Hi Tim,
Welcome, I am Sheila. I, myself, had the Intrathecal Narcotic Pump. I wanted to let you know that you can post questions to Bob Englehart concerning the pump. I had mine due to severe chronic pain in my lower back.
I would like to suggest that you can go to the search box, in the right of the screen, and put in "Willing to share experience with the Intrathecal Narcotic Pump", and you will reach Bob. Although he isn't a doctor, he is fairly educated concerning the pump and has helped answer many questions.
Tim, you sure are in my thoughts, and I am not just writing that...I mean it. I have been suffering for nearly 12 years with Chronic Pain, and I have also been on the roller coaster of pain mangagement doctors, depression, anxiety and my physical health going downhill as well. I can not imagine 30 years of it.
Please keep in touch. So many here understand, they truly do.
Take Care,
Sheila
quote:
Originally posted by Tim:
Hi to everyone. It seems that the majority of the post are by people dealing with chronic pain from back problems. Mine is due to Gastrointestinal motility disorders/dieases. I have been on and off large amounts of opiates for over 30 years. I was finally correctly diagnosed about 3 years ago after years of surgeries and incorrect diagnoses. My health took a turn for the worse in the late 90's and was declared totally disabled in 2001, primarily for depression, anxiety/panic disorder, and lastly for what is called "gastrointestinal "dumping syndrome". About 3 years ago my symptoms and health took another turn downhill. My weight dropped to under 100lbs, anything I eat causes intense pain as it goes it way through my GI track. I have what is labeled "Generalized Motility disorders" because I have so many symptoms. I have a very high toloerance to pain meds. Right now I am "temporarily" on MS elixer, 40mg every 4hrs. I just recently found a new pain management Doctor that seems to think I have an absorbtion problen with oral meds passing through my liver. He thinks that the pump will work well for me since it bypasses the liver and can use less medication. I go into the hospital Tuesday(July 7th) for the trial period. If it works then they will schedule the procedure to implant it. I must admit I am hopefull and afraid at the same time. There is a lady that has a blog(you can find it by searching for Mary-Angela). She also started a support website in 1991 called AGMD. Her blog desribes what life is like living with these disorders/diseases and the support website goes more into detail on the research being done. Her latest post she called it "the invisible disease" because people are all the time coming up to youand saying things like you look like you feel better today, or you don't look sick among other comments.
I have been told that there are several types of pumps. One that is programmed to dispense a certian amount around the clock and another one that has a button on it that is programmed to where you can administer an extra dose if I have break through pain. I haven't seen anything about that one in my short time of looking over the many helpfull post that so many of you have put on this site. I relise that I have rambled on long enough, but wanted to introduce myself and look forward to reading more of the posts. Thank you for having this forum because this is not something that you can talk to anyone that hasn't suffered with chronic pain and frustration with the medical community and Insurance companies.
