I’m not looking for medical advice, but more understanding. I have chronic back pain. I can alleviate it completely with only 2 things - alcohol and a heating pad. Ibuprofen lessens it but it’s still present. Muscle relaxers do nothing (which makes sense because it’s not muscle related, it’s spinal disk degeneration).
A tall glass of whiskey makes my back relax and I can move normally. Once it wears off tho, it’s right back to tense and painful.
Alcohol is a known muscle relaxant. That fact is even a plot point early in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, but I digress.
It’s also something of a mind relaxant. If your pain is made worse by tensing up worrying about the pain, then alcohol is going to help both ways, because you’ll be less able to worry and you won’t be able to tense quite so much anyway.
I’d be surprised if neither ibuprofen nor diclofenac have any effect at all - but don’t take those with alcohol in your system. Liver damage is not something you want to add to your list of ailments.
Consult a physician, etc.
While we’re talking about OTC NSAIDs, might should mention aspirin and acetaminophen/tylenol have even higher risk of liver damage when used with alcohol
Yes, having paracetamol for the hangover after you’ve been binge drinking puts a lot of strain on your liver so best avoided.
I knew someone in uni who’d have a xanax if they felt they would have a hangover the next day. Had to tell them it was a borderline suicidal “trick” because they were potentiating all the booze in their system, SMH.
Holy shit, what a “trick”
When I was younger I found out that if I ended the night with a few lines I’d wake up the next morning with a nose bleed, but no hangover.
Not a pro tip at all but your comment took me back to my younger and much much stupider days haha
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If alcohol works it might be neuropathic pain and then this could work on it as well, using some of the same mechanisms of action as alcohol
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabapentin
But I dislike giving medical advice as am not a doctor. Something to research at least.
Gabapenten has serious side effects, dont just go get some and go “o we gonna be good.”
Gabapenten
hascan have serious side effects for some people, dont just go get some and go “o we gonna be good.”FTFY. Everyone’s brain chemistry is different. For some, it can be a lifesaver in low doses for anxiety, for some (like me) it can be used as an adjunct to acetaminophen/paracetamol in a combination that is more effective for pain than opioids (had a minor hemorrhage in an adrenal gland - not fun), and for others it can cause extreme depression and other behavior changes.
Noone should take it without the supervision of a medical professional.
Neither my partner or I have any side effects with gabapentin! I take it occasionally, and they take like 900-1200mg daily for spicy nerve pain that makes life horrible.
Uhm, I don’t think I did.
You shouldn’t take strong prescription drugs willy-nilly.
Wasn’t talking to you directly, but appending additional info to what you were saying. You kinda did suggest that taking gabapentin would help with their pain, so while Yes, its a terrible idea to take prescription stuff without knowing what you are doing, if they are gonna read what you told them and decide to ignore the part where you suggest you are uncomfortable providing medical advice and then go ahead and do it anyway, they should at least be warned that your advice is particularly dangerous due to gabapentins mental side effects.
I didn’t provide medical advice. I provided access to medical information.
I’m saying that pain that is neuropathic is often treated with Gabapentin, which in the long run, is healthier and safer than self-medicating.
Thus if OP looks up what neuropathic pain is and gets concerned, they should call a doctor and tell all this. Which is when the actual medical advice will come.
You can give people information about medicine without giving them medical advice.
To piggyback on another comment. Massage. I’m a massage therapist who sees clients with disk issues all the time.
99% of the time it’s because of shortened hip flexors (your psoas attached to your bottom vertebrae and as it shortens, is too tight to let your spine stretch which then just crushes your disks) due to both extended time in a seated position as well as a weak core. Stretch, get a massage, find a PT to help with chronic back pain. Start doing crunches before bed.
Also drink more water. Only kinda related but basically everyone should be drinking more water.
Piggyback?! Bro, people are in enough pain in this thread!
Oh, take my damn upvote you punny bastard. 😂
Why crunches before bed? Physical exercise before going to bed seems like insomnia recipe.
Is it not better to do it in the morning or the afternoon?
Statistically, you should be doing more exercises in general.
But working out absolutely does improve sleep, as well as mood, digestion, memory recall, anxiety, and basically every other common ailment.
Please go work out more. Even if its just a walk or some crunches. Just get 15-30 minutes per day of continuous exercise. I promise you you’ll see a difference
No one says the opposite. I’m a very active person.
Just not at night right before going to bed. I feel like that could lead to bad quality of sleep.
Well it’s your feelings compared to the huge amount of scientific backing. And the article I linked to has a bunch of sources too, although I consider John Hopkins Hospital a valid primary source for medicine
The article you linked states that many people have trouble sleeping if they do exercise before going to bed, because the physiological response of doing exercise activates the body in a way that makes it harder to sleep for a while and recommend doing it a couple of hours before.
Like the other response said, some light exercise before bed is generally good for sleep. If you feel it’s waking you up, your brain might already be in go-mode. Do you limit blue light or anything before bed?
