pain control

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cats_love_me
cats_love_me Member Posts: 109

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  • cats_love_me
    cats_love_me Member Posts: 109
    edited March 2008

    Mom is working w/ hopsice, breast cancer mets lots of places but causing the most destruction in the liver (its swiss cheese like w. cancer).

    Her pain levels are starting to increase rapidly.

    She was on 40mg of oxycotin and now increase to 60 mg.

    She takes oxyfast for break thru pain, i believe it was every 2 hrs, now every hour as needed.  She was taking it every hour four a day or two, when they added some new pain pills the gabapentin. 

    She just got neurotin (gabapentin) 300 1xday, and they just switched it to
    100 breakfast   100mg lunch and 300 mg at night on sat. 

    I was wondering if you others had found that their pain meds stopped working, if they switched to a liquid it would start working better?
    Since mom's liver isn't working very well (bad liver enzymes 3-4 weeks ago, and i'm assuming they have only gotten worse).  Should we be asking them to switch to one of the morphine pain patches.

    besides the pain patch, are there other liquid, or under the tongue meds?

    THanks for your help.  Unfortunately dad and mom didn't let me know what was up.  I had called a few times this week, got, everything is fine.  Then yestureday called, mom was woozy, and jsut up from a nap and not all quit there.  Find out they upped and changed some meds.

    Its frustrating, i keep telling my dad to let me know if they add or change her meds.  He doesn't look things up, and look at side affects, he kind of does what they say, and not to try to figure out why she is suddenly in more pain.  It may just be the evil cancer, but i'm wondering if she isn't digesting, metabolizing the oxycotin anymore. 

    Thanks.

    Connie

  • luckywife
    luckywife Member Posts: 427
    edited March 2008

    Connie,

    I am so sorry that your mom is having so much pain problem. Would hospice allow your mom access to a pain control specialist? They should probably have one on their own staff? If not, I am sure you will be able to check with the insurance co. if she can see a pain doctor.

    As for pain meds fentanyl patches come in variety of strengths and can be adjusted with increasing or decreasing pain. I started them recently and work very well for me. You may be able to do searches on this site on fentanyl as a keyword to find some recent conversations.

    Let us know what worked for you and particularly how hospice is working out w.r.t pain management. That is a big issue for many dealing cancer dx, which has to be faced on of these days.

    I will keep your mom in my prayers as pain is very difficult to deal with. May she get some relief soon. You are a wonderful daughter.

    -luckywife

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