The muscle relaxer is most important. The pain should reside as the spasm goes away. These severe spasms feel like you cannot breath and you do not want to move an inch because you are scared of the pain. Percocet 10/325 usually will not work for this type of pain, even if you double it. Tramadol is like a strong Tylenol and will do very little help, a better med would be something in the NSAID family like ibuprofen. Advil, Motrin, or maybe aleve would work but do not use aleve long term as it is to harsh on the stomach. Gabapentin will not help with spasms either as its more of a neuro med. Personally I stay away from neurontin,lyrica, topomax because they interfere to much with other medications taken by CRPS patients but that's for another time to chat about.



I know how to control these now but if this is your first time then you should get an ambulance rather than having someone drive you to the ER because the bumps in the road and braking from the car ride will make your pain shoot to the moon and you might pass out from it like I did which could freak out your driver. The medics can give you a few injections that will basically put you to sleep but then you can tolerate the ride to ER. I remember the doctor saying these types of spasms can fracture bone so you really need to take these serious if you can barely move or are having a hard time taking a breath. They did 3 morphine injections to me within 5 minutes of arriving plus some added relaxer which I think was lorazepam plus a few others that i cannot remember now. When I woke up 20-30 minutes later I could breath normal again and it felt like the spasm was melting away quickly. Whatever they put into the IV while I was out was enough to knock out 80% of the pain by the time I woke up.

The spasm is 100% treatable unlike our CRPS. I hate going to the ER but if I ever had that happen to me again and did not have the correct meds to help, I would goto the hospital because I know now how fast they can relieve the pain.

After you get it under control, you might want to try zanaflex 4mg tabs for spasms and/or baclofen 5-10mg for tremors/spasms. I find these to work better than soma and some of the others relaxers. I have tried flexeril, skelaxin, norflex, Valium, soma, zanaflex, baclofen(I take baclofen orally for tremors but get the extra benefit for spasms). I remember robaxin and dantrium by IV but its been too long for me to remember how these worked on me.

Ativan or Valium are usually prescribed to CRPS patients due to anxiety issues. This might help too or if you have something similar at the house. Most pain meds will not work unless you just want the edge taken off. Dilauded 4mg should be strong enough to take the edge off but the root of the problem is the spasm so get the spasm relaxed and the pain will go away by itself.

You might get lucky by using heat on and around the area of the spasm. Do you have a moist heating pad or electric blanket?

There is such a variance in spasms that are causing severe pain. The really bad spasms get worse or stay the same over time. If its causing breathing problems or you can't get to the bathroom then you really should goto the ER. Why suffer any longer, I promise you will be thankful that you went.

Hopefully you can understand what I wrote because I'm having a bad pain day which of course effects concentration/ memory.

Mike