callbellcboy has hit on a few.  It depends on what type of pain you are looking to relieve.  I'll add a few more to the list...elavil, celebrex, lyrica,   You need to discuss with someone at a pain clinic, to get non-narcotics that are suited to your particular type of pain.

I'd like to point out for information that it was my inability to get care that lead me to find this site. I was being manipulated and provoked out of all practices locally. It seems they were not taking me seriously. I do "look" good, so of course I must be faking. God only knows what I'm "supposed" to look like to be in pain. You'd think the grimace and the lack of focus and confusion and anger might be a clue that I was in pain if you somehow could somehow justify ignoring the the fact that I said I was!

Also none of the local medical pain clinics will accept me w/o a referal and as I mentioned above I have no PCP. The neuro who is treating my headaches refered me and I was denied access. It was then that I realized I wasn't being believed so I tried again by sending him an MRI report of my C-spine which I had told him of but I don't think he actually saw. It was done years before I became his patient. His Ass. told me on the phone that they had done what they would and that was that. But a week later I get a call out of now where that I had been refered to the same place again and was accepted.

!?! I guess the doctor did eventually get to see the MRI of my C-spine and refered me.

On top of this, that is not my only problem, I have a serious problem going on in my hand wrist and forearm which I cannot get anyone to take seriously and other pain issues in my body which cannot be related to the C-spine again I cannot get anyone to listen!  and my reporting of the sympotoms is not believed because I "look" like I fit some profile apparently.  and I have gained a lot of weight so  of course I must be lazy.  I was an advanced amateur cyclist at the time I got injured 8 years ago.

My ability and willingness to do things that are painful so that I can maintain my independence seems to be held against me as well. It's a small town.

It is bigotry of one sort or another and xenophobia. They just cannot imagine someone who looks like me is not what they have always assumed  I woud be. Seeing me any other way would have to include looking at themselves and accepting they are not as sophisticated and worldly as they like to think they are. After all I'm white trash and they have educations and families. 

I have an appointment at a spine clinic and it remains to be seen whether or not I will be treated properly there. I still have a problem of getting a pcp which I have let lie for the last week so I could relax. I think I will start looking again now that I have written this.

thepainedone says ...

I'd like to point out for information that it was my inability to get care that lead me to find this site. I was being manipulated and provoked out of all practices locally. It seems they were not taking me seriously. I do "look" good, so of course I must be faking. God only knows what I'm "supposed" to look like to be in pain. You'd think the grimace and the lack of focus and confusion and anger might be a clue that I was in pain if you somehow could somehow justify ignoring the the fact that I said I was!

Also none of the local medical pain clinics will accept me w/o a referal and as I mentioned above I have no PCP. The neuro who is treating my headaches refered me and I was denied access. It was then that I realized I wasn't being believed so I tried again by sending him an MRI report of my C-spine which I had told him of but I don't think he actually saw. It was done years before I became his patient. His Ass. told me on the phone that they had done what they would and that was that. But a week later I get a call out of now where that I had been refered to the same place again and was accepted.

!?! I guess the doctor did eventually get to see the MRI of my C-spine and refered me.

On top of this, that is not my only problem, I have a serious problem going on in my hand wrist and forearm which I cannot get anyone to take seriously and other pain issues in my body which cannot be related to the C-spine again I cannot get anyone to listen!  and my reporting of the sympotoms is not believed because I "look" like I fit some profile apparently.  and I have gained a lot of weight so  of course I must be lazy.  I was an advanced amateur cyclist at the time I got injured 8 years ago.

My ability and willingness to do things that are painful so that I can maintain my independence seems to be held against me as well. It's a small town.

It is bigotry of one sort or another and xenophobia. They just cannot imagine someone who looks like me is not what they have always assumed  I woud be. Seeing me any other way would have to include looking at themselves and accepting they are not as sophisticated and worldly as they like to think they are. After all I'm white trash and they have educations and families. 

I have an appointment at a spine clinic and it remains to be seen whether or not I will be treated properly there. I still have a problem of getting a pcp which I have let lie for the last week so I could relax. I think I will start looking again now that I have written this.

