Lidocaine Patches?

JeanneO

I wish I had an answer for you, my doc wouldn't give me prescription for them when I asked for one, said that he didn't think it would help my kind of pain which is mostly muscle pain and tightness. I thought that it would at least be worth a try, it seems so harmless.

The things that I've read about them indicate that you would have immediate results if they did work for you. Hopefully someone with 1st hand experience will come along soon.

Good luck!!!

JeanneO

BrittleBones

Hi SlipperySlope - My doctor prescribes them for me and I do find them to be very helpful for certain kinds of pain. I have a kind of pain in parts of my body that is hard to categorize - but it's best described as a horrible, almost burning kind of pain when I touch or even brush up against my skin covering areas that have been operated on. For example, the skin over and around my surgical sites of my hip replacements, back surgical scars, upper thighs. It's not an immediate relief, but it does help and clearly I can tell a difference when the patch wears off. KathyMac

Kissa

I've been using them for a while now. As mentioned the condition that it helps can vary. I've found them useful for a vast majority of problems, especially nerve and muscle pain but not as useful for actual bone pain.

Generally speaking they do work immediately or a few hours after placing and not something you actually titrate up to. If you haven't experienced any relief by now chances are that they may not prove benificial for you.

Additionally the number of patches may make the difference. If you have a large area that needs relief one patch may not be sufficient, most doctors will prescribe up to 3 patches for an area to be work up to 12 hours. You should definately not wear them for than 22 hours because of how the medication is stored in your liver I believe it is. So be sure you do have a period of time every 24 hours in which you have absolutely no patch on.

Good luck
Barbie

dub1

slippery,
I was given lidocaine for my back pain, which is nerve and disc pain. The patches did make a difference for me. They do dull the pain quite a bit but i was having these terrible headaches from them. I would start getting a headache about 4-5 hours after applying it and the headache would last till the next day. I will still use them on occasion when i have flair ups that the meds just won't control. Good luck to you and from what my doc said you shouldn't wear 1 patch for more than 12 hours. I recommend 12 hours on and 12 hours off.

slipperyslope

Thanks guys. I have now been putting them on my low back area where I have a lot of pain that is also nerve pain and they seem to be helping. I am really actually excited about this as I have constant burning nerve, sciatic low back pain as well as neck pain.

I am on Lyrica, and Oxycontin and now with these patches I seem to be getting some relief especially during the day when I sit for work all day. They were prescribed for my neck pain and they don't help there at all but seem to be doing something for my sciatic pain.. thanks again for your input.

stanleyguy

Do not direct members to use or take medication in ways it was not meant to be applied. Read the Posting Rules and the Sticky note at the top of the board

feelbad

As you can see here they really do work for some types of pain.i too have used these for three years now for many different types of pain.i ,like kathy have the hypersensitive areas of really nasty pain,but mine is due to a syndrome called central pain.i also have RSD which is somewhat similar but a totally different type of trigger,but just having those hyper areas covered up with these even helps as even a slight breeze blowing over the affected areas will shoot the pain up thru the flippin roof.

i have also been using these for my sciatic pain in my low back,hip thru my L butt cheek.my left kidney is actually resting on the sciatric right now,so this is sending out at times,some really incredible heights of pain.also when my wadded up muscles in my upper back get way out of the tolerable range,i have used these right over the affected muscles and they do seem to at least take the edge off til i can get to my PM for the usual trigger point injections(are you reading this Kathy??lol)

tho there are many people out there who swear they work for their individual types of pain,there are probably just as many who say they don't work worth a crap.its all individual like every other med we use.but if they actually work for you,great! i will continue to use these as long as they keep doin the job for me.geez we need all the help we can get ya know?marcia

__________________
3-22-01,herniated C-6-7
11-20-01,placement of hardware for failed fusion
9-22-03,removal of cavernous hemangioma that was inside spinal cord. Neuro damage to L hand L leg and R leg.

scotty12

Ive tried them and i really cant say they help.
also my pain is from my L5-S1 area so they dont stick very well at that spot.
everytime i get up or sit down they wrinkle and start to come off.

feelbad

hey scotty,just wanted to mention a couple of things i have figured out with these to help them stay put?one thing i do first,always,is to round out the corners of them so they are no longer "pointy"?just taking that corner off helps keep that little tip from starting that whole rolling off process.

when i had some tegaderm left over from something else,i also have used these "over" the top of the lido,it helps alot since the tegaderm is very very light and kind of meshes well to the skin.even paper tape works pretty well too.ya just gotta be a bit inventive sometimes with these things in order to keep them where they are supposed to be.but there ARE ways...marcia

__________________
3-22-01,herniated C-6-7
11-20-01,placement of hardware for failed fusion
9-22-03,removal of cavernous hemangioma that was inside spinal cord. Neuro damage to L hand L leg and R leg.

Kissa

I use medical tape on the corners to help them stick but I've actually had a few that were really difficult to get off for some reason. The only thing I can think of is that my doctor actually prescribes them to be used differently.

I asked my doctor why they don't stick that great and he explained it is because they are a gel adhesive and not an adhesive like you see on other pain pathces or nicotine patches.

scotty12

thank you marcia

im going to give it a try.
i may as well because i still have almost a full box

scott

theweaver2

I tried them and actually have some left. They are very expensive. They didn't help me very much at all as my pain is deep burning pain. I did notice they numbed the surface of my skin after wearing for several hours, which might help for some kinds of pain. In my case, it did not make noticeable difference.

Sorry they didnt help you either.