Morphine a question

JamesFoote

Well I had a really bad day, I just could not move the pain was so bad.

The three discs in my neck and my back omg my back I just stiffened up.
The pain Managment clinic is not ill the 18 and we are going away for our wedding anaversary on the 9 for 5 days to Budapest

I rang my doctors and was told there is no appointment left that day, it was mid afternoon. She told me to hold on a minute as it says on my file if I ring to talk to the doctor. She then told me could I come after Surgary 5.30.
I got in to see my doctor about 6.10 and did not come out until gone 7. Good job I was last.
The end result was he has given me morphine.
He told me to start at 5mils then 7.5 then 10 etc untill the pain has gone at this time he will give me pills so it is easier for my trip. He does not want to give me a lot of all my meds because the PMC will change some of them he thinks.

The funny thing is when my neck and back are bad I can not feel the arthritis in my knees but as it gets better I can really feel my knees.
Is this bacause the brain only send one signal for the most painful

Has any one else been on morphine is so how did you find it.

James

Slosh

My GP has prescribed me oxycodone which is a morphine derivative for a worsening in my pain linked to my return to work. However he has warned me that it is highly addictive and that if you take it for an extended period you find you have to increase the dose as you build up a tolerance to it. Having said that I find it makes me feel like my old, pre-arthur days. He has also increased my dosage of duloxetine which I take for my neuropathic pain and hopefully once that has kicked in I will no longer need it, however I will still be on an strong painkiller. I currently take the lowest dose of Oxycodone, or slightly less, of 5mg, 3-4 times a day.

dreamdaisy

Morphine? No, it's not a long-term solution for every-day pain. The danger with the strong stuff is that it takes us away from the pain, not the pain away from us, plus it leaves you with no further options apart from taking more of it when pain breaks through (and it will because it does because your body will need more to gain the same level of 'relief'). I have used oromorph in the past (liquid morphine) and I have some tramadol tablets (50mgs and slow-release 100mgs) for the truly rough days but I manage with between four and six co-codamol (30/500) per day, plus the occasional anti-inflammatory tablet, because I accept that pain is with me for life.

Pain is the ground-elder of our lives, it will not go away, it can only be dulled. We have to develop coping strategies to help us manage it as best we can but they take time to discover. I am in my eighteenth year of this malarkey (I have an auto-immune arthritis and the joint damage that caused has led to OA in far too many useful joints) and now find it amazing that people like my husband don't know they have joints! I prefer to keep my pain dullers to a minimum because that way I can receive feedback from my joints so I know when to stop and rest. I would like to have a wife to run the house and do the cooking and cleaning but, alas, I don't.

If it helps you then that is a good thing but it is not a permanent solution to the problem. It is also not surprising that when your neck is bad you lose the awareness of the pain in your knees - the brain can only process so much and will pay attention to the most urgent. DD

JamesFoote

Thanks for the feed back

As for the morphine it is not long term I hope and I am looking at the painnmanagment to help me here.

The problem was the pain over the last few days I could not deal with at all, this was not a normal bad pain but it was quite terrible and I really could not see any other way he could deal with it but to give me the stuff. Yes we talked about it and I have even talked to my chemist and she told me what do you want to be pain free ish or not. So for the next few weeks I can manage with the morphine and my life.

Fingers crossed I will be off it ASAP

James

stickywicket

I'm sorry you had a bad day with the pain, James. I'm not sure why the knee pain eases when the rest becomes worse but it might just be old-fashioned distraction ie because you're concentrating on the neck and back you're not aware of the knee. I find distraction techniques very useful particularly post-op. I can often defer pain relief by a couple of hours just by doing something that requires a lot of attention. As for 'pain free ish' I think it's a dangerous, seductive temptation. Arthritis and pain-free' are not compatible. Once we accept that we can start to get on with our real lives instead of trying to live the illusion of our past ones.

My only experience of morphine is immediately post-op (and once pre-op when my hip was broken). I can understand you wanting a good holiday but this is not a route I'd be prepared to go down especially with all the heavy duty pain relief you already take. Please ensure your travel insurance people are aware of all your meds as otherwise, in an emergency, you could find yourself uninsured.