 

 

Have you ever contacted the The American Pain Foundation.  It is an advocacy group that helps people with pain issues and how to get help.  Please don't think by what I am going to say next that you have bone cancer because it is very likely you do not.  However, I kept going to the doctor for over a year and telling him I was having pain that was worsening over time in my right upper arm  I told him from the beginning that it was worse at night.  He never X-rayed my arm.  It was months before he did an xray on my neck and then a ct scan that showed I had mild cervical arthritis.  Surprise!  I was 42!  I kept telling him, "Doc, my neck doesn't hurt, my ARM hurts, right here!"  Gradually, my fingers started getting numb and at times painful.  He finally ordered Vicodin because I was taking 4 Ibuprofen at a time for the pain and still could not sleep at night.  He basically blew me off.  One week he was on vacation and the pain became so intense and my fingers started going into all kinds of "girations" that he had attributed to the "nerve" from my neck that I went to see a friend doctor since he was gone for a week.  The doctor who had never layed eyes on me before said, "I don't think it has anything to do with your neck"  He obtained a stat xray of my right humerus.  It revealed a 10.7cm tumor of my proximal humerous.  After the biopsies were completed I was told I had Chondrosarcoma and the tumr had been there from anywhere form 15-18 months!

The point I am making is that I let this doctor intimadate me into thinking I didn't have the amount of pain I said I did.  Because of him, even my parents thought I was making more of it than there was because he told my mother, "she has a low pain threshold."  Be your own advocate.  Check into the American Pain Foundation if you have not already.  It does not matter what you look like. 

http://www.aapainmanage.org/search/MemberSearch.php

office.com/aapm/etools/publicdir/search.cfm">http://www.association-office.com/aapm/etools/publicdir/search.cfm

Check out these 2 links and see if you can come up with anything in your area.

I also want to emphasize what angienwgeorgia said about the ibuprofen causing GI problems/GERD. In the mean time, I would definitely recommend going on a acid reducer like pepcid or prilosec to protect your gut from the ibuprofen. It doesn't have to be a medication that requires a scrip, an OTC med can do the same job.

Let me give you guys my history as far as paion meds go.

For nthe first three years while I was still in Ca. I was on Vicoden on an as needed basis. I used the minimum I could and at the end I had gotten tired of the intestinal problems so I threw out practically 40 tablets.

I was still there for many months more and I copewd with the high dosage of Ibuprofen. Meanwhile my headaches got worse, and my physiatrist said he could not think of any non narcotic meds except the ones we had tried that didn't work any better than OTC ibuprofen. He didn't think the headaches were serious since I could tolerate light.  I guess tha brings me up to 2 years 8 months, then I moved to Oregon. Here in a different town hundreds of miles from here My new doctor talked me into several things, first she put me on imitrex and it worked, then she put me on lexapro to head off the migraines, then she put me on propranolol as my BP was high. I'm guessing the stress and weight gain did it. next she gave me oxycodone to treat the pain. This took place over a couple months. I was fairly stable so I just layed low.

Around christmas she went on vacation and my oxycodone ran out. No one at the hospital would refill it. What followed was ten of the worst days of my life. I didn't know how to handle it except to gut it out as I always have had to do. I did resolve then that I would get off all pain meds and I tried some pot. I felt like it worked but the high took some getting used to.

I moved in february and came here. I stayed on the lexapro and propranolol until I found out the propranolol was likely the source of my memory problem and the lexapro was helping me keep weight on and I didn't need it as the pot worked on  prevention of the migraines just as well. I dropped down to 205 from a high of 255, I am 5'4" solid but not that solid.

I got a medical card and was using pot I thought effectively until I started running into trouble with my medical care providers. I stopped in March before I switched to the provider who just treated me so shabbily in May.

So I have had no pain relief since March except two bottles of Soma which only give me a chemical sleep that does not satisfy. By the way the imipromine I just started on Sunday for sleep only gives a longer chemical sleep. I still wake up exhausted. I feel better emotionally probably from the anti-depressant effects of the med.

But I am still in pain, several acute locations and an all ovber feeling of shittiness. I'd be wiolling to bet a lot of this bad feeling is from the bad treatment!

And as the pain rises again tonight and I begin my nightly ritual of trying to find just tthe right way to place the ice and how to adjust my body just so, to endure yet another restless painful night, the anger also rises and I hate and resent everything and everyone medical.

How could anyone possibly justify this? What have I done to deserve this?

Maybe you  should try predisone,

UPDATE

Saw a doc and he seems to be taking me seriously. I'm on pain meds now that are helping but i'm getting used to them to fast as I have started waking up in the middle of the night again. At least I am falling back to sleep.

Hi folks! I'm doing better. I am on Tramadol and Neurontin. Thanks for the advice.

I seem to still be having some emotional troubles so they may not be related to the pain and treatment issues. My therapist didn't acknowledge my call for an appointment monday after telling me she had openiongs this week. I spoke to her thursday or friday and she scheduled me for the first. wah wah wah.... still pluggin I geuss. All in all I'm better off than I thought I would be, thank god for doctors that don't prejudge!

