Crazy with pain. What should I ask for?

[AngelaandKC]

Hi all,

I had a slip and fall on Saturday and screwed up my knee. They gave me a precription for "hydrocodone" which is a generic for Percaset I think. The bottle says to take one or two every six hours for pain. I am taking two every four hours and it is only taking the edge off. I need something more heavy duty. Anyone have thoughts on what I should ask for? I am allergic to Vicodin and morphine.

Boy, they haven't been able to pin point what's wrong. But something must really be screwed up if I can feel how bad this hurts.

They think that I have either:
1. Torn the MCL
2. Strained ligaments
3. Something with my patella.

OUUUUUCHHHHHH!!!!!!
I can't put weight down on it and am currently in one of those long knee braces. Have had to go back to the forearm crutches so that I don't put weight down. Thank goodness it's my bum leg, but what a pain in the butt!

Irony is that I slipped and fell at the pool trying to get healthy!

Bally's better watch out that I don't sue them. I warned them a month ago that they needed slip mats.

Any advice would be great.

[David Berg]

Hydrocodone is the generic name for Vicodin, so if you have had a bad reaction to Vicodin in the past you better get on the horn with your doc ASAP and get a script for something different. I don't recall the specifics, but I do know there are a couple different strengths of Vicodin.

I've had the same experience as you in the past where hydrocodone scarcely took the edge off acute pain. The only thing I usually take Vicodin for anymore is as a cough medicine...IO discovered how effective it was years ago after knee surgery and I got a cold. I was a little surprised to discover that the PDR officially lists Vicodin as an anti-tussive...a cough medicine. Nothing else will come close to stopping my cough.

After my surgery a couple years ago they prescribed Percocet. It worked about as well as anything else. Of course, I was taking generics, but I was really caught off guard one time when I filled my prescription at a different pharmacy and got a different brand of generic. It really knocked my socks off; I took 2 at night for a painful dressing change and the next morning I couldn't even stand without holding the wall and had to take the day off work. I've never had that reaction from a pain med before, at least not an oral med.

For me if the pain's bad enough, good luck getting *anything* to really control it. (And I'm not even talking about neuropathic pain...that's another ballgame.) After my surgery I had a complication where the stiches in my gut pulled out while I was just laying in bed and they had me totally maxed on morphine until they figured out what was wrong and rushed me back to surgery again. They'd give me a shot, I'd be knocked out for about 15 minutes then within 30 minutes of the shot I'd just lay there in misery waiting for the next hourly shot. Not trying to outdo your pain, just letting you know I can relate at least a little.