JamesFoote

I agree but what can I do at this time.

After the 18th then all should change I hope. The problem was if you can not get of the floor with pain then any option is a good one.

Because it is liquid and I can measure it my self then on good days I not take it at all so fingers crossed

James

bubbadog

I have been on Morphine and would warn use lower doses and not for long times. I say this as some of the guys on here know I was on high doses after a stint in hospital and was on it for several months and had to go through 'Cold Turkey' and it was like the film 'Trainspotting'!! I was very sick, had sweats and cramps. This lasted for several days and I would not wish this on my worst enemy. So I say only use morphine for short periods and low doses.

JamesFoote

This is my concern too.

i think the idea was to find the level that help me then give me some pills to that level but i am going to ask to stay on the liquid. My reason for this is i can control how much i take. I have not taken any today and i am very sore and starting to lock up again but i may only need say 5 ml but if a pill is 10 or 15ml then i am stuck.

I know this is not long term as the Pain Management clinic will change my meds.
the problem is i have one specialist dealing with my colitis
and another dealing with my neck and spine and my gp with the knees.
hopfully it will all come under one roof, or at least close too it.

when you say low doses bubbadog what amour are you talking about.
on the day of my slip i was on 10ml if i was to take some today it would be 5ml 7.5ml at most, i dont know if this is high or not. I do know one thing though on the day i needed it it was a god send.


thank you all for the advice i feel i need it right now

James

Slosh

There are levels of pain and various ways of managing it. I agree morphine is not long term, I am only on a derivative while other drugs start to work and because being back at work means resting during the day if I need to isn't an option and I need to keep my mind clear which I was struggling to do as the pain would get to the point where I just couldn't string a coherent sentence together. Distraction techniques have their place but are no good when you need to pay attention to what is being said.

JamesFoote

I could not agree with you more Slosh.

The past few day have been terrible, I hope I am on the right side of it but when the pain get so much that you just can not cope then dealing with side affect of any medication has to be better than that.

As always there is a trade off.

I will say my GP if a fantastic doctor and the fact I was in there for more than 50 mins shows it was not given lightly and in the same vain it is not taken lightly

James

Slosh

I like you am lucky in having a great GP who always listens and who I trust. It makes a huge difference.

JamesFoote

I did the one to one service on here
And the thing that hits home is I you dont have a good GP you are lost.

My GP knows me well enough to be able to talk about everything and to work out a plan of attack, it may not be fore every one but it works for me.

I even know the cost of my meds as this is on the screen, I have all my referrals and there comments.

It really does make life easier

James

Slosh

Not sure what you mean by one to one service.

I have a couple of good GPs at my surgery but have my favourite. He listens, lets me talk and treats me as a person. I trust him partly because he knows when I need to seek for specialist help than he can give as then he packs me off to A and E with a letter! He also tells me off for not always going when I should, he obviously understands my, "don't bother the Dr" mind set (thanks Mum) as he told me I could see him as and when I need to or want to, and now even tells me when he's going on holiday!

dreamdaisy

The pain management clinic don't have magic pills and potions which the GPs lack but they may be able to teach you some pain-management techniques such as visualisation and distraction methods. Pain-free (even to an -ish degree) is not going to happen - the sooner you reconcile yourself to that, and start accommodating a little more the demands of the disease rather than ignoring them, the better you will become at living with your arthritis.

Pain is a prominent companion in our lives but it should not be allowed to dominate them (which it does when we don't alter our behaviours). I have had to change a great deal over the years in what I do and how I do it - every single movement is accompanied by lovely blasts of hurt but so what? Hopefully we are going to go out for lunch today and I will walk to the pub. It will be a pain-filled fifteen minutes or so but I am blasted well going to walk it because it's a lovely day, I need the exercise, and the two cocos which I will take soon will take off the worst edge.

I am very thankful that I can no longer remember pain-free, it used to fret me because I knew what I had lost (and it took a long time to happen) but what I didn't realise was that losing that memory would give me a new freedom. DD

JamesFoote

I understand what you are saying dreamdaisy and to be fair I do except the pain.
I have had colitis for years and I can say that a bad day with my colitis is so much worse than with my arthritis.

