I use NSAIDs (alieve) which helps my Fibro pain. Some mornings when I wake up i have some intense pain and if I take one with a tylonal or two I can get away without anything else the rest of the day and then maybe only something at night. My doctor cautioned me to take a prilosect with each NSAID dose though because of the strong sustainability to bleeding stumach ulcers with consistent NSAID use. I also have constant nausea issues too. This seems to help sometimes. but he insists it will help if I insist on using the NSAID. I feel that risk is better then using the stronger pain meds
The reason I ask is because I am not completely comfortable with my diagnosis of fibromyalgia. I have some of the symptoms, but I feel as though I may have fallen under the care of a doctor who diagnoses anyone who walks into her office with pain with "fibromyalgia." I have also been diagnosed with sciatica, DDD, degenerative facet arthritis, nerve dysfunction, and mild scoliosis. Over a year ago I had a shoulder surgery due to impingement syndrome and a bone spur, which has left me in chronic pain.
I have bounced around from physical therapy to pain management (which intimidated me since I was new to it with all of the pills and injections they were pushing on me) to this Rheumatologist who diagnosed me with fibro. I am taking a very strong NSAID now plus an antiseizure med, a muscle relaxer, and a low dose of vicodin. I stopped the NSAID for a short time and my body (especially my shoulder and my lower back) swelled up so bad. When I began taking the NSAID again my condition improved. I don't get pain relief per se from NSAIDs, but without them, I would have intense swelling.
I have been tested for RA and am negative, at least one year ago I was. I don't really have a lot of trouble sleeping unless my shoulder or back is swollen. I frequently have to ice my shoulder to fall asleep. Steroid injections help in my lower back where my facet arthritis and nerve damage is located. I am confused. Do you guys think perhaps that I do not have fibro and just chronic pain???
NO anti-inflamatories have ever helped my FM pain and I have tried a lot of them. No non-narcotic pain med has ever helped.
I would have to say that it helps more than acetaminophen, but not that much.
I don't have Lupus or Lyme disease (that I know of...lol) but I have had fibro for more than 10 years and no NSAIDS have ever helped relieve pain.