Well since you all see how many pain killers I'm on, you might want too know what might be the grounds for so many of them. Well I can tell you that there are many pains to go with the cancer.The first I would say is the growth on my tongue, of course. It is rather large and constantly touching teeth or the tongue is being used. It wasn’t until the cancer that I found out every time I swallow my tongue pushes into my teeth. Don’t believe me? Go get a glass of water, try it out. I’ll wait. See. This hurts every time I have to swallow. And since most of the painkillers are pills (and large pills at that) this creates a catch-22.Its super painful to swallow. That’s where the Lidocaine has found its primary use.
Although anything touching any part of the growth hurts.Liquid hurts. Even tepid water hurts to drink. So any drinking or eating can cause pain. This cuts out soups and makes it hard not to get dehydrated.A normal size snack takes me an hour to an hour and a half to eat. So full meals are all but entirely out of the question.
Unfortunately the pain isn’t limited to the tongue. The left jaw bone also suffers horribly. It feels like it was fractured all the way up to the joint. And the joint feels like it was worn out. Luckily any ol’ painkiller seems to help with the jaw pain rather easily.
So this was really just a brief snippet of what I've been feeling. If you have any questions ask, and I'll go into more detail about a certain pain. I'll probably do more pain posts later on after they cut off half my tongue.
Noah-- I'm sure everyone is giving you more advice than you can take in, but these three great solutions to migraine pain have really improved my life: Imitrex, which you can get as a nasal spray or self-injectible, Sumavel (same drug), which is air-injected through the skin, so no needles. Both of these usually work within 20 minutes, especially if you can lie down someplace dark and quiet, and rest or nap for a bit.
ReplyDeleteWhen that doesn't work for men I go to the ER (your doctor might be able to do this in the office), where I get 1-2 litres of fluid by IV (no swallowing!), Toradol, which is a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory, and morphine, which is addictive, but really helps alleviate the worst of the pain. All of this is injected into the IV line, so only one needle stick.
Please let me know if there is anything I can do to help. One thing I can definitely offer is to bring you books and DVDs from the library since I work there, but keep me in mind for anything else.
Best wishes,
Nancy Silverrod 415-830-1506