it seems to be improving my mood a bit.
After my surgeries, I set my alarm clock to remind me to take my meds every six hours, and I alternated some itch-inducing opiod with 800mg ibuprofen. As long as I stuck to that schedule, I was ok, though I believe that having an on-q pain pump connected directly to my chest for the first few days helped a lot as well.
Nothing worked while I was in the hospital until they gave me toradol.
Appropriate for this morning's visit with Dr. Dolores Torquemada DDS is my habit of taking of a stomach acid inhibitor and NSAID before expected pain. Face feels okay and I'm not doing my involuntary Igor impression even after some time being water-boarded.
140: Yes, this weekend. I tried it separate times, once for the dosage that's supposed to be an upper, and the second at a downer dosage, each time with a variety that was supposed to align with the goal of the dosage. Total bust. Mmmmmaaaayyybbbeee a cup of coffee's worth of energy from the upper dose, and the downer dose mostly made my stomach mildly upset. Do not recommend.
1 km is not 3/5 of a mile, though, it's 5/8 of a mile.
5/8 of a mile is 1.00584 kilometers. It just seems more accurate to call it 621371/1000000 of a mile.
I am trying to taper the beta blocker I take for anxiety in baby increments, and magnesium is helping with the transition. magnesium citrate made my stools a bit soft. I'm really liking the magnesium glycinate/ lysinate chelate.
On the strength of recommendations in this here thread, I went out and got some magnesium gly-stuff. If it doesn't fix all my problems, I'm coming back here full of blame and resentment.