From my research on Post Herpetic Neuralgia I found a very useful medical journal article about its possible treatments. One of the main points the article made was that it was rare for patients to respond to a single therapy and that a simultaneous multi drug approach would be more successful.
I therefore went to my doctor with my hypothesis and the article information and discussed my findings and asked that I be prescribed the medication to try the multi drug approach described in the article.
My doctor certainly appeared to consider that my explanation as to why I was suffering from CFS was a reasonable theory. However my doctor was initially reluctant to prescribe all three drugs at once, indicating that we would not know which were helping and also there was the problem that the strong pain killer Tramadol mentioned in the article is an Opioid based drug and so has the potential to become addictive. I persisted pointing out that by that time I had already not worked for four years, so perhaps a more radical action was required and by now my doctor should know that I am logical and sensible about taking medication.
He agreed and prescribed the following three drugs:-
Gabapentin which I was already taking and appeared to be improving things for me slightly.
Tramadol is a strong (Opioid based) painkiller.
Amitriptyline is an antidepressant which I had already tried on its own without much improvement.
My doctor indicated that I should start taking just the Tramadol with the Gabapentin tablets I was already taking and see how I got on with these tablets for a week or so and then also start taking Amitriptyline. In this way I would at least know which drug may have caused any side effects.
We also agreed how many of each type of tablets I could take and how I could try varying the dose of each tablet one at a time in an attempt to find the best combination for me.
Go to Part14. More progress, I did some work!
No comments:
Post a Comment