Kickas.org Forums Ankylosing Spondylitis General Discussion #1 AS Web Support Group HLA-B27 Positive + Nerve Pain

Well I got my results today... positive. What a surprise! I guess this will speed up the dx, considering I have many of the AS symptoms. I have been in quite a bit of pain over the past week. It actually landed me in the ER a few days ago. I do go to a new doc tomorrow. We'll see if there are any options out there that I wasn't aware of.

For pain management...
I have been having awful nerve pain. Percocet only takes the edge off for a little over an hour. Any suggestions? I am concerned about dependence, but I can't take this pain. Honestly, after HAVING to take percocet for so long, I hate to even look at the stuff. Same thing with Vicodin.

I imagine it will help with your diagnosis but even being positive, my first diagnosis was Lupus but they quickly added a while string of them.

I know what you mean about the pain. Nothing is touching mine right now. The reason I am up at 1:30. There is no way to take the pain meds without your body becoming dependent on it but as my dr. keeps reassuring me that is no way the same as being addicted. He says that as long as you take it for pain relief you won't get addicted, you should get pain relief. He says that the people who get addicted take it when they don't hurt and like the feeling. I have never gotten any kind of "up" feeling from it. I don't even get much pain relief. I have weaned off of it about 3 times just to reassure myself that I can. If you think about it, there are very few drugs that you can just stop cold turkey.

Percocet makes me depressed. IRMorphine makes my bp drop. I take 30 mg. MSContin twice daily and 10 mg. Lortabs in between. My nerve pain is terrible and my feet have not had any feeling in them. The Physical Therapy is helping that. She also uses a cold laser as well as the ultra sound and massage and she does help my pain. I go twice a week. I didn't get to go last week and really could tell it by the weekend.

I hope you get a diagnosis and I hope you find something for pain control. Oh, I also use the Lidocaine patches on the Lumbar area of my back and on my arthritic joints. You can use 3 at a time and off 12 hours. I also take Skelaxin along (a muscle relaxant). I take Klonapin when needed for the muscle spasms from Dystonia.

Will be glad to hear what you find out and how you re doing.

Blessings.
Possi

Hey there Texan,
I have had nerve pain for several years now and have found some meds that work and are not addictive. The big thing now is to use anti-seizure meds like, Gabapentin, Lyrica, and there are others. You have to try one for awhile and if it doesn't do the trick, Docs usually will try the next one. Lyrica is the newest and it has done wonders for me. I have also tried amitryptyline(sp?) at night and had some success with that as well.
Good luck,
loriann

where is your nerve pain? do you know what is causing it?

the reason i ask is that when i hurt my upper back, i developed active trigger points and myofacial pain with muscle spasms. i had a lot of referred pain; up into my neck, down my arms into my hands, etc.

i saw a neurologist. he said that some of the pain was from "something" pressing on and irritating the nerves. he did an MRI of the head and neck and said it was not the spine pressing on those nerves, thus it must be the spasming muscles and trigger points pressing on the nerves.

so, instead of medication for the nerve pain, he prescribed PT to deal with the trigger points and muscle spasms. and then i had a physiatrist prescribe a muscle relaxant. by dealing with what was directly causing my nerve pain, muscles spasming on nerves, i was able to alleviate much of the pain. but of course its an on going battle to control the trigger points and muscle spasms.

i also have sciatica when my buttocks muscles press on the sciatic nerve.

don't know if your nerve pain could be from trigger points and/or muscle spasms, but if it is, focusing on alleviating the tps and spasms, might give you some relief. don't know if your problems are similar or not?

sue