Carer for disabled Mum!

jamieb85

Hi Claire and everyone else

I am a full time carer for my mum who is disabled , long story short she had a failed spinal fusion back in 1996, previously she was a nurse in a nursing home. She also has osteoarthritis, cervical spondylosis and a screw through a nerve in her leg from the spinal fusion. For the most part she is normally upbeat but 23 years of dealing with it is taking its toll, she is currently on morphine tablets and buprenorphine patches. Her GP is very good but they don't have time to deal with the long term issue of pain so all they seem to do is up dosage of her medication which is making her more tired and shes struggling with this.In an ideal world she would love to lower the dosage.  I am pushing for a re-referral to the pain clinic but can anyone make any suggestions what we can do both short and long term?? 

Thanks for all your help,

Jamie  

Sam_Alumni

Hi @jamieb85
Welcome to the community! You are entitled to get a re referral so do push forward with this. I wonder if your GP has something called Social Prescribing? Social prescribing is a means of enabling GPs and other frontline healthcare professionals to refer people to ‘services’ in their community instead of offering only medicalised solutions to produce a social prescription that will help to improve their health and wellbeing. You can read more about this on this Social Prescribing post.

There's lots of self-help advice available from a variety of organisations supporting people living with long-term pain, such as:

• A Way With Pain
• Action on Pain
• British Pain Society
• Pain Concern
• Pain Support

Charities specialising in specific conditions, such as arthritis or fibromyalgia, may also offer more targeted pain-management advice. Some of these organisations run helplines and self-help groups, where you can talk to and meet other people with long-term pain. 

And take a look at the NHS website on long term chronic pain

Antonia_Alumni

Hi @jamieb85 how are you doing today? Please keep us updated and how it's all going