my neuro-surgeon put me on vicoden on Jan 6th for T7 HNP. He gave me 50 pills with instructions to take 1-2 pills every 8 hours. i have to see a physisit(sp?)on Jan 28th and a pain management doctor for possible injections on Feb 4th. He said i may be a candidate for surgery but he wants to cover all his bases first. i guess that's a good sign. he's not a surgeon with an itchy knife!!

I had to sign a pain form before he gave me the rx. i have a couple of questions. First, the medication isn't helping. i have been taking 1 to 1 1/2 pills every 4 hours with not much relief. He had asked me what i had been taking for the pain and i told him my pcp gave me darvocette and flexirl. he knows i had a total adb. hyst in august and a breast biop on dec 23rd. i was given morphine in the hospital for the hyst and percocet when i went home. i didn't mention this to him because i thought he was just talking about what medication i had taken for my back problem. now i am wondering if i should have told him about the other medication i took back in the fall as well as the percocet for the breast surgery. i hope i didn't mess things up. i just thought he was talking about my back problem. i'm sure he must know with the other surgeries i had been given stronger medication-i hope. did i mess up or am i just being paranoid? i don't want to break that pain paper i had to sign.

as for refills, you can only call at certain times and not on Fridays, weekends, nights or holidays. it also says you shouldn't wait until you are out of pills for your refill. with so many people being labled drug seekers, i am afraid of what to do. my back is in severe pain and the meds aren't helping. i just want some relief. i don't know when to call for a refill or if i should ask for something else because this just isn't working.

it seems as though many of you are on such stronger medication. am i on the right medication?

the surgery sounds scary. he says he would have to remove a rib and my lung could collapse during surgery.
he said when i have the injections, he will have a better idea of what is going on. he said if the injection doesn't relieve the pain the same day, then there is more going on with the herniation that isn't shown on the MRI. I have done PT and that doesn't help. i think it makes it worse. i will do it again though if the physisist(sp) suggests it.

in the meantime, i am running out of my vicoden. i should only be taking 6 pills a day-every 8 hours. i will be honest and say i have taken a few more on a couple of days that the pain was just too much to handle. at one point, i almost went to the ER but decided against it.

i know i am rambling, i am sorry. i am just so tired of all these medical problems and just want to have some relief.

any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

thanks for listening
kathy

Hi there,
First of all, I am sorry you are in so much pain. I myself am too-but am on the road to finding out what is actually causing the pain. I would be completely honest with the dr. If it is not working, he needs to give you something stronger. There should be no shame or nervousness about asking either since you truly are in pain. The dr knows that also. You are being just a tad paranoid as far as listing past meds etc. My 2 cents to you would be to just be honest and tell the doc that the medicine is not working. Tell him that you are concerned about taking too much Acetemetiphen (sp?) If the dose of Lortab he gave you is not strong enough, all your going to do is take more to aleve the pain but over do it on the acetemetiphen part which is not good for you. There are higher doses of Lortab he can give you. I am on 7.5 but I do know it goes all the way up to 10 mg. maybe even further not sure. I understand how you feel I feel the same way sometimes and you start to doubt yourself. But the pain is real and that is what you need to keep in mind. What helped me was keeping a pain log. Scale of 1-10 times of day compared to time you took the meds. etc. The more you get into it, the more the doc will know you are not a drug seeker and you just want the pain to go away. Now I rambled on so I will go now. I hope this eases your concerns a little. Just be strong and confident and know that you in your heart are not a drug seeker. Best of luck to you. :wave:

I know you're hurting and are feeling paranoid already, but you have to know this...if you are taking your meds every 4 hours instead of every 8 hours as the doctor prescribed, you have already broken your pain management contract! The best thing to do is NOT to call in for a refill until your current meds are SUPPOSED to be gone. Also, if you call in now and tell him the Vicodin are not working, before he changes the prescription he will require you to bring in the rest of what you have. If it is short, he can, and likely will, terminate your treatment. While it may not be "fair", unfortunately those few bad seeds have made things difficult for legitimate pain patients. I know how this works because I have been a patient myself for three years and suffered without relief for over 12. I hope you find relief for your condition, soon. I hope you don't have to have surgery and I hope you don't have to be on stronger meds. Wouldn't it be nice if they could just fix our problems????
Take care.

Been there myself. Call him and tell him the Vic's are not working and the pain is so bad that you have increased you dose slightly a couple of time to see if it helped and it didn't. Be honest, my contract says to contact them if I increase my meds, mine has worked with me but many will not.

I would also suggest going to a Pain Specialist for you pain meds, NOT an Nuro or Ortho. It's perfectly OK as long as you let them know and DO NOT get multiple scripts. My experence with these specialist trying to control pain was not good at all. Also, I don't know about your state but Texas and 13 other states use the dreaded "triple scrips" for anything stronger that the Vicodin you are in. Triple scripts cannot be called in or refilled, you must get a new written script (in triplicate)every time.

There are also 3 different strengths of Vicodin; regular has 5mg of hydrocodone, ES has 7.5mg, and HP has 10mg of hydro. The amount of tylenol is also increased along with the hydro. Hight doses and extended use of tylenol can be harmful to your liver.

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Multiple Cervical Injuries
Degenerative Disk Disease
C6-C7 Fusion (failed)
C6-C7 Reconstructive Surgery (Titanium & Pelvic Bone - Failed)
Unable to recover from "traction" injury

I'm going to a pain clinic. My visit today consisted of getting *****ed at because I ran out of pain meds a week before I was suppose to cause I overmedicated trying to find some relief. Told DR that these pills weren't working thats why they were gone so soon. Her attitude was like so, big deal. She tells me thats all she going to give me and I'll have to find other ways of dealing with it. Try ice(NOT makes pain worse). Try heat. OK pill when it decides to work lasts about 1 hour. Can only take pills every 6 hours. Somehow the math just doesn't add up. I wonder if theres a heating pad that you can wear all day. Or gee I can try to wear my TENS unit all day. Nah battery wears out to soon. Just once I'd like the DRs to be in our shoes. Oh we feel your pain. Bull_____!!!! OK I'll shut up now.

My apologies to the moderator who had to censor my B word.

[This message has been edited by Irish Cream (edited 01-21-2003).]