Several things are a big help for breakthrough pain.

1. Believe it or not, two Alka Seltzers give the pain relief of a good dose of morphine, without the constipation or dopiness. Alka Seltzer is aspirin, citric acid, and heat-treated baking soda. The soda/citric acid mixture dissolves the aspirin, and the treated baking soda causes the dissolved aspirin to enter the blood stream almost as quickly as if injected. The pain relief occurs within minutes and lasts for hours. As a bonus, this way of getting aspirin doesn't cause stomach irritation or bleeding, is good for your heart, and reduces the risk of several types of cancer. The side effect that stops me from using it more often is tinnitus. I always have a good supply on hand, and use it probably once or twice a week.

Follow instructions on the label. It won't stop nerve pain (not that anything short of massive opiate doses does), but it takes the edge off and allows sleep.

2. Lidocaine skin patches deaden an area effectively for about 4 hours. The lidocaine gets deeper than you'd think. I used it for extremely painful muscle cramping in my shoulder caused by a ruptured cervical disk, and it killed the pain even beneath my shoulder blade.

There are lidocaine salves which work similarly. These are by prescription only and not for daily long term use.

3. Pulsed micro-electric stimulation of the area interferes with pain transmission and reduces pain for a time. After twice daily use for a few weeks, it will reduce pain for 24 hrs after each use. After daily use for months, it will reduce pain for several days. Unlike items #1 and 2 above, pulsed micro-electric stimulation promotes nerve and muscle healing and retrains your nervous system to restore normal reaction to nerve ending stimuli.

The latest and greatest is "interferential electrical stimulation". My physical therapist uses it, and it's very effective. I've also had great relief with the similar, but overpriced "ReBuilder". Use the search function of this forum to find out where to buy and how to these units.

4. Opiates don't kill nerve pain except in very high doses. I used big doses of oxycontin for the disk injury. They stopped the shoulder pain which allowed four hours of sleep (the lidocaine patch gave another 4 hours), but had NO effect on my PN pain. A bigger dose of oxycontin or stronger opiate kills all pain.

Opiates are relatively safe, don't cause dopiness if the dose is appropriate for the pain and have minimal serious side effects. The opiate side effect of extreme constipation make them for occasional use only for me. Still, they're handy to have on hand for emergency use.

5. Cold is worth a try. For neuropathic feet, put your feet in an Epsom salt solution of cool water. Add ice cubes to make the water gradually very cold. Since cold shuts down nerves, you should feel no discomfort if the cooling is slow enough.

Keep your feet in the cold water for about 20 minutes. Then, let the feet warm up naturally, i.e. do not apply artificial heat. If this helps you, it should give relief for several hours, and is good for the health of your nerves in the area since fresh blood floods the area when the cold is removed. You can do this as often as you like, up to hourly.

Epsom salts are magnesium sulfate. The magnesium absorbed through the skin helps calm nerves in the area and reduce pain.

6. Supplement with a high quality calcium/magnesium formulation, about 1000 mg. of elemental calcium a day, 500 mg. of magnesium. Magnesium calms the nerves and relaxes the muscles. Good formulas are mixtures of mainly organic, chelated, or acetic salts. You need supplemental vitamin D, about 1000 units, to utilize the calcium and magnesium. Use the search function of this forum for a lot more about magnesium.

7. Marijuana reduces nerve pain dramatically for about 8 hours. Blood levels build over three days of use, so reduce intake on days 2, 3, and thereafter. The side effects are dopiness, inability to safely operate machinery, weight gain from the "munchies", and the risk of zealots putting you in a cage with criminals for long periods of time.

Oh, and forgetting what you were talking about.

Seriously, a cousin of mine got throat cancer from years of daily use (he didn't smoke cigarettes). In spite of what advocates claim, pot is addictive. I had a tough time stopping myself about 35 years ago and have seen addiction in others. Like a sober alcoholic, I don't dare go near it, but it is relatively safe if used judiciously and if you avoid law enforcement.

Your kids can get it for you.

8. Meditation is practice in directing the attention away from where you don't want it to go. After six months of daily guided meditation practice, mediators have a much increased ability to deal with severe pain, as opposed to the severe pain dealing with them.

Meditation, healthy diet, supplements, and exercise (including yoga and tai chi) are more of a long term fix, but all help, and all work together to make each other more powerful and get the breakthrough pain reduced to tolerable levels.

Which cancers are you saying this might help reduce?? And i love
the beauty of Tai Chi but unless i can sit down may end up with
more problems. Sue

It's the aspirin that helps reduce the incidence and severity of some types of esophageal, stomach, breast, lung, prostate, urinary bladder, and ovarian cancers.

http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/a...cer-prevention

As far as Tai Chi, it's great, but some can't do it. We each have to find what is appropriate for us.

