Pain Management

[RubyWitch]

I am a 61 y/o woman diagnosed with psoratric arthritis when I was 18. Back then it was just in my knees, but now the only joints that are not affected are my elbows. (YIPEE. huh?) LOL
About 10 years ago when the pain become quite bad and chronic, I managed with just mega doses of aspirin and the odd script from the doc for a mild pain med. I have now been through prednisone, methotrexate, Enbrel, Humara(Humira? sp) then back to Enbrel.......then nothing. The Enbrel worked very well, but I have massive anxiety about the biologics. I just don't trust them and and it's very frustrating. I feel like I'm between a rock and a hard spot. On one hand they really do make me feel better, pain and ROM vastly improved. But on the other hand, the instant after I've given myself the injection, I begin to feel a constnat, low level anxiety that is affecting my life far more than the arthritis. I discussed options with my R-doc and I told him that I would like to try Vicodin for three months and see if that helps. A friend of mine with severe RA takes nothing but Vicodin, has taken it for about 6 years now and absolutely swears by it. She has been on virtually the same dose all those years, only upping the dose during a bad flare. I have some concerns about about getting addictied to it, but my friend says the arthritis isn't' going to magically go away and at our age, (she is 65)  and says she doesn't care if she is "addicted" or not. She claims it works great for her, she doesn't abuse it, her dose has remained stable, she is "comfortable" taking it. She was like me.........neither of us liked the biologics and nothing else really helped enough without some pretty serious side effects. Sorry, I feel like I'm ranting...........My doc gave me a script for 3 months of 7.5/500 Vicodin. I'm taking 2 pills a day and this is day 8. I feel SO much better! It's not like the Enbrel, that was like a miracle, but this stuff really takes that razor edge of pain off and while my ROM remains pretty lousy, I have learned to live with that years ago. I think my question is...........are there any other AO, PA, or RA folks out there who have been satisfied with the pain relief from Vicodin? Any long term problems? Major ones, at any rate. This stuff has been around one hell of alot longer than Enbrel, so I think that's why I feel more comfortable taking this.
I'll shut up now.
Thanks
  

[Newman1880]

I thought the key was to stop the damage being caused by the disease ? Taking Vicodin is masking the pain but not doing anything to stop the joint and tissue damage caused by the disease .

[TheLightSeeker]

Hey greenlydia,
It's a matter of principle I guess. To me, taking a drug which is an opioid narcotic (50% from natural opium and 50% synthetic opium) and aspirin,
would be a definite NO!
Other people give in to the pain easily and would take in a flash,
and there are people like yourself that take it with a degree of caution.

The opinion of a few people wouldn't matter much as
it depends on the individual experience. Some experience nausea and can't take it. Some get liver problems and discontinue it.
And others like your friend are O.K. with it, even if there's an addictive component to it. After all it is a controlled substance! lol!
(My opinion is that Enbrel -biologics- is a Wolf and Vicodin -opioids- is a Werewolf, lol!)

I recently prepared a report for a friend whose son suffers from psoriatic arthritis, which includes many natural and holistic recommendations
and a natural remedy that I came up with, that not only replaces Enbrel,
but has a higher degree of efficiency and is a lot safer and cheaper.
If you're interested, I can send it to you in a message, as I have a lot of references and links, that go against forum rules.
Cheers!
Niko