I bow to your superior knowledge of pain medication. I am not worthy. I remember demerol as being very helpful for post surgical pain, and codeine, but no one gave it to me for long. Narcotics make me sick as a dog, anyway, so thank God the only prolonged pain I've had was controllable with NSAIDs.
For the one client I represented who wound up taking methadone, it was precisely the long half-life that was the benefit. This is the guy who was treated for Hodgkin's with simultaneous bleomycin and radiation, which, as one doctor scientifically described it, "fried" his tissue around his heart and lungs. The scar tissue twisted up, as it will, and twisted nerve tissue with it, so that he suffers chronic chest pain. And it did something to the vagus nerve, is my theory, which can't remember is autonomic afferent or what, but it's a feedback nerve, sometimes it goes haywire, so he feels like he's got an elephant on his chest, as he puts it. He's a very nice guy, used to be a cop, and a Golden Gloves boxer. The doctor who committed the malpractice committed the further malpractice, IMO, of treating him with megadoses of percoset for years, like 18 a day is what I recall. Anyway, I developed a friendship with the guy, and encouraged him to get off the percoset and onto something more appropriate. Eventually his pain doctors decided on methadone. He also gets some good relief from acupuncture, twice a week. |
