Saturday, April 11, 2015

meloxicam, day 3

So far my impression is "meh."

It has done a good job of reducing swelling, so I'll give it that.  But pain in hands, collar bone, hips, etc is all still there, just slightly less -- say a 4 on the pain scale instead of 6.  So that's better. 

However, neck pain is nearly as bad as if I were taking nothing.  The ibuprofen did a much better job controlling that.  This is not muscle pain but pain at the vertebrae themselves.  It feels "crunchy" (which makes me think bone-on-bone, but I don't think it's that bad) and it hurts.

Headaches range from ignorable (1-2) to killer (7-8), which is pretty consistent with the ibruprofen.  I intensely dislike it when my front teeth hurt...

Worst of all, though, is the reflux.  I had a smidge of heartburn yesterday (Thursday, day 2), but today I feel the way I did years ago when I had gastroparesis and my gerd was out of control.  Sick.  Popping some calcium antacids helped; omeprazole would've been better but we're out. I'm not willing to get back on a drug I worked hard to wean myself from (omeprazole).  Even one day of reflux left me struggling with my voice today.

On the upside, trying to keep the reflux down encouraged me to drink tons of water today.

I don't think this is the drug for me, but I'm not sure how much longer to give it before I say "enough". I have been taking it before bed (about midnight) to help mitigate that side effect, but that hasn't been entirely (or even moderately) successful.

I'm not taking any more tonight -- I'll investigate more tomorrow and figure out if I should try to tough it out another couple of weeks, but I don't think that makes any sense.

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