fmichael,

I am new here and by no means an expert on meds. I am, nonetheless, very concerned about the number of meds you are on. Please excuse me If I am being intrusive but just coming off a similarly long laundry list of meds I cannot express how negatively they effected me mentally and cognitively. The meds had slowly been added over the years, predominantly by a psychiatrist. I now wish that I had listened to the advice of my pain management doctor to withdraw and then revisit what I really needed.

The only thing that finally forced me to come off meds was beginning tDCS. I wanted to know if the treatment could take the place of meds. The bonus was the rapid rebound of the cognitive issues that had dogged me.

Additionally the suggestion of my pain management doctor that narcotics would, in the long run, only serve to increase my neuropathic pain, in addition to causing other nasty long term issues, made me rethink things.

I see from other posts that you are considering tDCS. Maybe, in conjunction with tDCS, an outside opinion about your med list could be helpful.

Just a thought.
Best to you with tDCS.

Appreciate it. I'm on more drugs - for unrelated conditions - than any of you folks know. But that's why I have a good internist and have complete metabolite panels run every six weeks, to say nothing of my semi-annual workup by a hematologist for MGUS-[lambda light chains].

And trust me, I've thrown drown the red flags on more meds within 48 hours of initiation than I would care to remember. So yeah, I take this stuff seriously. The good news is that, courtesy genetics, I don't develop a tolerance to opioids, so have been on the same dose of Oxycontin/oxcycodone for something like 7 years.

And that's why I think the two week outpatient ketamine protocol @ 200 mg/day is great. It's got a good track record of putting people with the most refractory conditions into a 6 - 8 week remission, which is just enough time to ween them off most of the medications their on for pain, and ramp them up on "low-dose" on a maintenance therapy of naltrexone and memantine. Using tDCS perhaps to restore years of cortical damages secondary to the CRPS. (Although I was once ticketed to go to Germany for a ketamine coma, a preexisting Dx of well-controlled open angle glaucoma was disqualifying, and insurance doesn't cover the added expense of using the current therapy protocol outside of an "infusion center," in order to accommodate the presence of a mannitol drip and an ophthalmology resident, periodically taking my eye pressures.) That, and years ago I was lined up to do a round of 8 -12 applications of RUL-ECT before my (relatively young) doctors and I found out about a crazy law, passed by initiative in 1976 following the release of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest a year earlier - well before RUL was where it is today - which prevented me from doing so; and it's impracticable for me to leave California for the procedure because the use of general anesthesia mandates that all out-patients "be picked up by someone you know."

Bottom line: I've explored all sorts of options, and will continue to do so.

Mike


PS I live with the words of my kindly old neurologist, "I may not be able to take away your pain, but I can save your liver."

Whimsical....and provocative; I like it!

Trying to find how to contact someone in support group in Los Angeles. Any active groups there and anyone to talk to?