Talk With Pharmacist About My Pain Management
[ Thursday January 2nd 2025 at 6:26 pm ]
When I was to the hospital yesterday I was told to use 600mg Advil every 6 hours for 6 days. The idea was to get me through to my appointment with my pain management doctor. I tried this this morning. It only lasted 2 hours. I was back to the same mess as the reason I went to the hospital: Feeling like I am going to puke and faint from the pain my left artificial hip and right knee are causing me. This change to my pain management hasn't worked. I went to the pharmacy to have a discussion with the pharmacist to discuss what now.
The pharmacist has listened to me and asked good questions. He was attentive to the chart I brought with me of the medications I am presently using. Then he gave me his assessment. I am using a low dose of the medication Amitriptyline. This medication stops me from feeling much of the soft tissue pain my hip and knee are causing me. There is lots of room to increase my dose of Amitriptyline. Another 10mg in the morning would make a big difference in stabilizing my pain.
In terms of the prescription pain medication I use: There isn't a benefit to increasing it. The combination of medication and supplements I use is considered the highest dose. At this point the pharmacist would recommend rotating the specific pain medication I use and that my body would see this as something different and I would not require as strong of a dose. In theory this would bring my pain under control.
In this instance I disagree with this. The reason I disagree is based on the past two months. I conclude that the pharmacist is under estimating the volatile and severity of the pain the artificial hip in hardware failure is causing me and the volatile nature of my right knee joint I went to the hospital yesterday to receive help. Previously when I followed the advice of doctor at the hospital to use more of the fast acting pain medication it made me feel euphoric and gave me mild breathing difficulties until it worn off. As well changing pain medications this close to surgery is considered making me unstable and not advisable.
In short I am hoping increasing the soft tissue pain medication by 10mg will be all my body needs. I will try this before my pain management appointment with my specialist on January 8th 2025.