Oh and of course thank god for nurses!!!  

The saga continues.

I have been trying to get the number of migraine pills I get per 90 days increased ever since the amount was cut in half when nmy union changed plans about 4 years ago. I recently started to try in earnest. I got my Neurologist, who will only treat my headahces by the way even tho his practice deals with pain!, to write a letter of medical necessity. I had to call repeatedly to get it sent about 4 weeks later. Then after a few weeks I called my plan to see what was going on. I got a call back and was told she had not seen any letter. We spoker extensively about my need and I gave her the number of my doctors office. She assured me she would call me back that day. This was a month ago. I left three messages last week and three morte this week. She returned the call while I was out only to once again claim ignorance and say that my doctor had not put in an increased prescription. I called back within 5 minutes of her call and she did not answer. I left a message,.... Again.

Oh Yea the PPC I saw was actually a NP. That's ok he was pretty cool and compassionate. I went in last wednesday and got to see an MD. He was ok but I git a bad vibe from him when I told him I had taken advantage of pain in my wrist going down by carrying something which caused the pain to flare again. Hea said "that's odd". It hit me weird at the time and as you may hvae realized by now I process slowly. I asked him why but he didn't elaborate. Later in the day it came to me that he was implying I was being dishonest. I've had a bad feeling ever since. It's terrible how vuklnerable I am to this crap.  He reminded me of the lady (nurse ot PT) who was in charge of helping me recover as a child from the damage done to the same hand and wrist. She aggressively mentally abused me into hiding my pain and doing whatever she wanted me to do to prove I wasn't "really" injured.

I realize now that she was protecting the person who had injured me. Fing State of NJ won't help or take a complaint, they keep telling me to get over it it was so long ago... They don't even know the half of the evil crap that was done to me in that hellhole that has made my life painful everyday both physically and mentally/emotionally, and they don't want to.

I guess I'm ranting now so I'll go. Thanks for being here.

Razzberry to you!  ;-}

UPDATE 4-4-09

It' is a nice sunny morning, buds are budding, daffodils are in bloom. I am doing as well as can be expected. I saw my neuro yesterday and the whole office seemed to be trying to make me feel welcome, it worked. Thank You. I am off the imiprimine. I went down by 25mg every two weeks as per the doc. My pain meds are Tramadol and Gabapentin with 2 Aleve a day.

I am at stasis with the pain and it's better than it was, I can live with the level I have now w/o complaining constantly, but I'd like to be pain free. I did gain 40+ lbs since last May as food is a great coping mechanism when you have no pain meds, and am working on dropping that. I am down to 238 from a high of 248. I believe my pain doctor is really working on helping me and I don't feel so "under attack". I worked in the garden for an hour yesterday and am going to try again today.

I hope you are all well.  Zap360 I do have apnea and have had a CPAP for a few years. The "self medicating" is with the full knowledge of any doctor I am seeing that includes what and how much. I feel pretty secure with the NP I am seeing so I will stay there for a while anyway. I am also on Lovastatin and Niaspan to treat the cholesterol issues I have. The Niacin seems to have helped with the pain as it increases my circulation. I will really work at exercise over the next few months. I want to be able to ride my bike 50 miles a week by summers end. I miss the days of doing 50+ miles in a day.

wow, this guy is still trying to get  nurses to diagnose him?

Im not trying to be rude here, but I wonder if maybe some counseling would help also. It seems as if you need something besides pain relief. You are going through a difficult ordeal and maybe you need someone to talk to about how you feel. Just a suggestion, maybe you should look into some therapy.

Thanks MMullican and loricatus.

Yes I've been seeking therapy. I am seeing a pain psychologist. What is an R/O? Is it rule out? No one has difinitively diagnosed me. I am going to a neurologist at a medical school soon for a workup on my involuntary tick. Nothing affirmative on that yet. The pain is under enough control for me right now, with the tramadol150mg daily and Gabapentin 1200mg daily. I also deal with migraines using 45 5mg Zomig every 90 days. I throw in ibuprofen for the swellling, an aspirin and niacin per my NP. I just stopped the lovastatin as the joint pain was too much on top of the rest. The benefit of that is if the pain in my hip keeps fading I may be able to ride my bike for exercise.

That's a lot of chemicals I know but I'm hoping someone eventually finds a cause for my pain and the awful feeling of my brain moving around inside my head, that can be treated with a procedure or something other than meds.

STADOL