Rule #1 of exercise is to not injure yourself. You have to exercise judgment (sorry about that). Sometimes what is hardest to do is just what we need. When I started yoga, many poses had to be near or against a wall because my foot pain was excruciating, balance was gone, as was the ability to control the large muscles of my legs. After years of yoga, I can balance on one leg easily, walk a curb, and can control all the muscles of my legs, thanks to the training of yoga. I had a great teacher, Kathy Goodman, who wouldn't accept "I can't do it" from me. Her answer was, "You can". Then she'd find a prop or modification of the pose to help me along. She never gave up on me (and neither did I). BTW, my feet still hurt, but not nearly as bad, not 20/7, and the numbness is less.

Make no mistake about it. Without being over dramatic, none of this is easy. We're in the struggle of our lives with no guarantees, and it's for the long haul.

But the struggle itself is well worth it. Sometimes the past 14 or so years I've felt like child learning basic things and had the total joy of getting a function back, or being able to do something that I couldn't do a few years previous. That's why I'm somewhat of a zealot about this approach, hoping others here can go from the depths of despair to a good life worth living.

Hey, if my Alan can go from being a 300 lb man with Idiopathic PN, using Fentanyl patches, and vicodin.....to a 200 lb bodybuilder (as long as his foot ulcer doesn't act up), who is on no pain medication whatsoever, well I think anything is possible.

And I, myself take B-12 methyl.

But hey, if I needed a joint, I'd go to the park a few blocks from my house. Or I'd stand on the corner at 3 a.m. and just see who walks by. You can smell the stuff. It's all over the place in NYC. But I know it gives you the munchies, that's why, after my first experience with pot at age 24, there wasn't any more experiences. I could not afford the weight gain.

lol

Melody

When my pain reaches a point that I need to do something, there turn out to be a LOT of things I can do, short of taking a narcotic.

1. stimulate the area that hurts with a different sensation. ANY sensation. Cold, heat, hot wax (heated safely by a spa machine),

2. Lidocaine patches. If the pain is localized, these really do help. I've had times when the pain has gone away and that was the only thing I changed.

3. TENS. I love this. It's easy to use and lightweight.

4. movement---feldenkrais movement is about lying on the floor and making the most gentle of movements and gradually rocking around a movement. It hlps muscles let go, if muscles are the cause.

I think we all have our own bag of tricks

Liza Jane:

The one thing Alan has never tried is the Tens Unit. Dr. Theirl, a long long time ago, said he could borrow one and bring it home to try it. Alan never took advantage of this.

I do know what TENS stands for and the fact that it sends a mild electric current but how does this help with the pain? Wouldn't it make is worse (like when the podiatrist put that vibrating tool on my toes and feet and when I went home, my whole foot went bonkers) I never had one symptom before that.

I'm just curious how a Tens Unit helps PN.

Thanks,

Melody

Buwahahaha!!! *gasp* I'm sorry. I had to laugh. Get your kids..... LMAO!! My kids would gladly do that for me. But I know many many people my age (in the 46 yr old range that is) who smoke pot. Getting it is not a problem. Getting it to work that way for pain is for me.

Thanks for the laugh! That helps too by releasing endorphins.

Lucky we haven't lost our sense of humour!

I go out of my way for laughter. I've become a junkie of sorts. I've found it helps me all the way around. Funny movies, jokes online, you name it I look for it.

Me too.
Old BT1 used to have a 'jokes' forum and it was very active, daily.
New jokes and funny stories every day.
With enough contributors, lotsa humor was there.
I miss it. Used to start my day off with reading, and contributing.
Here, there is a 'lighter side', but it isn't the same.

BTW- about 'your kids can get it for you'.
Short story:
I was self medicating for my undiagnosed foot & leg pains with
vodka. A lot of vodka.
When I was finally dx'd and found out that alcohol exacerbated my pain, I stopped drinking (for 4 years) totally. In the first few months
I tried weed again (not since my college days) and it was one of my
kids who got it for me. I had no idea where to look, but he said, "hey dad- wanna try some of this! "
(It took me off guard, but I gratefully accepted the gift.)
After about 3 months, I found that it really didn't do much for me except give me the munchies, and made me fall asleep earlier in the pm.
That's about when my neuro started me on neurontin & Ultram. It helped me very well for 7+ years, & then I switched to Lyrica (& Ultram). My only bad s/e has been weight gain. I'm the heaviest
I've ever been in my life. I put on 30+ lbs and can't seem to take it off.