Question I am quite OFFENDED by your response to my question. I was very excited to stumble upon this Web site and very honest and sincere in sharing deeply personal info about my health and experience with chronic pain and pain medications. I turned to you for help and you dismissed me out-of-hand because you mistakenly thought you were responding to someone else.
Here's my ORIGINAL question, posted the same day I first found this site (sometime over Labor Day weekend 2009):
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My experience is sort of a mirror image of Tracy's ongoing 7-year chronic pain except I'm in my 11th year of disability. I've not become involved with any advocacy groups as Tracy has. I didn't know such organizations existed and I interact with "the outside world" mainly via the Internet. We currently spend an exorbitant amount simply to ensure that I ALWAYS have Internet access because I attend school online. I recently had surgery that has helped alleviate and/or reverse the effects of other conditions, i.e., diabetes, asthma, sleep apnea. My goal was to get those other diseases under control so that I could focus only on getting rid of chronic pain or improving pain management to a level that allows me to function in the world again, i.e., go back to work.
I'm currently under the care of a pain management doctor that believes in holistic and alternative therapies. He continued me on the Suboxone that I was started on while waiting for my first visit with him and on Lyrica. We've done a few acupuncture sessions as a part of my overall office visit. I don't feel the suboxone is sufficiently managing my pain, but I DO NOT WANT ANYMORE MEDS. The Lyrica began to make me too sleepy so we reduced the dose, but there's no pain management benefit at the lower dose.
I had a massage today, but she did not give me the deep tissue massage I requested. I think I should try aquatic therapy again, but in the past one session would wear me out so much that I wasn't able to attend regularly enough to realize the true benefit of the therapy. I literally needed 3 - 4 days of rest to recover from one 30 min pool session.
I am currently experiencing MANY family situations that are HIGHLY STRESSFUL (death, unemployment, financial crisis, expensive merchant dispute) therefore, my pain has increased 100-fold.
I am at my wits-end and open to suggestions for alternative therapies instead of medication. Medication in conjunction with alternative therapy is a very distant second choice. Medication only is NOT an option.
What do you suggest?
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You most CERTAINLY DID NOT ANSWER "this question for you (me) once before" BECAUSE THIS IS MY FIRST TIME SUBMITTING ANYTHING ON THIS WEBSITE!!!
YOU NEED TO CHECK YOUR FACTS BEFORE BEING SO DISMISSIVE TO SOMEONE WHO OBVIOUSLY TURNED TO YOU FOR HELP!!!
I even went through the trouble of setting up a brand new email address just to use on this site so there's no way you can say that you recognized my email - IT DIDN'T EXIST UNTIL I CREATED TO SUBMIT MY QUESTION TO YOU!
THANKS FOR NOTHING!!!
Answer Dear Jacer,
Having medications being out of the question to manage your pain, the only two alternatives I can recommend are Chiropractic and Acupuncture therapy. You may need to be patience and give the treatments time to have an effect. Often time having the combination of both treatments to manage the pain can enhance the effectiveness.
By the way, sorry about the previous response. I accidentally clicked on the wrong bubble when addressing your concern.
Thank you for your understanding and I hope you are on your way to recovery.
