Scoliosis

The Pain Clinic can adjust your medications but like all hospital staff can only recommend to your GP to continue them. I have had a few adjustments completely disregarded by GP's due to a lack of understanding of my problems.

There are many different pain killers which are broadly split into 2 groups once you get past the Paracetamol and Ibruprofen / Naproxen stage. The first group is all opiate based and begins with Cocodamol but opiates are not very good at treating nerve pain (such as sciatica) unless you use unnecessarily high levels of them. The other group are specifically used for nerve damage / pain and these are Amitryptylene, Nortryptylene, Pregabalin, Gebapentin and Duloxitine. These work very differently to opiates which act immediately. They are designed to accumulate within the body and so will not give full effect for usually a couple of weeks. Amitryptylene, Nortryptylene and Duloxitine were initially developed as anti-depressants and can also be prescribed for that. Pregabalin and Gebapentin are often problematic as they were developed to treat Epilepsy and side-effects are sometimes strange.

I would like to state that I am not a medical professional so am not recommending any in particular, I am just giving you information to discuss with a doctor. What I have said is based on 14 years of using steadily stronger and stronger pain killers and have, at some point or other, been on every pain killer available (including the strongest opiate Fentanyl). However, I would also like to state that coping strategies and methods such as those taught by the Pain Clinic can be as much, if not more, useful than medication. My personal opinion of Physiotherapists is quite low as they never seem to understand that my condition (like some others) is detrimentally affected by exercise. I have even been called a liar to my face by one or two when explaining to them what specialists have explained to me about my condition (has also happened with a few GP's). This is the problem of having a condition no one has ever heard of, fortunately for you (in some ways) doctors will understand your condition as it is fairly well known.

There is one mistake that is best to avoid. Do not read the list of side effects until you have been using a new medication for a couple of weeks or until you have some definite detrimental effect. The mind is very powerful and it is sometimes possible to convince yourself that you are getting a side effect that is more imagined than real. DO read the general instructions though especially regarding food or drink that may cause problems with some medications. Grapefruit (fruit or squash), for example, causes problems when mixed with quite a few medications.

TK

Hi
I was born with a scoliosis,as I’ve got older Ived had more pain.. The most successful combination for me is 75mg Amitriptiline with 250mg Naproxen 3 times a day. It’s not perfect but it works for me.