Chronic pain for 116 million Americans. Oh,Hey! Good luck dealing with it....

For over a decade, I have had a back injury that has severely changed my ability to work, sleep, eat, meep, and my whole personality. It shows in my face that I'm in constant pain, and I feel a hopelessness because I know it will only get worse as I age...tends to make me bitter. As hard as I try to start each day with a positive attitude (along with coffee & pain meds), I find it hard to "get happy" about losing %80 of my physical function. Pain makes me meepy, makes my meep wilt, and robs me of pleasures I would normally take for granted, like walking through a park with my granddaughter, or going out on a canoe. I am blessed with a good doctor, and the right meds, but, meep!@...I hate being broken. I felt like Superman before. (sadface)



That's me on the right, 25 years ago...If I had any idea I might actually wear out, I certainly wouldn't have worked so hard.

^ Goddang it, I meeped up, Big Time. Wifey was signed in. meep...That's my Torrid Confession.

I knew Pepper was a BeachGoat tentacle account!

meep YES, GUYS!

Pepper is my wife, I just didn't notice she was signed in...

Tango is my tentacle, and my dog. Barking up the wrong tree.

I don't get it. Explain, please.

Try chronic pain and an aversion to almost any and all medication to the extreme, and then try to get a doctor to believe you, and you'll get an idea of my life over the past 20+ years. My physiology is so meeped up, I never know what a drug is going to do to me. Had a disc removed (L4 - L5) and fusion last year, warned them that they wouldn't be able to knock me out or have anything that would stop the pain. They started me off with liquid valium, it gave me some kind of psychotic break, I became a different person, literally. Woke up 10 days later (the amount of time it took for the valium to get out of my system) sitting at home in a hard shell like a turtle with my wife saying, "Welcome back". For 10 days I was yelling and cussing at her, and doing the most insane meep, and I have no memory of it. And that was just one drug.

Add to that the fact that they can't find a pain med or anesthetic that works. I'm on four Oxy 30's a day now, or as I call them, baby aspirin. When the current doc decides I don't need them any more, I get to pay $25 apiece for them from my neighborhood junkie until I can find a new doctor. With a script, $25 for 120 or them, without a script, $25 each. Thank god for drug dealers. If they would just legalize Marijuana, just about the only drug that actually helps me with pain, I'd get back to enjoying life a little bit. Unfortunately, to get any legal pain meds, you have to be constantly drug tested, so if I smoke a joint, it's bye bye pain management doctor.

The worst part of all this is watching the next guy in the doctor's office writhing in pain for half an hour, then seeing him later in the Pharmacy getting his prescription, and suddenly he's walking without a limp or any signs of pain. Of course, I'll need him later for those $25 pills, and he knows it. Great world we live in.

i was wondering what the meep was going on with that avatar

Pepper = GoatWife = Rosie

Tango = Tentacle = GoatDog

Rosie & I share the same computer...I just didn't notice she was signed in.

Clear enough for you, Tantrum?

Hey Guru

Och man, that sucks. Been there to much much lesser degree but I know the feeling of having to convince some medicine man that you are in genuine pain and you want him to do his meeping job.
You have to recognize what an insidious meep oxy is though. The pain is in part your body's method to get you to give it more oxy. Try some pot if you can, so much better/effective.

photo,

Weed would be nice, except for two reasons: I get drug tested every month when I go to the pain management doc, if they find anything that he didn't prescribe, they kick me out. And secondly, if I get drug tested at work and they find weed, I'll be out of a job. That's if I can ever get a job again, as it is now I can't do anything that I have to bend over for more than five minutes without needing help to stand up straight.

Hoy...almost identical situation (L4-L5), same basic meds (plus Topomax & Naproxin), and same testing, but my Dr. (at least in California) isn't concerned with organic plant matter in my blood; their main concern is if you are actually using the meds they give you and not selling them for $50 bucks a pill on the street, or taking them all at the first of the month and supplementing at the end of the month with, say, methadone, or heroin. Reselling of meds is the number one problem with Pain Management Clinics, with Oxycodone going $2 to $5 bucks a Mg. and Hydrocodone (Vicodin) going for $1 to $5 buck for the same. People are stupid. I use mine so I can work. Why waste good medicine on lazy idiots so they can lay around and feel nauseous. When you actually hurt, your body uses the drug differently. It's like giving Insulin to healthy folks...just makes them sick.

Stupidity.

Hope you feel better, Guruvy Man.

Goat

meep.. i thought my sciatica and petit mals sucked( except I sort of like those. They're really intensely hallucinogenic).
Thanks for the anecdotal evidence of a significant failure in the application of
western medicine. Sometimes there's not even the inclination to deal with the symptoms.
Fak... I hope you folks can find relief. Really.
Pharmaceuticals will screw you up way more than you've already suffered.
Western medicine is NOT willing to acknowledge that.
I don't smoke pot. It turns me into a mindless meep. I'm a lucky guy, in that the only pharma's I have the occasional need for is 3 ibuprofen, post petit mal, to ward off the headache.

BG,

I know, I get 120 pills a month, and I could sell them here for $25 apiece. That's a nice chunk of change for someone who has been laid off for a year and a half, with too much pain to even think about getting another job. I haven't sold a single pill, and doubt I ever will. Might be moving to Florida soon, maybe they are a bit more relaxed down there.

I busted L5 into several pieces and L4 into 3 pieces 30+ years ago and don't take pain medication because it makes me sick and turns my brain to warm mud. Over the long haul you can learn to live with chronic pain. It doesn't go away so much as you set it to one side and don't focus on it. It works quite a lot like narcotic medications in that respect, just dulling it to the point you can work around it. Only works when your conscience though, still holler and cuss a blue streak every time I roll over in my sleep (about every 20-30 minutes) and that has caused me some serious problems with the ladies. I find aspirin works nearly as well as vicodin when things get really bad.

I think I'd rather be on drugs...

I hear you. There's no way I'd ever sell a single pill...the pain isn't worth it.