It's often a hot topic within the chronic pain communities whether you should take painkillers or not and what rights you have as a patient when you see your doctor.
To be honest, whether you take medicine or not for your pain is a totally personal decision and if you decide that taking medicine is the best for you, that is your choice just as much as it is someone's choice to not medicate. Whichever you choose is right for you and don't let anyone tell you that you're doing the wrong thing. It's YOUR body and your pain and your pain experience!
Getting the right pain management can sometimes be a hard nut to crack, doctors in general have poor understanding of chronic pain and the pain specialists are too few and here at least, mostly focusing on cancer patients, so for us who live with an invisible disorder where you can't physically see the pain unless a joint is dislocated or worn out, it can be really difficult to get the right help unless you're doing your homework and being honest with your doctor. It happens for most "invisible pain" fighters at least once that medical professionals question our pain as it can't be seen, and we get looked down upon as if we're faking the pain and just wanting morphine to get high.
As a pain patient, you have the right to adequate pain management so don't give up! Keep fighting with the doctors if you have to!
Many of us are very good at hiding exactly how much pain we're actually in, we can hold a straight face and appear happy and fine even though we're screaming inside from the pain, only very few get to see our facade crumble and those who see are usually those who spends the most time with us, like our closest family. It can take a long time to be taken seriously by doctors, and even longer to have a working pain management as you start on the weak stuff and work your way up to where you have enough relief. Sometimes it's a fight to get something better when your medicine isn't working for you, there's a general fear of morphine in the medical community which is quite understandable as there are people out there who fake pain only to get more and stronger medicines. Doctors are also worried about addiction, but what they don't realize is that a chronic pain patient hardly ever get addicted to morphine if they are on the right kind and for the right reason, and we also don't get the high which addicts are addicted to. The only big issue for a chronic pain patient taking any kind of morphine is that tolerance may build up over time so the doses may need to be increased from time to time.
From my own experience, I can only say what it is like for me who's living with EDS, and what it may be like for EDS in general. We tend to be either very resistant to painkillers, making it very difficult if not impossible to manage our pain well enough, or we may be extremely sensitive or severely allergic so it's difficult or impossible to find something that works for that reason.
I personally belong to the fairly resistant category, I have never been high from any kind of heavy duty narcotic classed painkiller, and I have no relief whatsoever from anything weaker than Oxycodone. I'm only on a low dose though, but again, nothing weaker will do shite for me, and unless a miracle happens and I wake up pain free one morning, I'll be on Oxycodone or another type of morphine for life.
I hate taking medicines, and don't take anything that doesn't help me feel better. The long acting painkillers I take twice daily do help me to get a slightly better quality of life and make breakthrough pain less frequent and slightly easier to treat compared to when I didn't have a working pain management. So despite hating to take medicines, the positive effect I get from it makes it worth biting the lemons of life.
There are many out there who refuses or can't take painkillers, or find other ways that works for them in managing their pain. If you refuse painkillers and can cope anyways, good for you! If you find another way of managing your pain, that's great. I really feel for those who really need medicine, but can't take any due to allergies, or who has no effect whatsoever from even the strongest medicines on the market.
Those who refuse painkillers has their reasons to do so, and their reasons are of varying nature. I don't say they're doing the wrong thing, but I will snap at them if they say I'm doing the wrong thing because I do take painkillers. Everyone has the right to choose which to do, and the only thing that is wrong, is to say another person is wrong in their choice of taking medicine or not.
There are many alternative ways to treat pain. It can be a TENS machine that sends electrical impulses, acupuncture, massage, relaxation exercises, physiotherapy, yoga, bracing, hot showers or baths, hydrotherapy, just to mention some. So if you don't want to, or can't take painkillers, there are many things to try. I've tried a fair bit of alternative ways but none of it works for me other than bracing but the bracing doesn't substitute my medicine, it just makes me need less rapid acting. But that doesn't mean alternative treatments won't work for you!
Whichever way you treat your pain, I hope it's working for you or that you find a way to get more comfortable!
Zebra hugs <3 p="">
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