Submitted 2 days ago by GrayBackgroundMusic@lemm.ee to nostupidquestions@lemmy.world
I’m not looking for medical advice, but more understanding. I have chronic back pain. I can alleviate it completely with only 2 things - alcohol and a heating pad. Ibuprofen lessens it but it’s still present. Muscle relaxers do nothing (which makes sense because it’s not muscle related, it’s spinal disk degeneration).
A tall glass of whiskey makes my back relax and I can move normally. Once it wears off tho, it’s right back to tense and painful.
Because you’re not taking the good pain meds.
I’ve lived with chronic back pain for 20 years, and I have 3 stages of medication I go through (though mine is alignment-related, so muscle relaxers help): aleve (the only OTC painkiller that touches my back pain), tramadol (moderate-strength opioid, can’t take it for long or it causes plumbing problems), and tizanadine (the serious industrial-strength muscle relaxers; knocks me out for 8 hours and usually fixes my back the first time.)
If you’re looking for alternatives, THC helps somewhat with my back pain, but I dunno what’s legal where you are.
Tramadol is quite nasty to come off as well because it functions like a combination of SSRI with opiod effects on your brain. I think it’s the mu-opiod receptors as opposed to the normal opiod ones so more similar to kratom in that respect too.
Yeah, tramadol is weird because it makes you not care about stuff. Which is kinda good because it makes you not care about pain, but also, ya know, the other stuff too. But it was quite easy for me to come off of honestly; I didn’t shit for a week and that was more than enough to make me stop taking it regularly. Now I take it maybe once or twice a month at the outside.
Meds don’t fix back pain
Depends on the back, and the pain, and the meds. No, they don’t fix the underlying issue, but for circumstances where the underlying issue can’t be fixed they make it a lot more tolerable.
I’m not convinced OTC pain meds do anything, especially Tylenol.
Tylenol is interesting - it’s a psychoactive drug. It reduces your brain’s ability to experience pain, rather than reducing the amount of pain you’re feeling. That means different people’s brain chemistry will result in very different results with Tylenol.
Studies were done that show people are slightly more likely to take risks when they’re on Tylenol. Wild stuff.
I think it very much depends on the type of and source of pain.
For me, Tylenol works for headaches and some cold/flu stuff but I’ve never really found it effective for strained muscles etc
Ditto what the others said. You might have just rolled bad RNG (DNA) at character creation (birth) and just gotten stuck with immunity to NSAIDs. It happens.
I think it depends on the person too. Tylenol doesn’t work well for me, even prescription Tylenol; it kind of just makes me nauseous. Advil works great though.
My parents both seem to prefer Ibuprofen, but I swear by Excedrin as a miracle drug.
I have a type of rheumatoid arthritis (spondylitis) and nsaids have a pretty profound effect.
Oh, Excedrin and Tylenol absolutely help headaches. I’ve had some splitting headaches that weren’t migraines, and I can feel the pain get a lot better over 15-20. Of course water, also helps, but it’s faster than natural, I think.
Basically the only thing that help my headaches is caffeine. But that’s probably a me problem.
They only work for me if I take a much larger dose than what the label suggests, but I fear for my liver.
Degenerative disc disease ftw?
Generally, it depends on what’s causing the pain as regards what reduces it.
Booze is a CNS depressant. It puts a damper on everything in the central nervous system, and that includes pain perception.
Heat typically works by improving blood flow to affected areas.
So, most likely, what’s happening is that your muscle spasms are caused by the pain, rather than being the immediate source of pain. The tension does make pain levels increase, but stopping that without addressing the originating cause can’t and won’t eliminate all of it.
So, muscle relaxers can only do so much. I would argue that they’re doing something, because there’s not been any cases of total immunity to any that I’ve been aware of, and they’re a first attempt for most chronic pain cases. But if they don’t target the actual cause, then they can’t do enough. In other words, if the pain is causing your muscles to tighten up, a muscle relaxer is only going to partially reduce that tension because only part of that tension is involuntary.
It may not be conscious tension, but it isn’t something that is caused by the muscle itself. It’s a response to pain. So a muscle relaxer is kinda like a bandaid, not stitches.
Booze, however, is going to work in your brain, blocking off the pain signals, or more accurately reducing your ability to perceive them. Once you no longer perceive the pain, that part of you that’s holding those muscles tight to try and prevent/reduce the oh-so-lovely pain from bulging, slipped, or herniated discs start to relax almost all the way, as opposed to the tiny bit that the muscle relaxers can make them unclench.
