Hi all! My name's Mara and I'm pretty new to both the morphine pump (have had it since Sept now), and CPC (I just signed up today actually, and I wish I'd known about this site sooner that's for sure!). I'm betting my questions have already been asked, but I have no energy to sift through the thousands of posts right now so forgive me. I get my dose adjustment on Friday so by Saturday I'm still getting used to the higher dose. Anyway, does anyone know roughly what the ratio of the pump med is to the pills? I was taking 30 mgs orally before the pump, now I'm at 2.9 mgs via the "hardware", so I'm wondering how much of a difference it is (IE 2 IV mgs = to ? pill mgs).

According to my pain management doc I'm still on a very low dose, so if 2.9 mgs is low then what would be a normal or average amount be? And how will I know when the medicine is at the dose that will be good for me? Right now I'm still experiencing a LOT of pain in my neck/upper back/shoulders and a new pain cropped up recently in my left wrist. My general practictioner put me in a wrist brace but it's doing nothing for me; one of the major problems I'm having is that the brace is too big (and it's a small adult size ugg!) so the strap at the top keeps cutting into the lower part of my thumb. I'm pretty sure I need a child sized brace but my GP doesn't have any and I don't have the money right now to buy one (the ones like I have with the metal in it cost a ton whew!), so if anyone has any suggestions how I can fix the strap on the one I have that would be great.

Far as the pump, I'm more tired than before and haven't yet gone back to work, but it's worth it to stop the lower body pains (before the pump I would be in tears practically every day with horrid pain in my left knee/hip and my lower spine). However, even though it's working perfectly for below the belt as it were, shouldn't the pump also be helping the upper body pains? How much morphine am I going to need in the long run? And does anyone know of any support groups/etc here in the Orlando/Kissimmee area by chance? I'd really like to meet/talk with other locals who are going through Lupus or any of my other ailments that come with it, or if they have/had a pump, or have/had chronic pain, or all three for that matter, and of course, I'd really like to hear from others on CPC who are in the same boat!

Thanks for reading this and for bearing with me when I'm brain-clouded lol. Take care all!

~~Mara~~