Does anyone have any suggestions for pain management?
Right now, the only thing that helps sometimes is a mood-altering narcotic. However, these are highly addictive and was already weaned off of them once b/c my body became dependent and then tolerant.
As much as I like the narcotics--I also hate them. They do no good long term. It's such an internal battle b/c of the strong cravings for them.
Oxycodone seems to work the best out of the ones I've tried.
I still need to function and go to work which is why my dr started me back on oxycodone. Dr. gave me a limit of how much to take per day/month.
I don't have the same pain as you as mine is more or less limited to one spot in my lower jaw (plus TMJ pain), so I'm not sure how you'd respend e.g. to physical therapy, spine adjustment or acupuncture aside from taking your meds. The thing I find about these therapies is that they release tension if done by a skilled therapist -- both on the physical as well as mental level -- and people in chronic pain are all stiff from battling the pain all the time, also our body chemistry tends to be different to that of healthy folks because of frequet release of stress hormones. So even if these "alternative" treatments have no direct impact on neuralgic pain (which is a question) they still help by improving our mood, balancing out our chemistry, improving our posture in some cases etc. If I were you I'd give it a shot if you haven't already.
I've done physical therapy for over a course of almost 3 years. No luck there.
I concur about being stiff from battling pain. my neck and shoulders knot up immensely and nothing seems to release them. I'm trying to find the balance of being able to "use" them with stretching/massage etc. I have to be very careful b/c if I work them too hard the pain escalates out of control.
A chiropractor feels its possible i have ligament laxity in my neck from a childhood injury so my neck muscles are compensating for stability. However, I saw 2 spine specialists who saw nothing wrong...
The only acupuncture i've had was acupuncture in my ears to "reset" the nervous system... yeah... no relief and it felt weird.
I had an ergonomics specialist set up my workstation to achieve the 90 degree angles while working at the computer.