How Pain Killers Sometimes Increase Chronic Pain

Stephanie is right in her assesment of what narcotics do to people who use them over more than 6 months. I first learned of this condition in the 90's when I suffered from migranes which kept me in the ER 4-6 times a week. I learned first hand of what is called, "Rebound Headaches", which happens when the medication you take seems to keep the headache going and many times it's worse than before you took the narcotic. I learned that you can avoid this to some degree by changing the narcotic & treatments every 4-6 months. This may not work for everyone but as for me, it worked beautifully! Then one day after 11 years of migranes, they just stopped and I never knew why & didn't care either…The other contributing factor of "Rebound Pain" is that when some people(this included me as well), start to get some relief from a narcotic analgesic but here in America we have this mis-conception that," More is Better"
and that's simply not true and when you think that way your already in the rut Stephanie's talking about & because you think more is better it causes you to overtake the recommended dosage that your Dr. put you on & the bottom line is, that's abuse of a pain killer! I finally learned all that and to this day I still rotate narcotic medications
with my Dr.'s approval and trust that we've built over the years. When they start to not work well I talk to him about adjusting the dose but the next time this situation occurs, that's my cue to ask to change the type of narcotic I'm taking and this works for me. On the flip side of the equation, if a medicine takes off more pain thanit should or has in the past, I tell my Dr. and discuss lowering the dose of that medicine because if it happens to work too well, I'm possibly taking too much of it. I do this because no matter how bad you percieve your pain to be, there's always greater pain that one can experience and if you don't lower a medication that's working way too well, you'll be in big trouble when worse pain comes along and as we age you can count on that day eventually arriving. I still keep a journal of medicines I take and have taken along with dosages and how well they did or didn't work alond with what my Dr.'s thought were when I show him my comprehensive results over time. It turn out that keeping these records will help any Dr. I ever see to be able to help me in the relief of pain and that's most of our biggest issues here. I don't ever run out and I keep on top of everything that works and those that don't work so well. I Hate Pain and I'm telling this story so everyone will have an idea of how to "Take the Edge off the Pain" without abusing your meds and having to Dr. shop to get more. That is wrong and will burn any & all trust you've worked so hard to establish with you treating Dr.! I pray for everyone's pain to ease off enough to have a
life again…donnie