Quote:
Originally Posted by frogga
Hey Lisa
firstly oral ketamine - this is the best thing I have ever tried to help manage my pain - i get almost no side effects (apart from visual - but that could be RSD anyway). Before going onto the ketamine I had been on MST (380mg?)/ methadone/ fentanyl (250mg + MST and not controlled)/ oramorph/ various DF118s/ diazipam/ gabapentin/ lyrica/ capascin/ clonidine/ permidronate/baclofen/ carba/amytrip/ nortrip - there is nothing me and my drs havent tried!!gosh knows what else so with me it was last chance saloon really.
I find that to strat with the ketamine only works for a while or so and made me very groggy and tired for the first week- BUT for me I've found that when the ketamine is working I can actually concentrate on getting tasks done - instead of before when I was in too much pain to do anything all the time I found that I was able to more or less do stuff for an hour or 2 (admittedly, ws diificult as I can't use/ move my arms/ legs etc but I was able to concentrate on work etc). I have now been on oral ketamine more than a year and I find that it is working longer as the amount builds up in my body. Also we have only had to increase the dose like 3 times - wheras with my MST we were increasing it pretty much weekly to try and get the pain "under control".
However, I have learnt one thing. in the end no matter how many meds I take my pain is always going to be out of control - meds will only take abit away - and even at my best I haven't had a pain level lower than 10 since I got this... so I try to pace myself etc as well as using meds to balance the pain out...
oh - and ketamine is very useful for things like getting dressed - i get my morning dose before I am got up / dressed in the morning because then it doesn't hurt as much... also before physio/ spints time and going to bed.
eugh - so the conclusion is - for me, ketamine has really helped me - I can stand more stuff being done to me and it does help for gettingi nto the first hour of sleep at night. I have few side effects with it. However, not everyone finds it as good. But if you have an option to try it then give it a go. any more qs?
LOL. you can tell I had a lecture this morning!
hope you're feeling better
Rosie xxxx
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I've been diagnosed with "causalgia" before anyone knew what RSD was or is, back in 1988, being told then at the U. of Iowa Hospitals, "I was rewriting the medical text books." It took me nearly 10 years of uncontrollable, constant burning pain, before I could find a Dr. willing to prescribe opiods for my pain. Am now taking morphine er, 200 mg's twice a day, hydromorphone, 8 mg's up to 4x's a day as need for breakthrough pain & klonopin, 1 mg, 4x's a day. I've reached a point where the meds just don't cut it anymore. I've tried every non-narcotic med in the book, anti-depressants, none of them help, so I quit taking them. My Dr. is reluctant to up my pain meds, although I was once taking 600 mg's of morphine er daily. I'd love to try ketamine, but know of no Dr. here in Iowa who'd be willing to prescribe it. Any suggestions ??
In pain in Iowa,
Tony