Like too many here I know way more about pain management then I want to. The world be damned, you do what whatever gets you through the day. One of the less desirable things of living 62 years with CF has been 62 years of exquisite pain. Pain Management specialists from acupucturists to neurologists have done their best. Both extremes and every camp between has given me something of value. TENS units lay like a museum's overflow exhibits stores in my junk pile. I have an auricular TENS that clips a wire on my earlobe and the other end has a sping probe for seating on acupuncture points in the ear. I didn't dream this one up but I designed a commercial A. TENS unit for the doctor's future endeavors.
Meditative Yoga and a biofeedback unit can separate pain from suffering. It can do a lot more if you really put your mind to it, so to speak. Last year my abdomen went off kilter and NO amount of narcotics could make it bearable. I was quite literally being driven mad with pain and losing my mind was equally untenable. I dissociated from my body until it passed. This is neither easy to do nor practical much beyond a bedroom. Autonomic processes continued while I went to more pleasant places in my mind.
Going to pot has its merrits and detractions which sounds familiar. I had gotten a MMR (Medical Marijuana Registry) card some years ago when Colorado Law settled on MM just in case it was later redacted, I would likely be grandfathered in. Smoking anything is out and correctly informed that cannabis can cause constipation I have been reluctant to start with pot. I inhaled what Clinton probably did fake, and all things considered, not only would I make it legal but make it also manditory for 18yr olds and up. IT DOES NOT RESOLVE PAIN. It isn't anything like a narcotic analgesic but sure feels better. I did muddle through some on line studies and consulted all 6 of my doctors before trying MM. I am always the scientist and though there is absolutely nothing cannabis, I don't know. It probably kept me managed in my twenties and just didn't notice. I use a good vaporizer, designed for volatilizing canabanoids. My lungs are fairly healthy and though I might commit suicide from self loathing, I probably could smoke tobacco and not just keel over. I believe it helps my lungs from a standpoint that for whatever reasons, my lungs aren't tortured by each breath. This is not to be taken as reliable information, it is my experience and therfore a singular anecdote. It seems to have intangible qualities when it comes to my lungs. Ten years ago I was hospitalized about every three months for pneumonia/meningitis. Four hospitalizations a year for just the lesser ravages of CF that is killing me. I have had no pneumonia since I started vaporizing MM. FYI anything non medical is best grown indoors and in sight.
A lot has been done with the Micky Mouse brain stunners. The term describes an odd looking device that can focus an electromagnetic field into certain areas of the brain and stimulate them. It can work like magic, no drugs, no pain. It needs to be met part way by a necessary attitude believing it will work. It sounds like hokum but the doctor who first offered it up is one of the world's top CF/GI doctors.
Don't mess with narcotics and don't let your doctor tell you how to manage a pain he can't begin to comprhend. If you are looking at pain that should resolve as he heals, a potential monkey on the back is worth watching out for. In my twenties I took no pain meds. By thirty I was a month on and a month off. By forty I was wearing a fentanyl patch. This was a point of no return. My pain management is palliative.
Pancreatic autodigestion is a medical metric for pain like kidney stone pain or labor and birth. They don't often speak about how bad pancreatic pain can be as it begins to cross the bounaries of human limits to tolerate it. The worst pain on earth is the worst one has felt. Apples and oranges do not begin to cross the chasm of tolerable and unbearabe pain. If his pain isn't going to lessen and/or likely getting worse get to a pain management specialist. Narcotic addiction is not likely after a couple months of Vicodin, but everybody is different. I am on massive amounts of fentanyl, one of the most powerful narcotics with FDA license. Narcotics are not just stronger or weaker, because 10mg of morphine, a fentanyl equivelent is closer to a thousandth of that 10mg as dosages are in mcg (micrograms) and my body deals with a fraction comared to all other available narcotics. The half lfe of a drug has to do with how long the narcotic works. Chemically it is the rate a drug is metabolized or broken down. Fentanly has a short half life on the order of minutes to a couple hours. Hydrocodone, morphine and such could be a day. Small amounts of narcotic is generally helthier over large amounts of a less powerful drug. A lesser narcotic could easily be more damage to the kidneys and liver.
The doctor's concern he might be abusing Vicodin could be true or not. One thing for sure narcotic management is frequently a mess for everybody. I am successful because I can and have been on the same protocol with no increase in the regiment or drug quantity since I was stablized on it over ten years ago. My sister went pillar to post, doctor to doctor until a doctor reported her the DEA. Then she had both real pain and no access to CII drugs.
Multple approaches is a kind of moderation by not over depending on any one therapy. It is amazing what a little pampering can do for pain and for the mind. A body massage is refreshing and calming. Formal foot massage or Reflexology, a massage depolarizing blunted nerves in the foot's acupuncture points is not to be casually dismissed. Dr. Scott Hompland, a noted pain specialist, determined that sometimes pain is caught in nerve memory. And it a kind of neural congestion, complete with the inflamation. He would numb and squeeze the crap out of a nerve, from its source to where he could no longer get to it. Another odd sounding but successful therapy.
There are fifty things at least I could rattle on about alternative therapies. I meditate, pamper, and tried or use every single thing I posted on. FYI his doctor pretty much anticipates and therefore holds a bias skewed toward protecting himself from what quickly can degenerate into a medical nightmare of epic difficulties when doctor and CF family get to deal with addiction. Chemically I am fated to a degree. But with expertise, tapering of dilauded (morphine sulfate pills) is not hard.
LL
