Why Painkillers Don’t Work on Fibromyalgia

Very interesting article affirming my resistance to narcotic pain medication over many years.

 

I received my fibromyagia diagnosis in 1984 by a wonderful rheumatologist.  Back then it was still referred to as fibrositis due to the misquided belief inflamation was causing the pain.  I cried when the doctor told me that it would not physical twist and deform my joints but that it was not all in my head.  He assured me my pain was real and that emotionally it could cripple me but back then the standard course of treatment was high doses of buffered aspirin which did nothing to relieve the pain or improve my seriously disturbed sleep.

 

Over the next eight years or so I mostly had no treatment for my fibro, with intermittent periods when I was prescribed amytriptiline to help combat the sleep problems.  It was helpful but I had the constant aching between the flares.  Always the echoes of crazy, lazy and malingerer remained in the back of my mind along with the USMC boot camp creedos, No Pain No Gain and you have to break those muscles down before you can build them back up.  I would push myself until I got so ill I couldn't go on.

 

The depression always seemed to me like the proverbial chicken and egg until I finally got into the VA healthcare system.  Once there I was repeatedly asked about sexual abuse and harrassment during my tour of duty.  When that dam finally burst I finally began my journey out of the darkness of PTSD and into the light of really living.

 

I have continued to educate myself about brain chemistry and the medications that do or don't work.  Over the past few years it's become more difficult to discern where pain from fibro and other medical conditions meet and overlap.  Thus I have requested and received a referral to the VA Hospital's pain clinic and a new chapter begins.  In the interim low dose, slow relief morphine in conjunction with neurontin, naproxen and physical therapy have kept me functioning at a level I can live with for now. 

 

The most important thing for me is that I have an understanding of the tools I am given.  The information I have found here is a key element to managing my own health care and I have found my doctors to be quite receptive to my desire to be a part of the health care team. 

 

Thank you Karen.
 

   I appreciate the informative articles & information I find on this site.  This article explains to me why I feel like & have stated to my doctor I might as well eat Pez as take oxycodone 5mgs, in fact Pez would be better because then I'd have the satisfaction of knocking the little dispenser guy's head off his block!  I had asked for something different or for a break through pain medication but since we are just starting me on Neurontin & I had some very difficult side effects to adjust to the brief time I was on Lyrica the doctor doesn't want to change too much all at once.  So, we have a storm here today of some rain, not much in the way of weather concerns but it means a flare in fibro & I'm still battling a migraine since yesterday.  This article has me troubled as to what the medical community might find that can help us with our pain or if they will just discontinue pain meds & attempting to treat it altogether? Thank you for bringing this to light (said with apprehension but gratefulness for the clarifications).  I always enjoy learning more about what can help me & what may not.

I have FMS and a myriad of other issues, degenerative discs, bulging discs, shoulder impingement, chronic lower back pain. And as soon as a doctor sees I have FMS, they ignore the fact that I was on Vicoprofen for almost 3 years before I moved to another state and no doctor in this new state will listen to me.

They won't even call my old doctors.

I email the University of Michigan and told them that because of their study, the doctors refuse to give me opiods because I have FMS. I did get a response and if you would like a copy of my correspondence I would like to share it with you.