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Old 03-14-2014, 12:56 AM
Neurochic Neurochic is offline
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Join Date: Sep 2011
Posts: 246
10 yr Member
Neurochic Neurochic is offline
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Join Date: Sep 2011
Posts: 246
10 yr Member
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Gerry
I was more coming from the perspective that the "relatively" low dose of fentanyl could be a cause of Hana's less effective pain relief so she might want to look at a higher dose and potentiating with acetaminophen before she decides it doesn't work sufficiently well for her.

I wasn't trying to say that her dose was "small" and therefore less constipating. The reality is that any dose of any opioid will often be very constipating. The effect is compounded and made worse by the fact many of the other drugs in a CRPS patient's cocktail will also have constipation as a side effect. Its a matter of managing the constipation effectively with a suitably powerful regime in the long term rather than stopping and starting and living with the false hope that it will go away or improve.

Painman
The key to living with the pain of CRPS is to rapidly abandon the hope or idea that you will be able to find some drug or mixture of drugs that will allow you to be pain free and"on your way". It doesn't work like that. The very best you should expect is that your pain levels will be reduced to some extent. You then have to decide if the reduced pain levels you achieve are sufficient to warrant the side effect profile you get from that particular mix of medication.

Accepting the pretty unpleasant reality that you are only going to be able to try to manage your pain levels rather than 'getting rid of your pain' is fundamental to living with chronic pain. It doesn't mean you are giving up or not trying - it is possibly the single most important (and difficult) step in the process of learning to live with CRPS.
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"Thanks for this!" says:
ger715 (03-14-2014), Hana (03-14-2014)