I’m in my mid-forties, and have a lot of medical problems that keep me in constant pain. Some of the things I’ve been diagnosed with include osteoarthritis, bone spurs, fibromyalgia, sciatica, lots of torn cartilage in my knees, lower back pain, COPD, anxiety attacks, depression, PTSD, and, well, you get the picture. My primary doctor and my neurologist have me on a lot of medications.
However, something I’m taking (or perhaps the combination of more than one of the medications) continues to make me retain water, wherein my ankles become huge “kankles”, none of my rings fit, etc. This occurs each time, after about 3 weeks of taking my meds exactly as prescribed. I’m actually retaining between 15lbs and 20lbs of water when I stand on the scale during these times. And when this happens, I get off of everything except for the oxycodone as needed, one of the anti-inflammatory pills, and one of the muscle relaxers, as well as some furosemide 40 (water pills) along with potassium20MEQ. Throughout all this I have excruciating pain between my hip and knee down my leg on the left side mostly. And both legs constantly fall asleep on me a lot.
So, since I’m on 20 different pills throughout each day, I’m afraid it would take months to actually eliminate one for a week, see what happens, get back on it and eliminate another, and so on until I can figure it out. But I can’t continue this cycle of ***on again/off again***.
Here is my medication list: 1xdaily-meloxicam 15, aspirin 325, prilosec OTC, valium10, Claritin 10; 2xdaily-etodolac 400, flexeril 10, soma 350, savella 50, adderall 30, bupropion 400, advair 500/50; 3xdaily-lyrica 75, baclofen 10, insta-flex (a joint support medicine ordered off of TV), tramadol 50, methadone 5; and as needed daily oxycodone 15 (up to 6 per day), black cohosh, pro-air.
I know this seems like an awful lot of anti-inflammatory pills, but my Neurologist says he has a "plan" and to trust him on this.