The spine problem is compressing nerves and this is giving me a lot of problems I am shaw every one knows how it feels.

The pain Managment clinic
Yes I am expecting a lot from them I hope I am disappointed but if I am it will not be the first time and I will have to deal with it. I have changed so much to accommodate my illness. I lost a lot of my outside acctivatives and I replaced with others. When it became to much to carry my fishing equipment (carp fishing and sleeping on the bank) I bought a barrow when this was not enough I now have an electric barrow when that is not enough I will find places I can take the caravan.

I am very much a realist with my conditions I have had to be. My Arthritis hurst and the nerve damage has produced some very off feeling but my colitis well if I fight or ignore that well then I would just soil my self.

Please no one think because I come out talking the fight that I do not understand what is happening or where this journey is taking me I do.

Wishing every one well

James

dreamdaisy

I presume you meant 'accept' (as in receiving) rather than 'except' (to place apart). I also think you meant that you hope not to be disappointed with the pain clinic rather than the opposite. I have found over the years that the higher we build our hopes the further we have to crash when they're not met - I now take the view that if I expect nothing I may be pleasantly surprised; I'm still waiting.

You are obviously making adjustments and that's a good thing, that's one coping strategy done-and-dusted. Arthritis hurts wherever it is and whether it's one joint or many is immaterial because pain is pain. Males have more receptors than females so may feel pain more keenly and of course we each have different levels of tolerance: one man's mild twinge is another's agony. The spine is a very tricky area to deal with - I don't envy you that at all. DD

JamesFoote

Sorry about the spellings etc.

I have dyslexia and allow auto spell to deal with a lot of my corrections etc
the main problem being numbers funnily enough. I use to get some very odd tigers on my contracts when i worked that to this day makes me smile.

As for expectations. Mine have always been high be that for myself or what i expect from others. I have always worked to a 1 year and 5 year plan. It got me though some very hard times with the death of my wife and help with the outlook of my colitis and even helped with simple thing like hard times at work I see no reason why I would not adopted this action for my illness, I understand i have to change thing, i am no longer going to walk the great north walk etc but these goals are just changed for a new one. This week it will be to have a great holiday in Budapest and to celebrate my marriage to Diane, who really helped me in ways no one else could of. The week after is to get back on the bank for some fishing and to land my new PB. many a friend may say that is very hairy fairy but if i dont aim for it then how can i achieve it.

by the way thanks for you feed back and advice it all helps svn if i dont agree with it having both sides of the coin help me come to a decision


James

barbara12

Hello James
Im with DD on the pain clinic..don't build up your hopes..I have had all they could offer but sadly I am one of the people that the injections and such have not worked for, but for many they do...so good luck
Like you I have compression of the spine , so I know were you are coming from...I have now been offered surgery..but have 6 months to think about it ..I have had one hip replaced and the other one is not far off...I am on the butran patches at the min ..these are morphine based..and are helping but I only used them when in a lot of pain...so I was thinking your holiday, because it is slow release so it might help..just a point it is now on the questionnaire for holiday insurance and has really bump mine up... good luck and I hope you have a really good time..

dreamdaisy

I wondered if dyslexia was the trouble but didn't like to ask - your abstract and practical thinking skills triggered the thought. Number trouble is also common with dyslexics, I wonder too if you are left-handed? I tutored dyslexics in a private capacity for many years, I loved my job but eventually the arthritises became too much.

I am pleased that you have found new love and support, she sounds to be a grand lass. You are also spot on when you say if you don't try how can you achieve? That was my aim in walking to the pub for lunch: OK, so my afternoon is not going too well but I can bask in the glory that I managed it and only with one sit-down on the way home. I prefer to be sitting here with grumbling joints having done something than sitting here with grumbling joints having done nothing. Ah, the twisted logic of an arthritic. DD

JamesFoote

thanks for that.

We do travel all over the place, Vietnam, China etc
with our insurance we exclude the colitis and the arthritis etc and if thing go bad then we just get a flight home. We know this can be expensive China would of been close to 4K each but we can do it if we need to.