Now, it’s important to note that the use of involuntary here doesn’t mean that the rest of your muscle tension is a choice. It just means that the part of your nervous system that is making it happen is a different section than the involuntary part. Now, you can actually exert conscious control over that kind of muscle tension, but it takes effort and practice. And, it probably won’t reach 100% release because your brain and body are going to resist it. Plus, pretty much the second you stop doing the methods that relax the muscles, they’ll go right back to trying to keep your back immobile. So it’s never a permanent solution.
The key to finding a balance often means the long, hard road of physical therapy combined with training in progressive relaxation, breath control, and all the other tools that give you the ability to intercede in the process.
Alcohol isn’t a long term solution. To the contrary, the longer you rely on it, the worse you’re gong to perceive the pain, and the more it’ll take to get relief.
There is, however, some good-ish news. DDD is progressive. But! Most of the time it’ll reach a point of relative stasis. Things will bulge and slip more radically during the early part of the disease process. At some point, it’ll slow down its progression, and the changes tend you be more localized than along the entire spine. So you’ll reach a point where it won’t get worse fast, and will usually only get worse in small sections. I’m in that phase of things myself, and it isn’t exactly fun, but it means my pain and mobility levels are stable. There’s a high chance you’ll reach that point too.
Once you hit that point, as long as you haven’t pushed things into addiction, stuff like muscle relaxers, Tylenol and the like can keep pain levels under control enough to get by.
Until then, keep on your PT program. You want to keep as much flexibility, mobility, and joint health as possible. It really is one of those things that if you don’t use it you will lose it. But don’t make the mistake of doing absurd shit when you aren’t in debilitating pain. You can’t actually move normally, you just can’t perceive all the minor injuries you’re causing that make the pain worse once whatever you use wears off. That’s one of the reasons I quit accepting opiates. Yeah, I hurt less, but I couldn’t tell when I was doing something wrong, so I was getting worse, faster. I’m just now recovering properly from fucking my back up the last time I took some of my opiate pain meds. And that was in November ffs.
So, if you need the relief to get by, use what you gotta. Just don’t fall into the trap of thinking that lack of pain means there’s nothing wrong.
As someone who was just diagnosed with C5-C6 spondylosis and facet arthritis, with an MRI ordered to see how absolutely fucked my trapezius is; thank you for reinforcing what I’ve already told every doctor since my ex-fiance’s little brother overdosed and died:
Fuck opiates.
Everything else you mentioned was informative or reinforced my doctors advice, I appreciate it.
This was fascinating, thank you for taking the time.
To piggyback on another comment. Massage. I’m a massage therapist who sees clients with disk issues all the time.
99% of the time it’s because of shortened hip flexors (your psoas attached to your bottom vertebrae and as it shortens, is too tight to let your spine stretch which then just crushes your disks) due to both extended time in a seated position as well as a weak core. Stretch, get a massage, find a PT to help with chronic back pain. Start doing crunches before bed.
Also drink more water. Only kinda related but basically everyone should be drinking more water.
Piggyback?! Bro, people are in enough pain in this thread!
Oh, take my damn upvote you punny bastard. 😂
Why crunches before bed? Physical exercise before going to bed seems like insomnia recipe.
Is it not better to do it in the morning or the afternoon?
Statistically, you should be doing more exercises in general.
But working out absolutely does improve sleep, as well as mood, digestion, memory recall, anxiety, and basically every other common ailment.
Please go work out more. Even if its just a walk or some crunches. Just get 15-30 minutes per day of continuous exercise. I promise you you’ll see a difference
Like the other response said, some light exercise before bed is generally good for sleep. If you feel it’s waking you up, your brain might already be in go-mode. Do you limit blue light or anything before bed?
If you still feel before bed is no good, or don’t have the time or whatever, literally anything is better than nothing.
Strengthening my core literally straightened my spine significantly and improved my lordosis. It’s like putting on a corset.
Hip hooks are also great for getting at those muscles, which are otherwise very difficult to stretch.
Idk what happened but over the weekend my back went to hell in a hand basket. I’m usually in pretty good shape but this went from 0-100 immediately. I’ve heard some good things about the GIBoard for core strength and stability so I’m looking to see if that helps. It’ll help me with stretching too so hopefully that’ll do something…
Ok, that giboard actually looks kind of awesome…does it easily someone like 140-250lbs?
