I have a chronic bad back (two herniated disks and sciatica) which is usually very manageable but occasionally flares up. Two days ago it started really hurting and I worked through it; I decided to curtail all activity and hole up for the weekend in a pleasant haze of Vicodin and Baclofen to let it get uninflamed or whatever so I can resume normal activity on Monday. Usually I try to stay fairly active, but I’ve learned from experience that trying to push too much when it’s very sore can result in my stupid back going utterly nuclear.
It’s been much, much worse - as in, cannot walk, writhing on the floor, crying, get me to the ER, worse. I can walk, and dress myself today but even gentle little shuffling steps or taking a deep breath produces stabs of pain. I did drive to the bank and grocery store earlier, so I’m all stocked up.
My neighbor, bless his heart, brought me over one of those heating pads that stick to the ouchy area. And some packets of hot cider mix. I have the meds scrip from June 2012 but didn’t use much of it then, so it’s still good. I have a cold compress gel pack in the freezer. And fresh dog bones for the doggies, since they’re probably not getting any walkies this weekend. And epsom salts in case I feel like a hot bath.
I feel very pleasant and woozy and my back pain has already simmered down to a gentle roil.
Having had 4 HNP’s and more pain than is expressable, the next help you might employ for releif is distraction, not your mind but your back, inversion, getting gravity to undo what it has done, this is best if your upside down, not easy to do, but other ways work as well, Head down feet up so to speak. Traction is not a very good way of doing it but there is some help, better to find a tilt table or pulley, myself I use a chair where I bend over the back of and rest head down for several minutes at a time to releave the pressure on the lower back.
Yes, at times I’ve toyed with getting one of those inversion contraptions. Or, like you said, bending over some way or another immediately relieves pressure.
I hurt my back pretty bad a couple years ago. The doc prescribed vicodin and muscle relaxers. I got home, downed one of each and lay down on the couch to watch a movie. Once the meds kicked in I remember having the distinct feeling that I was melting into the couch. And I felt really, really OK with that.
I can see how people would get addicted to those things.
that’s a herniated nucleus pulposa, aka a herniated disc - the inner “jelly” of a spinal disc has gone from bulging to escaped. Most often, it will be pressing against a nerve root as it leaves the spine at a foramen.
I’ve got an inversion table, and it does help. Think I paid all of $100 for it at Amazon. You don’t need all the fancy cushions, memory foam or whatever. If you invert fully, your body will hang free and won’t touch the table’s surface.
I’ve never had Vicodin, but I did get Demerol once, in the hospital.
It was my first kidney stone attack. I went to the ER, not knowing what this horrendous pain in my gut was. And until the problem can be diagnosed they can’t really give you any pain meds.
Finally it was figured out and they gave me a dose of Demerol in the IV.
Pain? What pain? I felt like I was floating an inch above the bed. I’d never known how good the simple lack of pain could fee.
I don’t actually enjoy the woozy, stoned feeling that Vicodin and similar pain meds give me…unless I’m having significant pain. I floated off to bed about 5 pm, now it’s 10:45 pm, back spasms woke me up so I just took a Baclofen muscle relaxer for funzies. Washing it down with “instant” hot cider. gotpasswords, thanks for the explainer. Last MRI I had was about eight years ago when I went to the ER for a severe flare up and got a cortisone injection, so I have no idea what’s going on with my back nowadays. I hope never to need surgery on it though.
This is why I always save at least a few pills when I’m prescribed a narcotic (once a year at best). You never know when you’re gonna need it for something like this.
Actually, now that I think about it it wasn’t Vicodin; it was a Demerol/Vistaril injection. I think that’s a bit stronger than Vicodin. Following that I was put on a self-administered morphine pump, but the pain had pretty much subsided by the time I recovered from the injection, so I only used it was as a prophylactic measure, when I was about to change position in bed. I don’t remember getting any sort of pleasant feeling from that.
The only narcotic analgesic I’ve had outside of the hospital environment was Tylenol with Codeine #3, for the extraction of my wisdom teeth, and that didn’t provide any sort of extra pleasant feeling. I took them as directed, rather than as needed, as it seemed the right thing to do. Why wait for the pain? My mother accused me of using it to get high. :rolleyes:
I’ve been popping percocets for the last week as needed for pain from the shingles. Other than the first night when I had two take three of them wow-weeeee. Now it just takes the edge off the pain and nothing else. I’m assuming it’s a one shot prescription, so I use them sparingly until this nasty stuff clears up. Yes. I was also prescribed something to get rid of the shingles as well.
Welp I can’t imagine me getting hooked on narcotic-type pain meds because while the pleasant floaty feeling is nice, mostly they just put me to sleep. I think I’ve slept for 15 of the last 20 hours or so. The Vicodin doesn’t really address the pain; mostly it makes me forget about it, then sleep a lot. Which is probably what’s going to benefit my poor spasming back the most.
I’m fairly sensitive to meds that “may cause drowsiness” and one 750 mg Vicodin was all it took. Even though I can take one every 4-5 hours, not to exceed 4 in 24 hours. Yikes. I’d be afraid to take that much!
The Baclofen doesn’t make me woozy at all but it definitely helps with the pain.
Last week I had a minor surgical proceedure. I was given Vicodin for the pain. The pain wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be so I only took a few. I felt nothing. No high feeling. Motrin worked better on the pain.
Really? You don’t enjoy the “high” from opiates unless you’re in pain? Why? Wouldn’t the feeling be just as enjoyable either way? Plus, I have always heard that if someone is truly in pain, then they don’t actually experience any “high” from the opiates, just relief.
True. Perhaps it’s the relief from pain that makes it pleasant. I don’t feel wildly high, just mildly buzzed. Having given up getting high in my youth on anything and everything I could get my hands on (and mostly much, much stronger than a Vicodin) I’ve no real wish to go back to my late teens and early twenties. Been there, done that, it wouldn’t occur to me to take a narcotic pain pill recreationally now.
But usually I go from feeling pleasantly and mildly stoned, to fast asleep in fairly short order. I may have been mistaken about the Baclofen, actually. Took one last night and crashed about an hour later. Woke up at 8 am, took aanother one thinking it wouldn’t make me sleep just relieve pain about 9…and an hour later I went back to bed and slept from about 10 am - 2:30 pm. And I do NOT ever sleep during the day normally. And that was after sleeping about 15 hours in the previous 24.
So I guess I don’t mind the woozy part but it’s the crashing and sleeping hard and for much too long part that I don’t enjoy! Then there’s people who can take a 750 mg Vicodin and feel no effect at all, or work a full day. Different metabolisms, I guess.
I have the meds scrip from June 2012 but didn’t use much of it then, so it’s still good. I have a cold compress gel pack in the freezer. And fresh dog bones for the doggies, since they’re probably not getting any walkies this weekend. And epsom salts in case I feel like a hot bath.