I am in constant pain 24/7. I have a chronic condition and surgery will not help. My doctor has me on oxycotin but I still have break through pain. Because him nor I want to increase my miigrams, I take lyrica to help with this. Has anyone else used lyrica for break through pain and did it help and is this a good decision for such a condition?
I took Lyrica for 4 months and was so sick on it I had to go off. It never did alleviate my pain and I had a terrible time weaning off. I now use Cymbalta, although I hear it's hard to get off, too. Cymbalta has made my pain more bearable, and I use a time release oxycontin med for pain as well. With my doctor's blessing I use between 1 and 4 pills of the oxycontin med as pain requires. My average dose is down to 2 per day, but some days I don't need any of the narcotic now.
Besides the fact that Oxycontin often needs to be dosed three times a day, every 8 hours, and not the 12 that many doctors believe; Lyrica would be a possible choice if dosed at regular and not as needed times - a relatively constant blood level would be desirable. Beware of drowsiness, dizziness, swelling of feet and hands, not to mention weight gain. Often physicians might prescribe an SSRI antidepressant, however these can actually inhibit analgesia from codeine and hydrocodone due to liver metabolism: -- not so much from Oxycodone which you are taking.
A new and novel approach to pain control is creating impressive results. I am speaking of Vitamin D therapy. By increasing the blood levels of Vit D through supplementation to rather high levels (50-80 ng/ml) [20 was the old norm] the need for many pain meds have been dramatically reduced. Check it out on Google Scholar. I have gotten mine up to 74 (with my Dr's help) and no longer take any pain meds after three back surgeries ending in fusion and Spinal Cord Stimulator implantation. Worth a try ???? Oh yes, no untoward side effects.
Lyrica is not for breakthrough pain, arthritis or otherwise. It's never worked for me for breakthrough pain and I'm not sure how much it's relieving my arthritis pain. I do know that when I started taking it about 3 years ago, I gained 20# in a very short period of time. A rhemurtoid doctoc upped me to 150mg per day, I add even more trouble. Because of the side-effects, I've titrated me down to 50mg per day & can't tell any difference for the 150mg per day. Lately, I've read several articles that indicate that a deficiency of Vitamin D-3 can lead to more pain. The articles stated that increase Vit D-3 to levels of 6000mg per day can possibly lead to pain relief. Therefore, I've upped my daily intake of Vit D-3 to the 6000mg day. Don't know if I have less pain because I just increased the amount last week. Another way to relieve some breakthrough pain would be to take 600mg of ibuprofen with 625mg of aceutaminaphin together at the same time. Hope this helps u & GOD BLESS!!!
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I used Lyrica for 2 years. It work for a while to prevent morning pain, but never break through pain. It doesn't work at all for me now.