It creeps under my skin, crawling, burning, at times searing. And I’m not doing anything. Just sitting. Ibuprofen doesn’t help. Acetaminophen doesn’t help. Aspirin doesn’t help. Percocet and Vicodin don’t help. It’s nerve pain.
The ONE thing I didn’t want to have happen when my foot was operated on, other than getting a massive infection necessitating amputation, was nerve damage. A few years ago, I blew out my back and experienced months of sciatic nerve pain that took me to the brink of sanity.
At my last doctor visit, my doc checked out her work on my foot, and how it’s healing, by bending my foot this way and that. She pressed below the scabbing wound, asking, “Does this hurt?” Pressing here and there, she kept asking if things hurt. Much to my amazement, just about nothing hurt. But if pressing here and there didn’t hurt, and bending this way and that didn’t hurt, what was the creeping, burning that would come out of the blue? As I described what was going on, she started talking about nerve pain.
That’s it! I told her that without a shadow of a doubt, what’s been plaguing me is nerve pain. What happens, is the electrical signal short circuits. As the signal travels down the path, when it gets to my foot where the nerve’s been cut, it freaks out and shoots a whopping spark of pain back to my brain. This sort of thing laughs at narcotics, except perhaps at a morphine drip.
The next words out of my doctor’s mouth were my only vestige of hope: there is a medicine that they have found works very well on nerve pain particularly. It’s not an addictive narcotic and won’t damage your liver the way drugs like acetaminophen can. Yes! Get me this stuff!! The kicker is it takes a week to reach peak effectiveness. And after a week, if one capsule isn’t doing it, I take two for another week.
A week!!?? Seriously? I have to deal with this crap for another week or two? Really? Got the meds a few days ago, and now the wait goes on. The wait for relief.
Hope you feel better soon.
Thanks Sarah!
I can’t press Like on this post. 😦 I had surgery on my left foot and ended up with a very nasty infection and some nerve damage. Sorry that you have this pain and I hope the med works fast!
I’m sorry to hear that you had such a bad experience. That more than sucks. I have confidence that this medicine will be effective when I get to the right dose. As for not being able to “Like” the post, I’ve had that experience. What I did was refresh the page, and the button was available. Thanks for reading.
I actually meant that I couldn’t like it because I didn’t like what you were going through! 🙂
LOL!!
Liking the writing, not the pain.
Ugh, sorry, Susan.
“This sort of thing laughs at narcotics.”
Boy, I hope the new drug works. A friend used Lidocaine Patches for back nerve pain. Not sure if they would help, maybe for short-term relief?
Thinking ’bout you! -Christy
Thanks for your thoughts. Because the pain comes and goes, I can deal with it until I reach a fully effective dose of Neurontin. And one perc at night lets me sleep, for now.
Wishing you well . . . .
Thanks! And thanks for dropping in.
Hope so much the medication is starting to kick in now, Sue x
Thanks Jan. It is beginning to help. I think one more bump up of dose and I’ll be good (or possibly 2 bumps up). Started physical therapy and so far, so good.
So very sorry. Hope it’s improving. Physical therapy can make all the difference! Wishing you well.
Thanks Dawn. Just had one PT session so far. But I’ll be going twice a week starting this coming week. Already started using crutches and putting some weight on my injured foot. So far, so good. The surgical wound is still healing.
Best of luck with steady progress.