Does your current doctor interpret any attempt to keep your painkiller dose at previous levels as a form of drug seeking behavior? Is that a problem that has come up? Like I was saying, some people sincerely want to believe weight loss will cure almost everything, and if weight loss didn’t heal your back pain your Dr. may assume your pain levels are down but you are addicted to the meds because the alternative is admitting weight loss didn’t fix the problem. It sounds like he’d rather you be in pain than he admit weight loss didn’t fix the problem.
Has that conversation or any like it come up? If not, why isn’t your doc ok with keeping your meds at the same level they were before you lost 50 pounds? If you are bedbound and the doses keep getting cut, why isn’t he listening?
You may be happy with your doctor, but he sounds bad in my opinion. You are in pain, and losing weight didn’t fix it (it does for some people, but your pain wasn’t due to weight it was due to an accident). Rather than listen to you, he just ignores your complaints because admitting weight loss isn’t a miracle cure goes against his beliefs. If you had hypertension and lost weight, and the weight loss didn’t fix the hypertension but the doctor cut your BP meds anyway that would be just as bad.
FWIW, I think you’ve done a great job of upholding the stereotype of the extremely polite Canadian. Kudos.
Still, we must keep in mind that the GLP-1 receptor blockade study was done in rats, not humans. Further, those weren’t your ordinary rats. No siree. They were a particular strain of rats that’s used as a model of NON-obesity-associated diabetes, i.e. perhaps not a particularly apropos model for obesity-associated diseases and interventions. And, although I can’t access the full text, it’s not clear to me that the effects of GLP-1 blockade were tested on other types of rats (with and without diabetes and/or obesity), i.e. maybe GLP-1 antagonism promotes diabetes/hyperglycemia regardless whether there’s been weight-reducing surgery or not
ETA: The whole notion of the gut microbiome is, at present, very poorly defined (or understood). Here is a terrific piece from the New York Times discussing the meme of ‘the healthy microbiome’.
Your doc probably did NOT cut your meds on a whim - mine recently cut me from 45 to 15 - the DEA is on the warpath, and every doc is running scared.
I’m betting that the local pain clinic will be able to justify an increased dosage.
BUT - IT’S A DAMNED CRAP-SHOOT!
If the new Doc cuts your meds even more, you are screwed - they also have a shiny new database of every patient and every script - the 3rd Doc you try will see the first 2 and conclude you are “Doc Shopping” for the best 'script offer.
If some quack tries to tell you that Gabapentin will work wonders for your pain, give it an honest shot for a couple of weeks. Every once in a while, this off-off-label use for it actually does somebody good.
Some also swear by glucosamine/chondroitin (which the FDA has ruled useless). It’s cheap and OTC - before my osteoarthritis went into remission, it did a bit of good for me. At current pain levels, it isn’t worth adding to the daily cocktail.
Welcome to the world of prolonged bed rest - get a cat - they make great bedmates.
A drug similar to the one you cited worked for me. The orthopaedic surgeon sent me off to the neurosurgeon, and my GP moved me over to Pregabalin, which worked so well that my surgery was cancelled. The pain relief was so successful that the herniated disks went back into place, the nerves no longer pinched up against the bone spurs (stenosis) and I was able to regain use of my leg and eventually build up most of the muscle again. A bit of nerve damage remains such that a couple of my quads are still somewhat atrophied and twitch, but I’m no longer unable to walk, I’m no longer in screaming (saw-the-fucking-leg-off) pain, and I can sleep rather than be woken frequently by the pain. I was extremely lucky that the crap-shoot with the drug paid off with a jackpot.
In Canada, doctors have had that capability for many years. It’s almost impossible to do any “Doc Shopping” here without committing some serious fraud first and I have enough pain in my life. I don’t want any more.
I just came back from my 3 month appointment with my doctor (I usually see him once every 3 months) and I was very surprised in that he was quite receptive to letting me try Lyrica. He gave me a month’s worth and talked with me about side efffects and how to begin taking it and also when to stop taking it and under what circumstances.
He also let me continue taking my pain meds and so I just want to thank those of you who recommended Lyrica to me. If you like, I will continue to post to this thread and let you know how it is going.