Since 2000, I have been asking doctors for pain pills, because the pain wakes me up and keeps me awake. Advil, when it works, only works long enough for me to get 2 hours of sleep, and then I have to lay awake in pain until the next dose kicks in. Sometimes, the pain would be bad enough to wake me up even after taking a sleeping pill. It was obvious to me that the pain needed to be dealt with in order for me to sleep well enough to recuperate and return to my career. (The only time I slept through the pain was when I was on the sleeping pill strong enough to leave me "stoned" and non-functional the whole next day. Obviously, taking that was not going to get me back to work, even in a menial task.)
Instead of experimenting to see if something for the pain would help me sleep, I got lectures to suck it up, and prejudicial comments about how "all women" are whiny babies who can't handle a little pain, and assumptions that if they gave me narcotic pain pills for the neurologic pain that would turn me into an addict. (Statistically, less than 1% of chronic pain patients turn into addicts who abuse their pills. The remaining 99+% use the pills exactly as prescribed; they are dependent on them the same way as diabetics are dependent on insulin, but whoever heard of that being referred to as an "insulin addict"?)
Finally, someone who has neurologic illness in his family agreed to a trial of Tramadol/Ultram, which is the mildest narcotic pain reliever there is. It's so mild that it's available without a prescription in Canada.
The bottle says to take one every 4 hours. I took one at bedtime, and slept 8 hours without the pain waking me up. More than 12 hours later, the pain is just starting to break through my concentration. I'm thinking about a hot bath for the pain, but haven't reached for a second pill.
If someone had listened to me 7 years ago that the insomnia was connected to pain and given me pain pills instead of anti-depressants (which made me sicker), I might have been back to work full-time in a matter of months. Instead, I've suffered needlessly for a tenth of my three-score-and-ten. According to a pain management specialist, as little as 48 hours of unrelieved pain is enough to cause changes to the nerves, which may be permanent. One theory about fibromyalgia is that it's rooted in such nervous system changes from unrelieved or inadequately relieved pain.
Doctors take an oath to "first do no harm". Unfortunately, so many of them are concerned about doing harm to the 1% who might become addicted that they do serious and permanent harm to the 99% who are not going to become addicts.
It's well known that there is such a thing as an Addictive Personality; someone who is an alcoholic is more likely to become addicted to other substances, whereas someone who is able to control their drinking is equally likely to use prescriptions responsibly. But even though I reported that I have a glass of wine with dinner once a month at most, doctors leapt to the conclusion that they could not give me pain medication because I might become an addict. Statistics don't bear them out.
2 comments:
That is fantastic! Long may it continue.
I'm glad to hear you finally have the pain med you obviously need. People underestimate the value of sleep; I've been having a mild argument with DH because I want to take my muscle relaxant more often lately, and he's worried about it, I guess. But when I don't, no matter how tired I am when I go to bed, I wake up tired. I know what's best for me; it's amazing how other people don't realize that you can be in tune with your body.
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