GIBoard
You got me looking at these. Then I started looking around. Is there a reason to get one of the ~200 USD balance boards over a 20 USD wobble board? Other than durability, I guess.
If alcohol works it might be neuropathic pain and then this could work on it as well, using some of the same mechanisms of action as alcohol
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabapentin
But I dislike giving medical advice as am not a doctor. Something to research at least.
Gabapenten has serious side effects, dont just go get some and go “o we gonna be good.”
Gabapenten
hascan have serious side effects for some people, dont just go get some and go “o we gonna be good.”
FTFY. Everyone’s brain chemistry is different. For some, it can be a lifesaver in low doses for anxiety, for some (like me) it can be used as an adjunct to acetaminophen/paracetamol in a combination that is more effective for pain than opioids (had a minor hemorrhage in an adrenal gland - not fun), and for others it can cause extreme depression and other behavior changes.
Noone should take it without the supervision of a medical professional.
Uhm, I don’t think I did.
You shouldn’t take strong prescription drugs willy-nilly.
Maybe it has to do with its effects on GABA receptors? Have you ever tried something like gabapentin or pregabalin?
The doc put me on gabapentin for my nerve pain (ulnar and carpel tunnel) and I thought it was hitting the right receptors to help me stay off of alcohol, or dulled my desire for it. Turns out I was just self medicating the nerve pain and with the GABA I didn’t need the booze so much.
Don’t drink and take Gabapentin. They work on different receptors on the same channel. That means they have unpredictable effects together. The effects aren’t additive, they’re more like multiplicative. And more random than either alone.
These make you stupid but they do help
alcohol is a muscle relaxer. Go to chiro or massage.
Go to chiro
If OP does do that, please, please l, please get informed on what the history is around chiropractic adjustment, and then determine which practitioner (not doctor since they aren’t medically licensed) fits your needs and acceptable methodology.
Chiropractic practice originated around spiritualism, and to some it’s a con man’s version of osteopathic treatment.
Chiropractic adjustment reportedly works for some people, but there are many practitioners out there that may do more harm than good.
While I do agree to an extent. This isn’t true across the board. My chiro is also a license doctor for example. Definitely do some homework. But Chiro, generally, works great for back\spine issues. I would be a complete mess with out my chiropractor.
Neither options will solve the problem though
Solve is kind of a strange word to use, because it certainly CAN solve it. For instance, relieving compressed nerves for sciatica for example, something I have treated on and off in my life, chiro has helped me with this more than ANYTHING else I’ve tried.
Been pretty much 10 years with back pain and I also have arthritis and neuropathy. I tried NSAIDS, I tried the other ones, I forget name, tried the brain ones. They were worse than the pain. Destroyed my gut or made me want to blow my brains out and 0 relief. I don’t really like opiates. Not too worried about the addiction as I am Larry Flint type and don’t really care if I am on or off it. They help better (to reduce pain not alleviate) than all the other crap I mentioned. I also take Baclofen once or twice a week to rest me muscles. I take cannabis for my Aphantasia(a longer story not for here) which as an added bonus it also helps alleviate pain. I eat fruit bottom Balkan yogurt once every 2 days and have no plumbing issues sim e I started the yogurt.
Do you do chair exercises? You sit on a chair and then bend your upper body forward as low as you can. Not sure exactly what it does but seems to help. I had sciatica for 3 years and that helped get it fixed. I still get pain in my back when the weather changes or when I get sick like the flu or cold or covid. But otherwise my body learned somehow that the sciatica is not pain.
It was on a weekend when I went swimming with family and then the next morning I could not get up from bed due to back pain. And the exercises from a Kaiser permanent pamphlet were the thing that worked. But dude, they were painful as hell. I hope It helps you or someone else.
Might be neuropathic.
If so, they give gabapentin out like candy, it is addictive tho so you may want to consider it “as needed” even tho they’ll want you to take it on a schedule.
Gabapentin isn’t addictive as far as I’m aware, but pregabalin aka lyrica is. Both do similar things
I have neuropathic pain and acupuncture has helped manage it so I can stay away from these kinds of medicine. Might be worth giving a shot (if nothing else you get a nap, which I always welcome).
If gabapentin is addictive it must be psychological because I’ve been on and off of it for years now and there isn’t any withdrawal I can discern.
Everybody is different.
I can’t metabolize most painkillers, they do literally nothing to me because I’m missing a liver enzyme. I could eat a handful of percacet every day for months and quit cold turkey easy, because I was never really getting anything out of to begin with.