If you still feel before bed is no good, or don’t have the time or whatever, literally anything is better than nothing.
Hip hooks are also great for getting at those muscles, which are otherwise very difficult to stretch.
Strengthening my core literally straightened my spine significantly and improved my lordosis. It’s like putting on a corset.
But also, if you can’t really do crunches, leg raises and planks are good too.
Idk what happened but over the weekend my back went to hell in a hand basket. I’m usually in pretty good shape but this went from 0-100 immediately. I’ve heard some good things about the GIBoard for core strength and stability so I’m looking to see if that helps. It’ll help me with stretching too so hopefully that’ll do something…
GIBoard
You got me looking at these. Then I started looking around. Is there a reason to get one of the ~200 USD balance boards over a 20 USD wobble board? Other than durability, I guess.
Different applications mostly, this is a slackboard and those are balance boards. There are knockoff slackboards but so far this thing kinda kicks ass. There’s a lot of different exercises that can be done on them but idk, it’s your call. I’m satisfied with my purchase though.
Ok, that giboard actually looks kind of awesome…does it easily someone like 140-250lbs?
The only minor detail for me might be that my balance is totally shit.
Maybe it has to do with its effects on GABA receptors? Have you ever tried something like gabapentin or pregabalin?
The doc put me on gabapentin for my nerve pain (ulnar and carpel tunnel) and I thought it was hitting the right receptors to help me stay off of alcohol, or dulled my desire for it. Turns out I was just self medicating the nerve pain and with the GABA I didn’t need the booze so much.
Don’t drink and take Gabapentin. They work on different receptors on the same channel. That means they have unpredictable effects together. The effects aren’t additive, they’re more like multiplicative. And more random than either alone.
These make you stupid but they do help
Because you’re not taking the good pain meds.
I’ve lived with chronic back pain for 20 years, and I have 3 stages of medication I go through (though mine is alignment-related, so muscle relaxers help): aleve (the only OTC painkiller that touches my back pain), tramadol (moderate-strength opioid, can’t take it for long or it causes plumbing problems), and tizanadine (the serious industrial-strength muscle relaxers; knocks me out for 8 hours and usually fixes my back the first time.)
If you’re looking for alternatives, THC helps somewhat with my back pain, but I dunno what’s legal where you are.
Tramadol is quite nasty to come off as well because it functions like a combination of SSRI with opiod effects on your brain. I think it’s the mu-opiod receptors as opposed to the normal opiod ones so more similar to kratom in that respect too.
Yeah, tramadol is weird because it makes you not care about stuff. Which is kinda good because it makes you not care about pain, but also, ya know, the other stuff too. But it was quite easy for me to come off of honestly; I didn’t shit for a week and that was more than enough to make me stop taking it regularly. Now I take it maybe once or twice a month at the outside.
I believe it is like long term use of months or years which can be bad when coming off because it can feel like stopping anti-depressants at the same time as stopping opiates.
I am familiar with the constipation from those types of meds too. Not pleasant!
Oh, yeah, probably. I only used it regularly for like a month or two, 3 pills a day, so it wasn’t so bad for me.
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I’ve got a degerative disease called Anklyosing Spondylitis, bit of a tongue twister but also my pelvis is splintering due to arthritus associated with the condition so very painful. I find dicofenac works pretty well for flare ups but sometimes I’ll switch over to booze if I’m going out since that works better. NB: I don’t mix booze with the NSAID if I can avoid it, might just intersect at the tail end.
Opiates work better for the pain too but that’s a whole other can of worms I try to avoid opening.
I get it. Alcohol and marijuana actually tends to make my whole body feel numb, whereas medically prescribed painkillers like oxycotin or codeine just give me a head fog and make me sleepy while doing nothing for physical pains. Over the counter shit like ibuprofen and aspirin are utterly useless for me unless taken to reduce a fever. Even the inflammatory properties don’t help alleviate swelling or anything for me.
whereas medically prescribed painkillers (…) just give me a head fog and make me sleepy
which is in start contrast to marijuana 😂
Well, I mean at least the head fog and sleepiness from weed also comes with actual pain relief. 🤷🏻♂️
But also, it really depends on the weed. Some strains make it impossible to function from the fog. Others help with sleep. And still others give me crack-like energy.
Well, I mean at least the head fog and sleepiness from weed also comes with actual pain relief. 🤷🏻♂️
ok, i am glad it works for you.
But also, it really depends on the weed.
well, for me all the “positive effects” disappeared over time and i was just left with those meh ones, which is why i ultimately stopped. but it may not be the experience of every person in the world, so…
all the “positive effects” disappeared over time and i was just left with those meh ones
This is the case for every single drug I’ve tried over a long period of time, and one of my hobbies is treating Erowid like a Pokédex.
🎶Gotta catch 'em all, 2C-B!🎶
Marijuana doesn’t make me sleepy. It makes me horny.
Well hello
…you got some marijuana for me?
