In the past week I have been in severe pain as the cumulative effects of radiation show themselves. This has led to the necessity of taking narcotic pain relievers in the middle of the night. I have always tried to tough out the pain. Due to bad experiences with taking Vikodin earlier in my medical odyessy, I was so extremely cautious about using my Vikodin or Dilaudid prescription that I undermedicated myself. I took pride in the fact that for the past couple of months I was only using Motrin.
I got such severe pain that my leg started to swell in ways that Motrin was simply not going to cut down, not even close. "Excruciating" was the word I used to describe the pain. So I needed my cell phone to open those child proof bottles in the middle of the night.
I also discovered that in pain management there are short-acting and time-released narcotics. After meeting with the Pain Management people a few times I was able to get the dose right so I could take less pain medication and get more pain relief using higher doses of long-acting Oxycontin and using Dilaudid for breakthrough pain. These drugs are like a god-send. They have made me functional again. The only unwanted side-effect thus far is constipation.
