I just wanna say Sorry

DammitJanet

Well-Known Member
I just wanna say sorry for getting a bit heated in the post that GG posted earlier about her mom.

The topic was just near and dear to me and it struck a nerve and I went off on a tangent. I shouldnt have. She wasnt aiming it at me or all people who take pain pills.

GG...I hope you accept my apology.

I have had a rough few months lately and Im not feeling well and sleep isnt happening. Not an excuse but...

Hey...maybe you could pray a lolly from your moms stash and ship it to me...lmao.
 

goldenguru

Active Member
Oh Janet ... ((((hugs)))

You have no reason to apologize to me. You committed no offense. I know the subject of narcotic pain management is a hot button ...

I actually appreciated your (and all the others who live with chronic pain) position.

LOL about the lollies ...

Hope you are feeling better soon.

(((more hugs)))
 

Fran

Former desparate mom
Janet, I'm with gg.
You are a treasured member of long standing. Don't think everything said is a judgment of you. Your pain, illnesses and family ordeals are unique to you as each of ours is to us. I don't walk in your shoes and you don't walk in mine. Hopefully different outlooks help us learn and open our minds to other ways of dealing.
It would be difficult to continue to post if I thought everything I said or did would be judged. You can agree or disagree but don't think I'm less worthy of the site support. Hopefully you understand that as it applies to you.
Hugs. I hope your pain diminishes and you live the life you would want.
 
Janet,

I completely understood your posts and your passion surrounding this issue. Many, many people have varying opinions surrounding it.

I work in rehabilitation for folks injured on the job and interface with numerous pain docs in our area. The docs are heavily maligned - in the press, by attorneys, and sometimes (cringe) by other docs. They are sometimes investigated by the feds if their prescriptions start raising red flags. Several of the pain docs here have their own formulary drugstores and sell their own medications. They are scrutinized. Some of them implant pain medication pumps or spinal stiumulators in their patients. They do what it takes to help their patients.

Personally, I think most of of these docs are angels. Many of my clients could not make it another day without their medications. Their pain is just that bad. Why not help out with that when we are able to take care of it? Some of these docs view this as their mission!

This really hit home with our family when difficult child was hospitalized after his accident. Several interns and residents were working with him because he was in a teaching hospital. After he had been in the hospital one week an intern marched himself into our hospital room and said "Mom, I need to speak with you!" I went out in the hallway and he said "difficult child is on way too many drugs, he's obviously a druggie and an addict and we need to get him off now!" difficult child was 11 years old at the time. He had been run over by a huge BellSouth Utility truck and the week before and half of his foot had been torn off. I looked at this doctor like he was out of his mind and repeated the facts to him. He said "I don't care how old he is or how recent or serious his accident was - he needs off these drugs". I didn't realize at the time that I could have asked to have him removed from difficult child's care - but I should have. OBTW, one of difficult child's diagnoses upon discharge from the hosptial: "PTSD from inadequate pain control after his injury". There is just no excuse for inadequate pain control for anyone in our society. I am a HUGE advocate for my clients getting exactly what they need in that area. If problems develop, we deal with them, but we don't throw the baby out with the bath water!
 

nvts

Active Member
Hey Janet! You know what? Sometimes everyone needs to blow up! At least you didn't go difficult child on anyone! :smile:

Relax...the way most of everyone looks at it is: families have arguements! :wink: I know you made a lot of things clearer to me (my sister is in chronic pain, & I try to understand, but you clarified a lot of what she TRIES to explain!).

I keep you in my prayers that you get some type of relief!

Beth
 

susiestar

Roll With It
Janet,

I just love you. You are a treasure. I literally feel you pain(am on mostly bed rest, can't sit with-o huge pain, waiting to see spinal surgeons next week). You said what I thought, cleared up lots for many people.

You gave gg info to truly look and see if her mom needs some intervention.

Thanks for that, it actually helped me find info to send to my family to explain some of my stuff.

I wish any of this gave me relief, as I know you do. As for getting high, HA. It can't cut through the pain, much less help us feel good or happy.

I wish you pain free sleepfilled nights and pain free fun days with you family!

Susie
 

Marguerite

Active Member
Janet, you didn't blow your stack as much as you thought you did, from what I can see. And I was just as worked up about things as you - I've kept quiet about a lot of my own issues, but felt I needed to say more in defence of those of us who have no choice but to use strong pain medications to function.

My lovely specialist, the one who at first expressed concern that I was an addict, finally said to me, "We'll get you well and THEN we'll get you off the medications."

