Pain Management

I have diabetes, peripheral neuropathy, chronic bronchitis, COPD, hiatal hernia, GERD, restless leg syndrome, arthritic cervical spondylosis, alergies (allergies),  ADD (my primary care dr says), but have never been diagnosed with it. It makes sense, however, as when in school and even now, I will be talking about one subject and will constantly go off on another completely different subject. My attention span is very short and always has been. My main problem now is the pain, numbness, dropping things all of the time because of pain/numbness in hands, have trouble being on my feet due to the neuropathy. Was on insulin, Novolo 70/30 and it worked pretty well, however, caused my ankles and feet to swell to a point where walking is very painful. I'm looking for something other than Vicodin, Percocet and Neurontin (3600 mg/day) to use for pain. The Vicodin works a little bit, as does the Percocet. The Neurontin also works a little bit and again, am looking for one pain RX that would work for all instead of taking more than one. Have a friend on the Fentanyl patch and she swears by it. Says it is much better at pain relief than the Percocet or Vicodin and she's not on Neurontin. Please  help. I have an appt with my pain mgmt dr on Thurs, 2/16/12 and want to have something I can discuss with him to see if he will try me on the Fentanyl patch or some other patch (if there are any others that I am unaware of). Thanks. Linda Sevilla

[tombcx]

Hi there,
Pain management in diabetes or in cancer patients only works for sometimes, one year may be then most of pain relieve meds even morphine, will stop working. Long time usage of pain reliever meds  will lead to permanent liver damage.  
The vast majority of long time diabetic will suffer leg pains aka neuropathic pains.
I am no different than other long time diabetic 2, I had leg pains , but not any more. Please read my previous posts to find out how I stop my leg pains. Or go search the internet : Diabetic leg pain forum. Good luck.  

[Super_sally888]

The best way to reverse your condition would be to get your diabetes under excellent control with diet and meds.

Low carb diet usually helps along with optimising meds (insulin etc)..

Neuropathy can be reversible if blood sugars can be managed close to normal levels.

the Book Diabetes Solutions (you can easily google this) is the best I have found for how to address this.  It is not easy solution but it can work.

[ScottKJohnson]

Hi everyone,

I found this post through some work I'm doing with the company that makes Metanx (any of you heard of it, tried it?).

How did your appointment go?