You want some Skunk?
Night and day though. I can smoke weed and still get stuff done, it’s almost like spinach for Popeye to grind out a menial task.
Dope though? Fuuuuuuuck it, lets just sit here and watch TV. I don’t normally watch much TV but on any narcotic it’s perfect.
I’m not convinced OTC pain meds do anything, especially Tylenol.
Tylenol is interesting - it’s a psychoactive drug. It reduces your brain’s ability to experience pain, or even understand the possibility of pain, rather than reducing the amount of pain you’re feeling. That means different people’s brain chemistry will result in very different results with Tylenol.
Studies were done that show people are slightly more likely to take risks when they’re on Tylenol. Wild stuff.
I think it very much depends on the type of and source of pain.
For me, Tylenol works for headaches and some cold/flu stuff but I’ve never really found it effective for strained muscles etc
Ditto what the others said. You might have just rolled bad RNG (DNA) at character creation (birth) and just gotten stuck with immunity to certain painkillers. It happens. Bad luck, friend.
I have a type of rheumatoid arthritis (spondylitis) and nsaids have a pretty profound effect.
I think it depends on the person too. Tylenol doesn’t work well for me, even prescription Tylenol; it kind of just makes me nauseous. Advil works great though.
My parents both seem to prefer Ibuprofen, but I swear by Excedrin as a miracle drug. But Excedrin is like, everything.
But Ibuprofen is better for muscle pain.
Oh, Excedrin and Tylenol absolutely help headaches. I’ve had some splitting headaches that weren’t migraines, and I can feel the pain get a lot better over 15-20. Of course water also helps, but it’s faster than natural, I think.
Basically the only thing that help my headaches is caffeine. But that’s probably a me problem.
They only work for me if I take a much larger dose than what the label suggests, but I fear for my liver.
What you’re really asking is “why do some drugs work for me, while others don’t?”
I’d bet there are some prescriptions that would work for you and probably a number of other “recreational” drugs too
I’ve read a lot of comments.
My personal experience is very different than what people are saying, maybe it applies to you, maybe it doesn’t.
I have the same thing over my life with different types of pain. I would be given different pain relievers from surgeons, dentists, doctors, etc. For the most part it did fuck all.
Now that I am decades older and I’ve gone through all this bullshit, I basically learned that I’m immune to most painkillers. I metabolize caffeine very quickly and codeine and morphine are in the same family - so they’re useless on me!
Freezing at the dentist always took double or triple. And very often the dentist would have to stop mid procedure and reapply freezing.
These are just a few, but certainly not all of my experiences, being completely baffled at the ineffectiveness of painkillers.
My friends could never understand why I was so blasé when I was prescribed heavy duty medications. And I could never understand why they were doing flying cartwheels to get them off me. It makes a lot more sense now that I figured shit out.
And like you, I turned to alcohol, actually at the advice of one of my oral surgeons who finally just said “look go home drink a 6 pack you won’t feel any pain”.
Let’s leave all the completely unethical recommendations out of the discussion for now, and accept the fact that we now have more knowledge about painkillers than we did back in the day.
All of this to say, you may be just simply immune to painkillers. There’s a variety of reasons for that, and it’s no sense trying to explore those in the comments with laypeople like myself.
But on to any advice that I might give you? Perhaps not advice per se… but to tell you that what I did which helped me and perhaps it will help you.
I finally got over all my chronic pain by stretching and strengthening. I’m not going to sugar-coat it, certain parts of it were hell. I went to an athletic therapist who made me cry, but made me stand up straight. And I devoted myself to doing all the exercises and stretches… yes… 45 minutes every 2nd day for like 10 weeks. But damn did it pay off. That initial investment (not trying to half-ass it or go through the motions) got me to a certain plateau where I barely have to stretch anymore, my body is pretty happy.
I sincerely hope any of this applies to you and can be used but if not oh well maybe it will help someone else!
Sounds like the pain is coming from one of the systems inhibited by the GABAergic system.
http://www.jpain.org/article/S1526-5900(16)30334-0/fulltext
However experts are also speaking out to clarify that the results of the new study don’t mean alcohol is good for us.
because alcohol relaxes muscles and all the medications doctors give as muscle relaxants in the past 20 years are placebos
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Been pretty much 10 years with back pain and I also have arthritis and neuropathy.
I tried NSAIDS, I tried the other ones, I forget name, tried the brain ones. They were worse than the pain. Destroyed my gut or made me want to blow my brains out and 0 relief.
I don’t really like opiates. Not too worried about the addiction as I am Larry Flint type and don’t really care if I am on or off it. They help better (to reduce pain not alleviate) than all the other crap I mentioned. I also take Baclofen once or twice a week to rest me muscles.
I take cannabis for my Aphantasia(a longer story not for here) which as an added bonus it also helps alleviate pain. I eat fruit bottom Balkan yogurt once every 2 days and have no plumbing issues since I started the yogurt.