I know from my past experience that when I limit pain medication use to - well - pain, then I can easily reduce the medications when the pain is less severe. There are a lot more procedures available now to resolve and treat addiction.

I view an addict as "someone who takes a drug in order to get a direct payoff" which is usually pleasure, at least in the initial stages of use. The payoff for me, with these drugs, is reduction of pain. Not even relief - just reduction, to the point where I can walk a little better, I can move a little better and use my hands more freely. If I take more, the sensation is unpleasant to me. For me, there is no payoff directly from the drug.

For those who DO get a direct payoff, getting off the drugs physically is NOT the main battle. GG, if your mother really is an addict as you fear, the problem won't be physical reliance as much as emotional. She takes it because she feels happy on it, or relaxed, or safe. Not good. But if she is simply taking it for the pain relief it gives and her other issues are unrelated, then something still needs to be investigated.

Janet, you and I are walking a difficult road, we need to be sure of our support base. I took a long time to share as much as I did on GG's thread, but I shared what I did because I feel safe with the people on this site. We all are walking a difficult road with our children. For most of us, I'm sure, we have learnt a great deal and made significant changes in our attitudes by learning from each other here. I value the tolerance and compassion on this site.

Marg
 

DammitJanet

Well-Known Member
Thanks everyone.

No, I have never had a "high" day in my life on the pain medications I take. Well...maybe I cant say that. When they thought I had my heart attack and gave me dilaudid in the hospital ER it did make me a bit loopy but it didnt last too long and when I had my hysterectomy and got IV pain medications those knocked me out but I think that is fairly normal. My normal everyday pain medications never make me feel a thing except less pain. I have heard others say that a vicodin or percocet will knock them clear out...lol. For me, its like taking an advil. I get some pain relief but no high.

I do attempt to find other methods of relieving the pain first. Hot baths in epsom salts helps sometimes. I take many of those especially in the winter and rainy months when my joints just ache. Muscle rubs, heating pads, all my bipolar medications seem to help a bit. Not much more I can try really.
 

goldenguru

Active Member


I had an eye injury a couple of years back. They prescribed me vicodan. I took it as prescribed. It made me stoned ... I remember telling my husband in my stupor "I can't feel my toes" ... it was like an out of body experience.

Its funny how medications affect our systems so differently.

Janet ~ I used to tell my kids that a hot bath and good nights sleep cures just about everything. :ill: I only wish it was really true!
 

Marguerite

Active Member
I know the "stoned" feeling - I hate it. It also seems to hit my throat muscles and I feel like I can't swallow properly or hold me head up straight. It has happened to me when I've taken more pain medications than I needed - this can happen by accident if you accidentally double-dose, or more often in the early days of my illness, the pain was easier to knock than I had estimated.

I've been told, and it seems that way with me, that when you match the pain medications to the pain, you shouldn't feel stoned. I'm not sure if that's the rule for everybody, but it is for me.

When I was first put on morphine, it did sometimes sedate me. At the same time, it also knocked the pain COMPLETELY - now THAT is something I'd love to get used to. But as I eased the dose back to what I needed, I found the morphine no longer sedated me, and I was also getting a small amount of breakthrough pain.

So now I plan on always having some pain and find other ways to keep it under control - meditation, visualisation, relaxation - they all help a certain amount. It's a constant tightrope walk, but with experience I'm getting good at it.

I remember years ago when I was otherwise healthy, I had kidney surgery. I don't know what they gave me, but it put me to sleep. However, it stopped being so effective after a few days and I was asking for the injections more often. They finally refused more injections and I felt myself panicking - could I handle the pain? But then they gave me some oral medications which were amazingly effective - I think it must have been the paracetamol-codeine combination I take now for breakthrough. And once I was not sedated, I was able to do more for myself physically. I was only 20, I was healing fast once I could get moving.

Not so now. I was at a conference for fibromyalgia and CFS some years ago. One of the speakers commented that he had never seen a room full of people so intently listening, but so physically still. This is a condition which discourages movement. Even in sleep, I do not move unless I wake to do so. The natural tendency is to be as still as possible, which is not healthy. But it hurts to BEGIN to move. Very hard to explain.

GG, I really don't know what you can do for your mother that you haven't already done. Besides asking your own doctor for advice, you can't intervene. She is a free agent, legally considered capable of making her own decisions. But if she really wants her pain eased she should welcome any suggestions on pain management, as long as they don't require her to stop her current medications. A vibrating pillow; a TENS machine; a voucher for massage; maybe worth suggesting.

All the best with it.

Marg
 
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