There are countless reasons why people react differently to medication, that’s why doctors just try random shit till something seems to work.
It might be educated guesswork, but it’s still guesswork. And there’s very little effort put into why/how one thing worked over others, if it works that’s the end of it.
Is withdrawal a requirement for a substance to be defined as addictive?
I’ve got a degerative disease called Anklyosing Spondylitis, bit of a tongue twister but also my pelvis is splintering due to arthritus associated with the condition so very painful. I find dicofenac works pretty well for flare ups but sometimes I’ll switch over to booze if I’m going out since that works better. NB: I don’t mix booze with the NSAID if I can avoid it, might just intersect at the tail end.
Opiates work better for the pain too but that’s a whole other can of worms I try to avoid opening.
I get it. Alcohol and marijuana actually tends to make my whole body feel numb, whereas medically prescribed painkillers like oxycotin or codeine just give me a head fog and make me sleepy while doing nothing for physical pains. Over the counter shit like ibuprofen and aspirin are utterly useless for me unless taken to reduce a fever. Even the inflammatory properties don’t help alleviate swelling or anything for me.
whereas medically prescribed painkillers (…) just give me a head fog and make me sleepy
which is in start contrast to marijuana 😂
Well, I mean at least the head fog and sleepiness from weed also comes with actual pain relief. 🤷🏻♂️
Marijuana doesn’t make me sleepy. It makes me horny.
Night and day though. I can smoke weed and still get stuff done, it’s almost like spinach for Popeye to grind out a menial task.
Dope though? Fuuuuuuuck it, lets just sit here and watch TV. I don’t normally watch much TV but on any narcotic it’s just perfect.
Sounds like the pain of coming from one of the systems inhibited by the GABAergic system.
because alcohol relaxes muscles and all the medications doctors give as muscle relaxants in the past 20 years are placebos
What you’re really asking is “why do some drugs work for me, while others don’t?”
I’d bet there are some prescriptions that would work for you and probably a number of other “recreational” drugs too
www.jpain.org/article/…/fulltext
the-independent.com/…/two-pints-beer-paracetamol-…
However experts are also speaking out to clarify that the results of the new study don’t mean alcohol is good for us.
When I was waiting for back surgery, the only thing that worked for me was Bacardi 151.
Alcohol is a solution
In your face, nondrinkers! 😂
Alcohol is a really strong painkiller, essentially.
Krudler@lemmy.world 14 hours ago
I’ve read a lot of comments.
My personal experience is very different than what people are saying, maybe it applies to you, maybe it doesn’t.
I have the same thing over my life with different types of pain. I would be given different pain relievers from surgeons, dentists, doctors, etc. For the most part it did fuck all.
Now that I am decades older and I’ve gone through all this bullshit, I basically learned that I’m immune to most painkillers. I metabolize caffeine very quickly and codeine and morphine are in the same family - so they’re useless on me!
Freezing at the dentist always took double or triple. And very often the dentist would have to stop mid procedure and reapply freezing.
These are just a few, but certainly not all of my experiences, being completely baffled at the ineffectiveness of painkillers.
My friends could never understand why I was so blasé when I was prescribed heavy duty medications. And I could never understand why they were doing flying cartwheels to get them off me. It makes a lot more sense now that I figured shit out.
And like you, I turned to alcohol, actually at the advice of one of my oral surgeons who finally just said “look go home drink a 6 pack you won’t feel any pain”.
Let’s leave all the completely unethical recommendations out of the discussion for now, and accept the fact that we now have more knowledge about painkillers than we did back in the day.
All of this to say, you may be just simply immune to painkillers. There’s a variety of reasons for that, and it’s no sense trying to explore those in the comments with laypeople like myself.
But on to any advice that I might give you? Perhaps not advice per se… but to tell you that what I did which helped me and perhaps it will help you.
I finally got over all my chronic pain by stretching and strengthening. I’m not going to sugar-coat it, certain parts of it were hell. I went to an athletic therapist who made me cry, but made me stand up straight. And I devoted myself to doing all the exercises and stretches… yes… 45 minutes every 2nd day for like 10 weeks. But damn did it pay off. That initial investment (not trying to half-ass it or go through the motions) got me to a certain plateau where I barely have to stretch anymore, my body is pretty happy.
I sincerely hope any of this applies to you and can be used but if not oh well maybe it will help someone else!