He tried amitriptylene about 9 years ago when he was suicidal from the neuropathy pain. I'll never forget what happened. The pain was gone. He was delighted. He said "oh my god, I finally found something". Then the itching began. He said "oh my god, this is worse than the pain", and Nothing is worse than that pain right?

So he never took amitriptylene again. He then went on the fentanyl patch but you can go just so high and then he had to be tritrated down, he went into detox, they threw him out of detox telling him he had no drugs in his sysem, he then told them. "Are you serious, I walked in here wearing a 25 Fentanyl patch", and they said "well, it didn't show up on your screening tests". Then he was told that there is a separate test to detect Fentanyl in the body. The lady who admitted him into detox (at the hospital), well when he told her "I'm wearing a fentanyl pain patch", she said "What is Fentanyl"

So after being in detox at the hospital overnight, they discharged him, and he spent the next 5 days in bed detoxing off of the 25 of the Fentanyl. He said "I'm never going through that again as long as I live"

So here we are many years later and this man has tried Elavil, Neurontin, Lyrica, Fentanyl, vicodin, Ultram, WHATEVER??? and everything has some side effect that he can't stomach. He has also tried Tens unit too!!! And he used to cut up the lidoderm patches and wrap little ones around each toe. Helped for a while but not for long. He no longer does this.

I asked him last night "Are you going to try this pill?" and he said "Not on your life"

So he'll continue to put on the Lidocain ointment on his toes and use the Bio-freeze on the feet and anything else that is not a pill.

Here's hoping that SOME DAY, someone invents an anti-burning med for people with severe neuropathic pain. He says it gets worse when the barometer changes. Hey, when the barometer changes I can't walk, my arthritis is so bad. But give me 97 degree weather and I can dance.

And I remembered to ask him "what about your results from the last MRI of your back, what did the neurologist say? "he said "I was hoping you wouldn't ask" I looked at him and said "what did she say?" and he said "Well, she said "Oh, your MRI is around here someplace, I haven't looked at it yet" I just looked at him. I should have gone with him. This also happened 3 months ago at his previous appointment.

Now I just found out that there is a big SPINE center 5 minutes from our house. I'm going to go look it up and phone them and see if they take our insurance.

Can't hurt.

Melody