What can be done for severe nerve pain.?

Question

I constantly feel like my body is in a severe fire. I also feel like I am walking on bones and raw skin on broken glass. Whole side of my body feels this way following a cerebral bleed on the left hemisphere. There also are other pains left too. I am on nuerontin and vicodin, but they don't do anything. I don't usually take them because they don't do any good. Any ideas would be appreciated.
Thanks.

I do my physical therapy and this is not something that goes away, so I am not sure what doing to the hospital would do.

Answer 1

Neurontin is not one of those medicines you can not take periodically. You need to take it as prescribed as its efficacy depends of maintaining adequate blood levels. Also, this drug is dose dependent. You may not feel the effects of the drug if you are not on a high enough dose. Talk to your doctor about changing to another drug that is easier to dose (such as lyrica).

Answer 2

I agree, it's time to see your doctor again. Both Lyrica and Neurontin are similar, but they can both take a while to see the effect you're looking for: relief. I take Lyrica, a low dose by my doctor's estimate, and it took about 3 weeks before I noticed a difference, and 4 weeks before the difference was huge. Then we had to tweak my dose up a little to really maintain relief.

So, please, at least start taking your Neurotonin as prescribed, so you can at least see how the pain will respond when it's up to therapeutic doses. Your doctor will then know if it's time to increase the dose, or try a different drug. Also, with any pain drug, it always, always works better if it's circulating in your system before the pain hits, rather than trying to chase your pain with it...that's just the nature of pain.

I also take methadone with the Lyrica, and it's a good drug in that it lasts in the system longer than Vicodin or Percocet (10-12 hours of relief vs. 3-4 hours for me), so I'm not always chasing pain after every 4 hours. I'm also not as stoned on methadone. So that might be an option to discuss with your doctor. It also depends completely on your body; for some neuropathic pain (the pain you have), opiates just don't do a thing, but things like Lyrica or Neurontin are miracle drugs. Some people need nerve blocks or pain pumps to control their pain, because no drug is effective. It all just depends. Please speak to your doctor, and yes, a pain management doctor or neurologist is who should be handling your case, not a family physician.

Answer 3

There are some other options that you can talk with your doc about. First of all, I hope you are seeing a neurologist for this.
Some of the drugs that are used for nerve pain are Cymbalta, it's a new one. I have seen good results with this drug in the patients I've given it to. An old drug that you might suggest is Elavil. It is an antidepressant, but nerve docs use it for nerve pain. Another drug is Lyrica.
Remember, not everything works for everybody. Keep in mind, this could be something else entirely, so talk with a neurologist about your concerns.
Hope you feel better.

Answer 4

I feel about the same as you, and I realized the Neurontin doesn't help unless I take it regularly like clockwork. I am on 800mg three times a day. Without it I am in agony. I am on Percocet but that doesn't help nearly as much as Neurontin....again, taken on a regular basis (which I am terrible at but pain drove me to it.)

Good luck

Answer 5

Check out this website. I found it very useful for a similar problem.
http://ailments.in/peripheralneuropathy.html

Answer 6

i think you should exercise every day and when you have those go to the hospital.