Well it was, yes, it was suggested, by the Pain Management Centre, that I go onto the Oxycontin but my GP was to prescribe it. It was a fortnight before my GP got the letter and it was suggested that I was prescribed 5mg twice a day. I went to the chemist with my prescription and she said that they only did 10mg tablets and, because they were, they weren’t scored and they were coated, enteric-coated, they couldn’t be cut in half, so into 5mg, so that meant another few days delay whilst I spoke to my GP to agree that I took 10mg, because there weren’t any 5mg tablets.

So I started off on 10mg. I can’t remember how long I took 10mg for, but it didn’t do any more than my daily aspirin as far as pain relief was concerned. And that was increased in, I think it was June, to 20mg twice a day. Initially the pain relief was marginally better, but it certainly knocked me out, I was really quite, half asleep most of the time, except during the night.

But it was useless really, the pain relief was virtually nil, after the first few weeks it was virtually nil. But it took till the beginning of November, which is what, five months after I’d been on 20mg twice a day, and it took till the beginning of November for it to be increased to 30mg twice a day. On the whole I have had quite a lot of pain relief from that increased dose, but today’s not one of those days. Today is a painful day.

But I’m also very, very sleepy, except during the night. So, I don’t know whether this is a repetition of the, of how I was when I went onto the 20mg, well just have to see.

The only difference today was I was on round about 16 different types of tablets between painkillers, others to stop inflammation, aspirin with special coating on it, I suppose this was to do with prevent an occurrence of this. And really none of them were doing a lot of good.

The best that could be said was that I was getting by from day to day. This went on up until about six months ago this and fortunately I’m not the type of guy to get depressed otherwise I would have been depressed a long time ago. But all that was happening to me from day to day, I was going from a state of pain into a state of dopiness, back to pain, back to dopiness.

And this was 24/7 and I was getting absolutely nowhere until a nurse, a specialist nurse in the pain clinic made the suggestion about the pain patches. And I was at the stage where I would have tried anything. So we tried the pain patches. I got a lot of relief from them. I also, they put me on gabapentin which I believe is used for people who have lost limbs to cope with the phantom pain. And between those two it’s definitely been’ I’ve still got pain, you know, I’m not going to get rid of it because I have been told I’ve got a lot of nerve damage on the left hand side and theres nothing they can do about that. But it’s manageable now.

Yeah. I mean the worst side effect is that you just feel so sick all the time and sometimes I just find it very difficult to eat, just the thought of food is just… but you have to force it down. I mean you do have to eat because it would be quite easy not to. I find I have to eat Weetabix, Weetabix have just been the best thing because they just act as a natural laxative, you know, because the painkillers just bung you up and cause so much constipation.

But, if I can have my Weetabix every day, good advert for Weetabix, I don’t need to take the laxatives. But to force something down when you get up in the morning is so hard and I’ve just got to the point now where I’m thinking I just can’t eat these anymore, but I know they work.

So the sickness and dreadful sweating, but I think that’s also the pain as well. The pain comes over you in waves and then, you know, you just don’t know how bad that waves going to get and I think it’s a lot of panic as well and I just absolutely drip and I thought ‘oh well, I didn’t realise it was the tablets that was doing this’, I thought ‘oh well it could be my age, it could be the menopause, could be ‘cos I’m overweight, but then, when I spoke about it to other people at the pain clinic, it happens to a lot of them, a lot of them get this just awful sweating.

But I just find that so embarrassing if I’m out, and it happens, ‘cos then you panic about it and then that makes it a thousand times worse. I hate that side of it. Your loss of libido is probably, you know, the worst I suppose as far as your relationship with your partner’s concerned. I mean that is just, you know, you think well is it the tablets or is it just the pain or what is it, you know, but you read the bits they give you and it nearly says on most of the ones I take, you know, that this does happen. So therefore relationships do suffer a lot.

How do you find talking to your GP about your pain?

Hes terrific. Hes absolutely terrific, you know like. Hell just listen and he always tries to do something, you know, because, I mean, I know if you’re on long-term painkillers obviously you have to watch out for things like addiction or dependency. But my GP has explained that, for people who are in pain, if they’re on narcotic drugs, normally you do become dependent on them, but it doesn’t mean to say that you’re addicted and that when the pain goes away, if they fix the pain somehow, that you can come off these drugs obviously in a tapered fashion, but it’s not a huge problem and it’s more important to treat the pain than to worry about, you know, that sort of situation.

In fact, he said to me that some patients who are labelled as drug seekers are actually people in pain who are under-medicated and of course they’re going to be drug seekers, because they’re in pain and they haven’t been treated properly, you know. Obviously, you do get the people, you know, who do want to abuse drugs, but that’s a different kettle of fish altogether really.

When it was first suggested to me that I took opioids, I was not happy because one thinks of a) of addiction and b) of something much worse coming up later on. If you’re going to get something that really is painful, like terminal cancer, when you’re going to need all the pain relief that you can get, then is it wise to become dependent to some extent on strong pain relief now? What would there be left if it became essential, you know, for pain relief in a real terminal illness?

My GP talked to me and said ‘If you need pain relief, you need pain relief and have the one that’s going to work for you and if it came to needing pain relief for something like terminal cancer, then it would not be denied. They would still find some way of making sure that you had adequate pain relief then. So, I sort of did an about turn I suppose from no I don’t want it, to yes I’ll give it a try.

So I’m trying it, an increased dose. I’m still not too sure whether it’s enough. Today it certainly isn’t enough to take the pain away, yesterday it was, see what tomorrow brings.