Butrans can be very effective, I know someone on the forum who has had good results with it and she is a very severe case. It must be frustrating when you are not able to tolerate a medication that could help.

Sorry but anyone who is expecting 100% pain remission, it isn't going to happen. A dose that would give that would also knock you out, maybe permanently. I hate the pain scale since pain is obviously so subjective, but the goal is usually a 3 or 4, low enough so that you can concentrate on distractions like crafts or reading or work ( I know work can be a necessity not a distraction!) and hopefully get your mind off the pain for most of each day.

A vastly improved quality of life is a realistic expectation. When I have a bad flare despite the meds I imagine that is what I would feel like on a normal day without pain medication and it is pretty scary. Same on the very few occasions when I forget to take them.

Our PCP handles pain management for me, he promised to take care of me when the neurologists dumped me after finding severe SFN (no small nerve fibers in feet and legs) and LFN (atrophying muscles in feet, legs, and hands) due to hereditary neuropathy, progressive and incurable. He explained that I would be on something for the rest of my life, and probably have to change as time goes by since I was 48, but we started with MS Contin ( time release morphine) as it is relatively inexpensive. It has worked very well, I am on 30 mg. x 3, along with 10 mg oxycodone for breakthrough pain, 600 x 3 gabapentin, and 10 mg x 3 baclofen for muscle spasms. I also have 5 mg Valium to break severe muscle spasms, usually attacks of pudendal neuropathy which are horrible. I have been on the same dose of morphine for 2 years without escalation.

12 hour time release medications are rarely that, I was having pain in the afternoons and waking up with it at night when we tried getting by with 2 MS Contin per day. 8 hours is more like it. Some types of insurance will not cover 3 per day, as the drug descriptions imply 12 hours of relief.

It is a lot of medicine but I still am able to read complex literature, play strategy games, drive a very little ( the complete lack of feeling and increasing weakness in my legs is the limiting factor rather than the medicine), cook, and homeschool my youngest.

I am very happy for you, madisongirl, that you are going to get some help with this. I hope that you do not have to wait six months for it! That seems very cruel.