I feel much better now!!!
Thanks to all who expressed concern over my back-problems! Just before composing that entry, I had found a bottle of anti-inflamatories that I had from Calgary, back from the last time my back went out while driving for Calgary Transit. The pills were two years old, and really should have been tossed out, but I was in terrible pain and needed something to take the edge off. I also took two of the generic back-pain meds I had (the generic equivalent of Robax Platinum), although they hadn't helped at all previously.
After making that post, I had a couple of hours to kill before we went to the doctor, so I lay down for a snooze. Walking from the kitchen to the bedroom was another exercise in torture; just rising from a seated position to standing required Trixstir's help, and the short distance took nearly two minutes to traverse (normally it would take about 10 seconds!) Once in the bedroom, laying down again was also horribly painful, but I managed to get flat onto my belly by basically "crawling" onto the bed then slowly lowering myself onto it. Once I rolled onto my back, I actually managed to doze off a little, even waking myself up by snoring! When I lay on my back, I snore!!! Almost as bad as Trixstir! ;)
Around 1:30pm, I awoke with that "I gotta go, now!!!!" feeling, and much to my surprise (and delight) I was able to move quite freely, and with very little pain! My back was still very sore, but with nowhere near the excruciating pain I was in this morning. It seems that the anti-inflamatories were really helping! That business taken care of, Trixstir helped me get dressed and we headed off to see the doctor.
One of the nice things about small towns, is that when you have a 2:45pm appointment to see the doctor, you actually get to see the doctor within about five minutes of your appointment! Nothing like back in Calgary where my 1:15 appointment meant that I'd be called from the waiting room around 2pm, and then sit in the examination room until 2:30. :P He gave me a quick exam, tested how much I could move (which was a lot more than I could do this morning!) and also tested to see how much I could move my legs in a seated position. Since the anti-inflamatories seemed to be working well, he prescribed some more of those, and a potent pain-killer. The original pain-killer he was going to use was a prescription acetaminophen-based drug, but I explained to him that that acetaminophen didn't work for me. (It used to, but it stopped working for me when I was around 18, and hasn't really done anything for me since.) So, he prescribed a powerful opiate-based medication instead. I'm on the lowest dose possible; 5mg every four hours.
I'm happy to say that this seems to be working very well, so I don't think I need to increase the dosage. He had told me that if it didn't help by tomorrow, to increase the dosage to 10mg every four hours. Being an opiate-based drug, I want to be very careful not to get addicted to it as has been known to happen all too often. I generally don't like taking pain-killers (or other meds) at all if I can avoid it, but when I'm in the kind of pain I was in, I need to take something!
For the curious, this is what he's prescribed for me:
- Anti-Inflamatory: Diclofenac Sodium. 75mg every 12 hours.
- Pain Killer: Oxycodone HCL. 5mg every four hours.
- Laxative: Senna Laxative & Docusate Sodium (combats the possible constipation effects of the Oxycodone.)