Chronic neck and lower back pain.....

I feel I need to introduce myself. I am a retired electrician. I suffered an electrical injury in 1981. I became "hung-up" on a piece of electrical equipment, in other words electrocuted. The current passed from one hand to the other. A co-worker in another trade noticed what was happening and managed to knock me loose, and as I landed on my tailbone, I regained consciousness. The effect was that one cervical disc was gone and another ruptured. This was discovered a year later when I underwent exploratory surgery, result was a cervical fusion. I later found out about damage to the lumbar spine, resulting in another fusion. In 1996 I was ejected from a bass boat at high speed and fractured all ribs on my left side. This was when the orthopedic surgeon informed me I should file for my disability. Now many years later, after all the therapy, many different drugs and all the good pain no one should suffer I am having a life again with methadone therapy. I've been taking 5 - 10mg tablets daily, since somewhere around 2001. It still gives good relief. I need 2 - 30mg Adderall along with it for day time sleepiness. So now we are all addicts. I was ready to call Dr. Kevorkian when my family Dr. convinced me to go see a pain management Dr. and started the methadone therapy. Now he's worried that I may not be able to find another provider if something happens to him. Yesterday we talked about weaning me off the methadone if worse comes to happen..... scared in Texas. I know I'm not the only one...

I am glad you've found something which works. Your doctor should find you a clinician who understands your needs in case he retires or worse. Methodone sounds like a god sent for you and I'm glad. I've not tried it and suffer so badly more often than not. I was put on morphine once and that didn't help like I was hoping so I got off. Cannabis has been the most effective treatment I've tried so far but it's currently cost prohibitive and comes with legal penalties and risks. The risks are worth it though and I want to learn to grow it. Too bad we couldn't grow methadone!

Thanks for sharing your story.

ElsaMars, Canabis is an excellent treatment for chronic pain. But like you say the cost can be prohibitive in more ways than one. If you truly are interested in learning to grow for your own use a good and well written book is Marijuana Botany, by Robert Clarke. It will take you through the history and different methods used by top growers. But back to the methadone therapy. It is a different kind of pain relief. Where morphine will dull the pain it also dulls the senses. Methadone is just the opposite, it can take up to three days to start working, but when it does the pain seems to just fade. Your mind is not dulled nor are your reflexes. It does cause sleepiness, before I started the Adderall with it I would go to sleep if I set down and closed my eyes. But as long as I stay active and moving it's been a Godsend. There are a lot of misconceptions about it. I researched it for quite a while before I committed to taking it. Plus it is very affordable. Even if my insurance did not cover a large portion of it I could still afford it. Don't give up if you try it and seem not to get relief, my Dr. told me of one patient he prescribed it for. This lady was having no luck, she was up to 15 10mg tablets a day. He up her slowly until at 20 tablets she suddenly had that blessed relief, and I know, it's like waking up from a bad dream that never ends. Like me she has been taking it for years now and still at that same dosage. This is my family Dr. from a small E.TX. town, there are not many like him left. This part of the state has what seems almost like a boycott on any kind of pain meds. I don't understand it but I'm not in their shoes.

just read your post today, how are your neck and back? i was on methadone for how long? among alll the other pain meds i've been given. methadone worked great!! until....ekg changes, had to come off it like yesterday, or maybe the day before. i just had c6-7 fusion a few weeks ago. i've been so very happy that my pain is so much less. pain doc i guess tried to warn me "this is the honeymoon period".
ok so how is your pain now? have you had any other procedures? i so much want to come off these pain meds. side effects mostly bother me, if you take them i don't have to tell you what they are, you know.
neuro doc is talking about a spinal cord stimulator implant for my lumbar discs. says the surgery there is much more involved and recovery worse. has that been your experience? also concerned cuz of my smoking for so many years and that i still smoke a bit, and use an ecig. he wants me to use a bone growth stimulator (i think that's what it's called) for the cadaver bone to fuse. my insurance won't approve it. did you have that?
so many questions, but with chronic pain, what do we have but time?

sharonkitchen I just now found your post, sorry it's been so long. I'm interested in what you call ekg issues? What was the amount of Methadone you were taking? I have heard about heart problems after taking more than a max of 5 10mg. tablets per day. That is why I'm trying to stay at that dosage. I still have good pain relief. I have not had any more procedures yet. But the day is coming.... The side effects are another problem, the constipation I control with probiotics. That's the biggest one for me.
The lumbar fusion was like a truck wreck. I very nearly had to learn to walk again. But then I was not walking all that well before. My left leg was one large sciatic nerve pain. Nothing would relieve it, and I was basically just dragging it around with me. When I had this done they still took patient bone from your hip. I have no experience with the bone growth simulator or cadaver bone.
I can say that stopping the tobacco habit helped me so much in other health concerns. I would urge you to stop if possible.
My main problem now is spinal stenosis. The neuro describes my neck as one big bone spur. Says that in time I will loose the use of one or both arms, only then will he consider a procedure on my neck. The problem is to high up, close to the brain stem and therefore.... we will wait and see. I think that is a problem some people had after fusion with their own bone. It started growing and won't stop. Makes for a narley old neck MRI. A young neuro I went to way back when looked at my MRI and got rather beside himself trying to figure out just how I got around as well as I do. Got to find the humor where ever you can. I had fun with him.....
But back to the now. The lumbar fusion is a hard decision. The special kind of pain that the largest nerve in the body can cause is something to consider. I could not get away from it and was down to knocking my self out with alcohol or anything else I could find just to get some rest and some kind of sleep. That is a bad place to be. As hard as the surgery was to recoup from I would still do it to get away from that pain. But it depends on age also. I hit 66 this year. I don't know if I could take another procedure as hard as the lumbar now......
Some people have a great result with the spinal cord stimulator implant, it's worth a try to see. The devices they have available now are so much better than when I went through all that. They did not help me one bit. Most were electrical stimulation and that may be a factor. My electrical injury kind of made me allergic to that stuff.
I should get off my soap box now for a little while.