…walk as the pain is
so bad. I watch my sugar and take medicine as I"m a light diabetic. The pain seems to be getting more intense as the weeks go on. The other day I took a walk as it wasn’t so bad when I started. I walked maybe 1/2 mile and on the way back it got so intense I was starting to wonder if I was going to make it back. I was ready to flag down a car because it was so bad. I take gabapentin but it doesn’t seem like its working anymore. I do have a serious back injury also. What can I take that will help be deal with this horrible pain as I can’t do anything! If somebody said for me to stand on my head for 24 hours I would do it.
I too am going through the same thing. But unlike you I can not walk more than a half a block before I am in so much pain, I can’t walk at all. I was in the hospital 4 weeks ago they ran every test known to man, and could not come up with a solution. I had a Vascular surgeon, Neurologist, foot doctor, and a diabetic doctor look at them. They were all stomped with the pain in the ankles and across the top of the feet. The Diabetes doctor said that part of it was Enumerator, but the pain in the ankles and top of the foot wasn’t. I have to see a doctor today, he suppose to give me some kind of pain medicine for it. When they released me from the hospital the gave me Peracet, but that you can’t take all the time. It kills the pain and makes you sleepy. I advise you to go back to your doctor and tell him what you are now taking isn’t working any more and you need something else, perhaps something more stronger. I am not able to work because of it. If you find a answer please let me know, I will do the same if I receive something that works.
We don’t have a lot of options for diabetic neuropathy. The maximum dose of gabapentin is 3600mg/day. If you are not taking this much, talk to your doctor about the increased pain and about increasing your Neurontin (gabapentin) dose.
Also, don’t stop taking this medication abruptly just because you don’t think it is working without talking to your doctor. It needs to be slowly decreased over the course of a week.
There are a lot of options for diabetic neuropathy. The first step is to maintain good diabetic control. Medications are typically added in this order. A non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug such as ibuprofen although I prefer meloxicam and piroxicam. Acetaminophen which is generic Tylenol. A drug that works on the nerve synapse such as amitriptyline which is inexpensive although there are many others. A drug that works on the nerve membrane such as gabapentin. When using gabapentin physicians do not realize that there is no maximal dosage other than the dose being limited by side effects. Finally an opioid is used. My first choice would be tramadol hydrochloride as it is not a ‘scheduled’ drug. This may sound like a lot of pills but diabetic neuropathy is a lot of pain. The goal of therapy is not to make someone pain free – although this sometimes happens – but to reduce the pain so that it does not interfere with activities. If I may be of further assistance please let me know. I wish you the very best of health and in all things may God bless.
believe me I understand…I have suffered with this for several years now and it is difficult to deal with. The pain was so bad that they had me on multiple STRONG pain meds….but it doesn’t help to be painfree at the expense of being looped all of the time. I finally had to choose between the pain and being coherent. I now take OTC pain meds such as Percogesic, or just take a deep breath and bear it, neither one is easy….and I can’t fly anymore without an airplane, but hey, you have to do what you have to do…….if you choose to take OTC meds check with your Doctor as some of them are VERY bad on your kidneys which starts off a whole new set of problems.
Good Luck and God bless….
As I understand it, diabetic neuopathy developes from long term uncontrolled sugar. My mom has this, her sugar has ranged from 180 to over 300 for several years now, never under any control, but taking diabetes meds. If your sugar is under control, I would think to look for another explaination for the pain, like fibro myalgia, or pinched nerve since you did say you have back injury, or something else. I am not a doctor and have never been to medical school, so if your doctor says it is neuopathy, then he is probably right.
Anyhow, that being said, there are several over the counter creams and soaks for the feet in the diabetic section of most pharmacies. I can not attest to how well they work, though, but I don’t see how they could hurt. Also, I believe there are prescription creams to help with the pain, and your doctor can prescribe some special socks (most insurance will not pay for these socks though). Maybe a visit to the podiatrist couldn’t hurt either? Check out this webpage: http://diabetes.webmd.com/features/nerve-pain-treatment?page=2 I think there should be loads of helpful advice to combat or at least help to reduce some of your pain. Good luck!
While we are not MDs here, I am wondering if you are attributing the pain to the wrong cause – it could well be that your back injury is now contributing to your neuropathy and/or your pain.
I would get to a doctor and talk this out – perhaps physical therapy or pain management might also be in order.
All the very best.
You should use Tramadol, it is the best about it you can get information from here http://webmd67.notlong.com/AAkMstX
When I was in terrible pain and couldn’t sleep I started using google. Put "vitamin D pain relief" in your search engine. Bottom line, I took 50,000 IU vitamin D/per day for three days and then cut back to 10,000 IU/day. The pain was gone in about a week.
Doctor said nothing could regenerate damaged nerve cells. Put "nerve regeneration methylcobalamin" in your search engine. I found that five studies were done in Japan and Russia where the sciatic nerve of animals was crushed with pliers and the nerve cells were regenerated with relative high doses of methylcobalamin. They used the human equivalent of 40 to 80 mg/day. I used 30mg/day for ten days, then 10mg/day. It took a couple of months, but all symptoms of neuropathy are gone. It has been over seven months since I have fallen. I was falling about three time a week.