fifth week - pain management

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I have gone from 2.5ml liquid morphine to 5ml to 7.5ml but it never seems to make the slightest difference to bms. Has anyone found a level of morphine which reduces a bm from excruciating, shouting obscenties, pain to just really bad pain? 

  • Hi, I am taking the laxative that has been prescibed for me since I started on the morphine, which keeps stools soft. 

    I have heard from several people using the sitz bath in this way, but I don't think this would work for me, I find the bath not very comfortable at all, and only use it as a way to clean myself. I do wonder if male and female anatomy may play a part in this ? 

  • Thanks for the welcome, and the advice. I will think of modifying my meals as I am probably eating more than necessary and therefore creating more pain for myself. In general I eat a lot of veg and fruit, and I do want to stay healthy throughout this period. I attended a nutrition talk at the Maggie Centre the other day and was told that there weren't any foods that one should avoid, or eat more of, as long as one's diet was healthy in the first place. 

  • Hi Mirkle

    I was told to eat a low fibre diet, which I agree is counter intuitive when we want to eat as healthily as possible throughout the treatment.

    Happyflower

  • Hi Mirkle its a horrible time, I so feel for you. The trial and error with pain relief is different for everyone. This may help - I used warm water in the sitz bath as I couldn't manage a big bath as it hurt to sit, but the sitz was a life saver for me - I kept it filled, after a good clean, ready after each use it eased the pain immediately and made passing stools and wee much easier, refilling while using as many times as needed to give some relief.   Morphine wise slow release was a game changer and oral to top up, after alternate paracetamol and ibuprofen.  You can ask for help daily or twice if needs be as your situation will not be the same as anyone else your team can advise you best.  Flamigel for healing, barrier cream to protect raw skin and sitz with a wet flannel for cleaning.  I also found out strong mansize tissues worked better than loo roll while broken / raw skin.  I hope this helps x Angie 

  • Hi - I was advised to have soft / white diet and not high fibre while having treatment then upped my fibre over 6 weeks after treatment.  After pain relief and laxative use for weeks its hard to be confident to change . x

  • Hi MLS, I wish you good luck with the start of your treatment next week. It can be a very anxious time not knowing what to expect. As you will see reading these posts that members side effects vary among us.  A week in from treatment my first symptoms were cystitis like symptoms so stock up with cranberry juice or something that helps flush the bladder. It wasn’t an infection for me but radiation cystitis and lasted a week or so. I used a barrier gel from the start of my treatment called StrataXRT bought online which stays intact on the skin 24/7 even during radiotherapy which prevented my skin from breaking down externally but if you use other creams these do have to be removed before you have the treatment. You soon get into a routine going back and forth for your daily treatment and it’s around the 4/5 week that it seems that we start to have an impact on weeing and opening the bowels discomfort. That’s where the sitz bath comes in. When your treatment ends I suggest you prep your meals and get any help with dog walking or shopping if you can as that’s when you can feel the impact of the radiation therapy. I was lucky to have a helpful caring husband who bought me a garden basket chair where I could just lay out in the sun and relax. Pain relief your team can help you with but the key is to be consistent with doses so that it’s always in your system and not as and when. I had morphine and didn’t like the idea of taking it due to the fear of addiction and came off it but two days later I couldn’t get back on it quick enough and assured that I wouldn’t and monitored throughout. I also had paracetamol and ibuprofen alternating two hourly. One good thing about the recovery is that you don’t have the daily grind to hospital and you start to learn about your body and effects of certain foods. I became lacto intolerant as it can affect the gut bio. I am three and a half years post treatment and doing great with careful maintenance on my diet. It doesn’t effect everyone luckily. I also from day one did pelvic exercises stretching hips with child poses to keep hips supple and strong as treatment can effect your bones. Ladies having treatment will also learn about dilators but that’s for another day. Ask away anything on this group as they are a fantastic source for information with lots of tips.

    Julie

  • Thank you so much Julie I appreciate all the information in your reply.

    hugs xx

  • Hi Mirkle

    I got pain after treatment from day 1 and was advised to cut veg in particular green veg from my diet and it made a massive difference. X

  • I’ve asked whether a different diet would make a difference but they say that at the Marsden the consensus is that it doesn’t make any difference. Still, that doesn’t mean that individuals might benefit from changing their diet. But I think the main issue for me is the sensitivity of my skin. 

  • I got a call from my doctor this evening who told me she’s adding codeine into the pain management mix. So we’ll see how that goes.