I have been having nerve pain in my legs for months now and Im starting to lose my mind with it. Neuro knows this as I told him about it in my last appt in Oct. He says Im already on amitriptyline for break thru pain, and any nerve pain med he would write for me I cant afford it anyway. For the first 20yrs of the stupid disease I didnt suffer pretty much at all. This past year Im totally making up for it with masive amounts of pain and weakness. I cant go one day without pain I use to believe in that saying "I have MS but MS doesnt have me", well my MS finally showed me just exactly how much it DOES have me and just how powerful it can be. DH will come into the room and see me hysterical and rush to my side to see whats wrong. I always snap at him "ITS THIS **** MS!" Between the nerve pain, the spasms, the jerking muslces, the drop foot, the swallowing probs, etc, Im going crazy, I truely think I am.

I've never taken meds to help with pain but I've taken niacinamide(nonflushing niacin - B3). This worked for me but I think my nerve pain is not as strong as others. A friend with Raynaud's said that it helped her hands. This was not a quick fix though. It was 3 days before I saw any relief.
Do a google search to check for med interactions, there are some. I hope this info helps, I know pain can be more debilitating than weakness.

KittyLady,

I am so sorry that you are suffering.

If I understand correctly, your MD is offering amitriptyline to help w the break through pain. Is that right?

Amyitriptyline and similar drugs are antidepressants but when used in smaller doses w a pain med they potentiate (make stronger) the pain med.

I took Tegretol for TN for years and felt it every day until a wise MS Fellow added Noretriptyline in a low dose. I love that guy! I rarely have pain now.

I hope that you can try one of these old, cheap drugs.

ANN

I'm sorry you're having so much pain and trouble.

Awwww KL, so sorry you are feeling so bad right now. I wish I could wave a magic wand and make you better.

Let us know how the Amyitriptyline works for you. I hope it helps you. Poor DH..I hope he understands, it's only the pain.

Feel better soon dear.

I'm sorry, I hope they can give you something for the pain. There must be some rx that would work either generic or get it at a reduced price.

We are all so different with meds! My neuro prescribed Vicodin - but apparently I'm one of those people opnids (opium) doesn't effect. Noretypoline did nothing. OTC Advil (ibuprofen) is good for me and some behavior/small muscle changes withit.
Sometimes it's a lot of tweaking to find the right thing that kinda works. Hope you find it soon.

I have been on Nortriptyline in the past and it did nothing so neuro put me on amitriptyline and Ive been on that and baclofen for almost 2yrs now. He just recently added zanaflex (tizanadine) to my list of meds in Oct. He said I cant afford (monetarily) any meds specifically for nerve pain so he wont give me anything. Im just really at my wits end with all this pain. For years I had listened to all these MS pts saying how much pain they were in from the MS and I couldnt understand it because I didnt have any pain, well, now Im feeling the pain and completely understand how lucky I was for all those years.

i'm so sorry you're having to deal with so much pain.
can you contact the companies of lyrica or neurontin to see if they would help you finance the med?

i know lyrica is the more expensive drug.
i take it and it's helped.

i hope your dr will be open to trying different meds within your budget to try and help you. different drugs work for different people.

I am so sorry about your pain.... I am in the same boat as you and I am about be out of my meds and I just moved to another state and don't have new pain management yet. I am having pain just thinking about the pain I will be in not to mention the withdrawal