Medication

Accurate as of 22/7/2016

So, in my last post I mentioned that a year after I broke my wrist I was referred to the pain clinic, and it was there that I finally got a diagnosis. What I decided not to mention was the various medication that I've been put on for my pain, and my reactions to the medication. I'm lucky, because even though I've been suffering for over two years, I haven't actually been on all that much medication.

In the beginning:
As they weren't entirely sure what was wrong with me, they prescribed me fairly normal painkillers to take when I felt necessary:

• Ibruprofen
• Paracetamol

These painkillers did very little for the pain. At this point, I was also taking them because I had damaged my knees and hips.

Pain Clinic #1
After a year of taking over the counter painkillers, I finally got an appointment with the Pain Clinic. I was prescribed:

• Prednisolone
• Pregabalin
• High Dose of Vitamin C

The Vitamin C made me physically sick, and so I refused to take it. At the point, I was starting my GCSE exams and so didn't want the medication to affect my results. Both the prednisolone and pregabalin made me feel sick, and once I had taken them all I felt no difference. I was still in immense amounts of pain.

Pain Clinic #2
A year on from my first pain clinic appointment I was given another appointment. After explaining to the consultant that the previous set of medication actually made no difference, he decided to put me on something stronger.

• Nortriptyline

The antidepressant works by increasing the amount of specific nerve transmitters in the nervous system, thus reducing the number of "pain messages" arriving in the brain.

So far it seems to be working pretty well. I had been sleeping terribly due to the pain, and the nortriptyline is knocking me out in about 40 minutes. However, I am finding it far more difficult to wake up in a morning and I am having to set several alarms at 10 minute intervals just so I can be sure that I'll be awake. My wrist is still very painful and sensitive, though the numbness and mottling of the skin seems to be reducing.

I'll write another post if anything regarding medication changes. For now, this is perfectly up-to-date.

Thank you for reading my blog. If you are interested in finding out more about CRPS, then I have provided some links below:

According to www.nhs.co.uk: Complex Regional Pain Syndrome is a poorly understood condition in which a person experiences persistent severe and debilitating pain. Up to 1 in 3,800 people develop CRPS in the UK each year.

According to www.burningnightscrps.org: CRPS occurs when both the nervous system and immune system malfunction as they respond to any tissue damage from trauma.