A Long End to the Week

Wednesday was a bad day. I woke up at an 8, and it didn't let up. I tried to go to work, but they realized how sick I was and sent me home. I got my night shift covered and went to Summit.

After the usual questions and peeing in a cup, I got a shot of dilaudid and finigren (or however you spell it - generic name is promethazine) in my ass. I WAS HIGH AS A KITE! I was higher than a kite. I was high as a kite being flown by another kite. Then the nurse came back and asked my pain level, which had shot up to a 9 by the time they got around to giving me meds. "8" "Wow, you have a high pain threshold."

Actually, according to Michael, my pain threshold is "superhuman." After 2-3 hours the dilaudid kicked in fully and I was down to a 5, which is huge for me - nothing brings me down 4 pain levels. So we have a miracle drug!

They gave me some 2 mg pills of it, too, and they help a lot. I think if I took them on a normal day I could be completely pain free. However, I like to know and understand what I'm putting into my body, and this stuff works great, but it is incredibly potent and not something I want to take on a day I don't feel like I'm dying.

So, today, I didn't take one. I did my usual muscle relaxer with half a lortab and made it through work fine. The pain started to flare up again tonight. I took half a pill.

All of this has got me thinking about my pain and what it's come to. I get bad flare-ups about once every two months (so bad I end up in the hospital). I have 2-4 really bad days per month. During the bad times, they've given me percocet, lortab, pure oxycontin, morphine, and toradol - none of which got me below a 5, and I'm talking 2 full syringes of morphine on top of 20 mg pure oxycontin. Hell, before the toradol they gave me five 5 mg pills of oxycontin. WHAT THE HELL?! Strong stuff, and it did nothing.

So what does it take for me to call something a "miracle pill" - my new name for dilaudid. It doesn't make me pain free on the really bad days, but it does get me functional - down to a 5, which is great considering the best I get is a 4. And what is dilaudid? I looked it up. It's stronger than morphine (8-10 times) and stronger than heroin (3-5 times). STRONGER THAN HEROIN?! This really makes me laugh about that war on drugs thing. But it helps, and it's been used to treat chronic pain, along with morphine and fentanyl, which comes in a transdermal patch I'm just itching to ask my doctor about. Fentanyl is by far the strongest thing I was ever on (during my colonoscopy), and I didn't need a pain pill for 12 hours after that. This was when I was taking them every 2 hours and was completely bedridden.

So, in conclusion, I'm hoping to discuss transdermal patches and liquid pain killers at my appointment Tuesday. I know for most medicines in general, liquid forms are more effective for me than pills. My theory is I'd be able to take less of the medicine and that's better in the long run.