Hi all
My B/F is experiencing hip pain-feels as if the hip is "comming out of the socket".... basically can't get comfortable sitting, laying down or in any position. the pain is sometimes bearable, but other times unless he gets to sleep can't take it. he doesn't want to be on any meds, as current pain relievers have no affect on it. I read a blog about a man in Canada with similar pains but I was not able to find his outcome. Has anyone had similar hip pains.....

Really nasty pain in the area right above my pelvis on the back right side. Haven't been even halfway comfortable in almost a year. Vicodin works only because it makes me so freaking high that I can't remember the pain...or anything else for that matter. Had x-rays, 2 ct scans, and no reason found. Still got the pain, and that's why I'm on here at all hours most days. Wish I had some advice for you, but all I can do is let you and him know that he's not alone.

I always thought of mine as neurological but it's only in the right hip, and it's more of a pulsing . Some nerve meds helped but only in massive doses that fried my brain. And like ya say Jax once ya take enough pain killers you can be floating so high feeling the pain is like trying to see cars from a plane window...sure you can make em out but there's just so much other cool stuff out there they are quickly lost.

What you can do to fix the pain sort of depends on what is causing the pain. Many people with nerve related damage use Lyrica or gabapentine (neurotine) to reduce the sensitivity of the nerves carrying the signals. You could google "Neuropathic" pain and see is that type of pain is what you have. Many people describe it as a tingling, pulsing, burning or electrocution type of pain. It's often associated with people with SCI's. I have spent the last 2 years trying a wide number of different medicines and I have only been partially successfull in dampening down the pain. I often still have days when I cannot get out of bed, and even on my good days I usually have to lay down for a while at 3-4:00 in the afternoon. Rather than take one medicine or another, you might find a mix of medicines work better. I am often surprised at people that have tried either Gabapentine or Lyrica, but not both at the same time. Although they are similar medicines, made for the same pain issues, by he same company, they do act differently. As it has been explained to me, Gabapentine works at the site of the pain to dampen down the signals that travel up the nerves to the brain. Lyrica instead acts at the brain level to reduce the sensitivity of the brains receptors. Because they are really doing a different job, it makes sense that there is the possibility that while one may reduce the pain to some degree, the other medicine may reduce it further. Unluckily for me, only Lyrica works at all. I have tried Neurotine to something like 3000 units with little effect. Both of these medicines zone you out and make you really tired for a month or longer but eventually the side affects fade. A lot of people give up on the medicines because of the side effects, but never give them enough time to fade unfortunately. Fentanyl, Hydromorph-contin (both very high end pain killers) and carbamenzapine round out the cocktail of drugs that work one way or another for me. In the end, I'm helped about 50%, although my days really vary.

I also find that I am having to use a drug cycling program. Most doctors never think of drug cycling. Drug cycling is the changing of drugs as a person's body becomes tolerant of the drug. Basically if you take one level of drug, your body often gets adjusted to that drug and it no longer works. It's like an alcoholic who can drink way more than a normal person because his body has adapted to the alcohol and the alcohol no longer works on him the way it may once have. With drug cycling, you move from one drug to another, once it appears the drug is no longer working. If you stay on the same drug, you just have to jack up the amount higher and higher to get the same pain relief. Eventually you are shovelling in high amounts and it's still not working. If you can find a second and third pain killer that works for you then you start on the first drug until the signs set in. Then you move to the second drug until again it looks like you are becomming tolerant of it. Then you move to the third drug, followed by going back to the first drug. By that time, the first drug seems to be like a new drug to your body and you can continue on without raising up your medicines to dangerous levels. At this time I am basically going off the Fentanyl patch system and onto the hydromorph-contin. In theory the fentanyl is the stronger of the two drugs but I have found that the highest level of patches ( 100/150) no longer do anything for me so off to a new drug I go....and it does work for me.

As some final musings. There is some research to show that too high of an amount of pain killers can actually be worse for pain reduction. I don't know the exact reasons but if you go too high of a dosage your body some how works to defend itself against the pain killer drugs and it no longer works in concert with your body to reduce pain. The answer in those cases is to reduce the dosage. Strange, but that was the words of the specialist at the pain clinic I went to. The only thing they do is deal with pain.

Good luck because chronic pain of any kind is a killer of people and relationships.