Pain meds

[malin]

When it comes to pain meds. I have a few questions. Just out of curiousity!

1. What do you take?
2. What do you take it for?
3. Which pain meds. have you tried/prefer?
4. Do you have different pain meds. for different types of pain?

I myself usually stick to plain paracetamol or tablets with paracetamol and aspirin.
However, when I start to feel my joint pains kicking in I usually start taking diclofenac, for me it's the only thing I've tried that seems to work. It usually even stops the joint pains breaking out and my joints are back to normal the next day.

Before I got the diclofenac I was on a combination of codeine and naproxen which didn't help at all.

[elephant]

Before I was diagnosed I would get severe swollen/joint pain and I would end up getting a prednisone taper pack and that helped. One time I did have to take Vicodin, prescription medicine.

[jola57]

At the beginning when pain was unbearable I used extra strenght Tylenol and Advil. I was fortunate that prednisone, 40mg at that time did it's wonder and I was relatively pain free within couple of months. Pain free is a misnomer, because we realy are never pain free. I try not to take any pain meds as they are always bad for my liver.

[Sangye]

Before I was dx'ed I lived for about 8 months with severe, crippling pain in pretty much every joint. I don't take painkillers. Especially then, since I didn't take any meds at all. It also didn't seem right to cover up the pain since I didn't have any clue what was causing it. The pain was only gone while I was on high doses of pred. Since then I still don't take pain meds. I would have had to be on them 24-7 for the past several years. The only time I took something was during my first kidney stone.

[janene]

Sorry ,I am new to this. My name is Janene. I dont tolerate steroids well. so the dose is only 15 mg a day. Will the joint pain ever go away.

[pberggren1]

Maybe you are not in remission yet.

[jola57]

Janene, I was put on cyclophosphamide, like a lot of others with a high dose of steroids 60mg. When I was put originally on 15mg seroids, nothing happened and I was in pain and lost the use of my left foot (developed a dropped foot). Only after being put on cyclo and high dose of steroids did the pain go away. Please make sure that you have a specialist that deals with wegs be your doc. Do not let this disease get worse because your doc is too conservative in treating it.

[Jack]

I never normally take pain meds, but I've been relying on them a lot recently. Drug of choice for me is Paracetamol even though it is not very strong. I've tried various Codine mixtures and felt sick so I now avoid them. I have also been warned off Ibuprofen because of drug interactions.

Due to my recent mishap, I've recently been taking Morphine - great stuff! Takes away the pain and makes you sleep really well. When they took me off it after a few weeks I felt quite sad so it was obviously time to give it up!

[elephant]

HI Janene, I agree with the above statements...need to see a Wegeners Specialist or have your Rhuemy contact one from the Vasculits foundation web site. I too believe that your wegeners is still very active and you need more than prednisone because you can have silent damage going on ( Lungs and kidney damage).

[JanW]

Jack -- you're back!

I've only taken minimal pain relief for foot pain -- my overall joint pain with WG went away about a month after I started on mtx.