First off, I'm hoping that all those that were in the path of Hurricane Irene are okay. Some downed trees and branches around here but nothing too bad from what I can tell.
Some of you know a few weeks ago I was hospitalized. I'm feeling okay, not myself but hopefully will get to the bottom of things soon. I have an appointment with my primary care doctor on Thursday. I think this has been going on longer than I realized, possibly even as far back as a year ago. Like a lot of things, my symptoms were symptoms of many things, and they didn't even seem to be connected.
I thought I was having hot flashes and chalked it up to peri-menopause, but I was running temperatures. I felt itchy at times and chalked it up to dry skin. The muscle weakness I attributed to fibromyalgia. I could go on, but you all get the idea. As this was going on, I had also been doing a taper, and due to trying to do it too aggressively, and for the wrong reasons, I was going in and out of withdrawal, which is unpleasant, to put it mildly. I thought the nausea and vomiting was from that.
The medication I have taken the most has been oxycodone. Right now I'm not taking any long-acting medications, and seem to be okay. My problem has been that all of a sudden I'm getting nausea and at times vomiting with the oxycodone. Initially I thought maybe it was just not agreeing with me, even though I never had any real trouble with it before. A few weeks back they switched me over to morphine. I'd tried that in the past, and I get a similar amount of pain control from that as I do with the oxycodone. But with the morphine, I get a headache every time I take it, though it will go away with ibuprofen.
After I got out of the hospital, the pain clinic team put me back on the oxycodone, and we both figured that now that I'm getting better, the oxycodone won't bother me any more. Well, it will be a week tomorrow, and I'm still getting bad nausea with it, though only occasional vomiting. I'll be talking with the pain clinic NP mid-week, and I'm thinking of asking her to put me back on the morphine. I had no nausea with that, and even though I would rather not have the headaches, I know it will go away with ibuprofen, and I figure that's better than this constant nausea.
Earlier I was thinking of all the different narcotics we've tried. Vicoden gives me a rash; so that's out. I would rather not go on a long-acting med at this point because I seem to be doing well enough without it. Tylenol with codeine isn't strong enough. I was thinking about Dilaudid or Demerol, though I don't seem to see it mentioned much, and I was wondering why that is. Anyone know anything about either of those medications?
Years ago I got a shot of Demerol when I was having my first baby, and I don't remember having any side effects from it, and I also remember that it helped. Dilaudid was given to me after one of my surgeries and it was prescribed by the pain clinic I go to now. I didn't have any side effects from that either, though it didn't work at all for my post-op pain. Tylenol was more helpful. But I'm wondering if maybe it would work now? It's not the same type of pain, this being chronic and the other being acute.
The only other medication I know of is Tramadol. I took that years ago for my hand pain, before I had any surgeries. I didn't like how it made me feel. It made me feel a bit high and out of it, and it didn't help much. The other worry I have about Tramadol is that I've read it can be very difficult to come off it due to its antidepressant properties.
So just looking for some opinions or others' experiences. I'd like to have some idea of what to talk to the doctor about later this week. Are there any other immediate release medications that I'm missing? The ones I know about and/or tried so far have been: Tylenol 3, oxcodone, Vicodin, Tramadol, morphine, Percocet. (I've also taken Cymbalta and Clonidine for nerve pain. I couldn't tolerate the Cymbalta and I'm still taking the Clonidine.
I figure once I get whatever is going on under control I can switch back to the oxycodone. But for right now, I need to have continued good pain control with as few side effects as possible.
Thanks for any insight!!!