Hi ourfullhouse,
Fascinating how our bodies react sometimes, isn’t it? I haven’t tried (or needed to try, knock on wood) many pain meds. Even a kidney stone was basically manageable UNTIL I got this “frozen shoulder” which DUMPS massive amounts of inflammatory cytokines into our bodies! It’s almost like it happened to confirm all I’ve been researching — my inflammation obviously went up, I ached like I had a very high fever (IL-6 and some IFN’s do that), and pain is now a part of my world. AS PREDICTED, my intracranial pressure went up, too! I’m doing everything I can to reduce the inflammation and acidity, and return to happy body/happy no-pressure on brain -land. I’m trying to hit the source of the pain (the cytokines, chemokines), but I know there are many that we haven’t even identified yet, much less have drugs to combat them. But at a minimum, the mast cell meds (and I’m on a TNF-alpha inhibitor) help prevent the cascade from going crazy. Having said that, I had to read about both Dilaudid (WOW, that stuff is powerful!) and Talwin. Thank you for making me learn. Those are strong, and I can see how they could help, FOR SURE. Talwin also gives you a mental boost (euphoria) in a “normal” person. That would probably bring us to baseline. 🙂 I’ll be curious to see who else uses these. And somehow, I’m reassured, knowing that those drugs are out there “just in case”. Lots of cautions with those meds, I see, but only we know when the benefits outweigh the risks. And I, for one, believe you when you say you need it. BTW, if my neuro will agree, we can have IV mannitol in the hospital (it’s by IV) to lower our ICP. You have to go through the “but I don’t want an LP” issue, though. Oh, for anyone else reading, if you take Benadryl orally, only the liquid will work well for us, and we should always get the CLEAR (no color, no flavor) Benadryl. 🙂