My mom dealt with pain for the last 30 years of her long life. How she managed to live to be a few days shy of 88 years old is a mystery known only to her. From the time she quit working (officially) in the mid 1970’s until her last breath in 2006, she not only knew pain as an intimate enemy but she also knew the good, bad and ugly of pain medications of all types and strengths.
I officially became her caregiver around the year 2000. I made the six hour trip to take her to doctor’s appointments, ordered her various pills and tried to find things to make her life more comfortable and maintain her ability to live by herself. She lived in a retirement community but there were no services available.
Her official diagnosis was “osteo-arthritis” along with various back problems and worst of all; burning feet. Although she was only marginally diabetic, she had worse burning feet than most people battling the disease daily. I would sit with her in doctor’s offices as she tried in vain to get them to understand the biggest obstacle to her well being was not the arthritis pain, but the burning feet. No one seemed to understand how such a thing could ruin someone’s life.
Whether my mom lived in constant pain I do not know. I know her pain (all sources of it) would spike and then level off and sometimes spike more and other times recede. When she was “only” in her late 70’s, all she was given for her various pains was non narcotic pain relievers such as Darvoset, Lortab and similar types of drugs. When she asked for stronger doses or different types of drugs she was denied for fear she would become an addict.
Somewhere around the year 2000, at the age of 82, her primary care doctor finally started her on an ever increasing dosage of Oxycontin. For awhile this really helped, but she was constantly having to up the dosage to gain relief. Other drugs were added to help with some of the other pains. Nothing worked for the burning feet.
In the year 2002 a nurse visited her who was a pain specialist in hospice care. She introduced her to a liquid fast acting form variation of Oxycontin for her burning feet. This did wonders for a season, but over time she started taking the liquid more and more often with less and less results. By the time I had to move her to live with us so I could be her full-time caregiver in 2004 she was on maximum doses of Oxycontin and the liquid. She was in more pain than ever.
Soon after arriving here, I took her to a pain specialist who totally revamped her drugs and took her off the Oxycontin and replaced it with Fentanyl, which is about the strongest narcotic in use. Specifically, she was put on a Duragesic patch which gave her a continual dose of this drug 24 hours a day and given Fentanyl suckers which gave very fast relief. She continued taking her liquid along with various other prescription strength pain medicines.
My mom was getting old but she had NO underlying diseases or lethal physical conditions. She had high blood pressure but it was controlled with medication. She had only one problem and that was PAIN and the effects of the medication she took for it. I watched her condition deteriorate rapidly in late 2005 and by February of 2006 she was in the hospital for a blood infection. My early April she had passed away.
Sometime in 2004 she was diagnosed with pulmonary hypertension which was supposedly due to sleep apnea. She could not wear the CPAP mask and the sleep doctor told her she would be dead within a couple of years; she died less than two years later. Was her “premature” death (and it was due to her overall physical condition) caused by sleep apnea or was it the result of massive doses of high powered narcotics which depressed the respiratory system?
She began sleeping with oxygen back around 2002 and slowly became 100% oxygen dependent by 2004. Her rapid oxygenation problems arose at the precise time her pain medication protocol changed radically. From the time she first started using Oxycontin at high doses along with the liquid, she began having greater and greater need for oxygen. She was at constant level 4 by the time she rapidly went downhill in early 2006.
I am not writing this as any type of condemnation for the drugs she used or the doctors who prescribed them. I only write this as a warning for anyone falling into an addiction to any number of commonly prescribed pain medications. Once addicted, even to a “lower level” drug such as Darvoset, the road quickly leads to far more dangerous drugs which have the ability to cut short a person’s life in a matter of a few years.
I watched my mom live with her pain until she was graciously put on mega doses of pain medication when in hospice care. All of the mega doses of the strongest pain medications available could not beat her pain. They dulled it and made it somewhat manageable, but all the pain medication in her massive drug cabinet could not cool her burning feet or allow her more than a few hours of freedom from her wicked nemesis she fought daily her whole life.
That which must always be weighed when considering long term use of pain medication is profit. Are the drugs involved worth the risk of side effects and/or addiction? That is the paramount question that must be raised. In my mom’s case, I believe the drugs were justified for without them I think she would have literally gone mentally insane trying to deal with the relentless pain. Did the drugs cut short her life? Of course they did. Was it worth it? Of course it was, for they did manage to allow her to actually enjoy some of her final few years of this life.