James

JamesFoote

Good for you Dreamdaisy if we were close i would buy you a drink.

funny thing about the left handed. No i am not but when i went to the Phisyo and they ran there tests she said i was left handed but i said i was not.
My right had is weaker then my left but i put that down to the nerve damage in my back and neck.
What is confusing my is my back, between my shoulder blades is the part that hurts, I mean hard to breath hurts and my neck gets stuff but always have for as long as i can remember but i am told it is the neck that is giving the trouble with my arms and hands not my back.
we really need an mri for my back, it should of been done i was there having my neck done but they said i was a no show for my back LOL.

"your abstract and practical thinking skills triggered the thought"

this fasinates me. could this of been the reason for some of my success or the way i would out problems.
I teach advanced driving with the IAM and i took and executive lady from a large well known company, to say we were at logger heads would be an understatement, she even complained about me twice but by the end of it she passed and passed well and we became the very best of friends. She asked me to fill out one of the assessment job application things. It showed i had an IQ of 132 and if they were to give me a job it would be to give me a task and leave me to do it. I dont work well with a boss but i do make a very good boss. She is always, elite exaggeration there, ring me asking if aim interested in this or that.

I have to say DD that if we got to that pub by the time i had finished with my questions we would not be walking home

James

dreamdaisy

I think that you and me could get on, especially with a few pints down the hatch! IQ is an artificial measure of intelligence, if you took an American-based test you may not do so well as many tests have a cultural loading. I once taught a lad who had an IQ of 162 - he still struggles to write his name but he has a string of qualifications in astro-physics. I tend towards the theory that intelligence comes in more ways than one, for example David Beckham (and other sports people) have a spatial intelligence which I could not master, no matter how many hours of practise I put in.

Many dyslexics are left-handed (so controlled by the right hand side of the brain) but, alas, they are taught writing skills by right handers (controlled by the left brain) who fail to take any of the necessary differences into account. The Catholic church also has some responsibility for turning natural lefties into un-natural righties. When I was working I would write left-handed with my leftie pupils but I was in the comfy position of working on a one-to-one basis and not being a teacher that had to follow a handwriting 'policy'. :roll: My only policy was that others should be able to read what you had written, the movements of writing were not important.

Dyslexics are very successful in 3D worlds such as architecture, building, design, mechanics: lately it was in the news that GCHQ (I think I have those initials right) were actively recruiting dyslexics to help with code breaking etc. because their thinking skills are far more fluid than others. If I have to get to point D, starting from point A, then I have to go through B and C. You would probably leap there in a moment.

I am sorry, I found my old soap-box. :oops: I'll get off it now. :oops: DD

PS I don't know about the breathing thing - I have trouble occasionally but that could be my asthma or pulled inter-costal muscles, I'm good at upsetting them usually thanks to lifting my rollator into the car.

JamesFoote

I was told i had asthma and lived with it for years, it never game me many problems just there. Then i had some massive problems with my gut. they thought i may of had crohns but it turned out i had Barrettes and colitis, i never had asthma at all.

I do find my IQ goes up with the amount of beer I drink. Hell one night i was practically a genius. Hurts the next mooring though. lol

I love being around people who know there field. My wife has a doctorate and we can talk for hours about her field. I love learning and always have there is just something so exciting about gaining a new skill or even a new mind set on a subject.

I love teaching, in my very basic, simplistic way, but my students be they Police blues and twos or just the normal joe blogs always pass well


james

dreamdaisy

I began asthma aged seven and it nearly killed me on three occasions (this was in the days before inhalers, all I had was cough medicine). I have a lovely history of auto-immune troubles but it all ends with me, which is a very good thing.

I am very tired, I have to go but thank you for the chat, James, I've enjoyed it and I'm sure we will 'speak' soon. Take care. DD

JamesFoote

An you take care too

looking forward to chatting again

James

Slosh

DD. I recently completed my dyslexia training and there have been a lot of developments in the thinking about this recently. Thinking now is that there is no link with left handedness, ability or automatically with spatial awareness. Key features and risk factors are linked to language acquisition, phonological awareness and short term working memory. Researchers such as Maggie Snowling are focussing more and more on links with language skills especially in the early years as an indicator of possible future reading/dyslexic type difficulties along with phonology. I only have to assess with an IQ test as part of the process as the BDA insist on this.