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This is my tale of woe. I am a retired 65 year old male who is acting as a primary caregiver to my 89 year old mother. Everything was normal up to two weeks ago. My mother has had amnesia problems, with her sleep aid. The doctor gave her another drug, which did not work. At the same time, she started feeling pain in her back. She has a herniated disk that flares up at times. This time, it was the worst pain she could remember. Then she told me she was having memory issues and could not do the crossword puzzles any longer. She stopped reading. She was feeling so miserable I took her to the local emergency room. They diagnosed her disc problem and sent her her home with 12 muscle relaxers. They do not work. They instructed her to take Tylenol which also does not work. My mother is curled up in bed trying not to move. It is Saturday evening and I can't do anything until Monday. When I intend to call her doctor and ask for something more potent that Tylenol! I recognize that Doctors are held responsible for the drugs they precribe but this is crazy. At least, they should give Vycodin. Any suggestions?

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Depending on where you live, area hospitals may have pain clinics or pain management clinics.

Be Careful about giving your mom Ibuprofen (Advil/Motrin) or Naproxen Sodium (Aleve) if she's already taking a blood thinner. If you can find an on-duty pharmacist tonight, you could ask him for advice. (It would be a good idea to have a list of any other medications she is taking in front of you when you call.)

An Ask-A-Nurse line would be another option. If your mom has supplemental health insurance, they might have an 800 line (or chat feature).
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Having had a herniated disk (that ultimately ruptured), I can tell you that no over-the-counter medications help the pain. It's nerve pain, not inflammation-type pain like a strained muscle.

You can try alternating a heating pad and ice packs, but I'd ditch the Tylenol. I call it "The Wonder Drug," because I wonder what it's good for.
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GardenArtist Jul 2021
Interesting comments on Tylenol.   I tried it when I injured my back earlier this year but really didn't think it did much, to the point that I wondered if it was a dummy pill marketed perhaps from China.   Motrin helped me more, but my herbal heating pad was absolutely the best treatment I found.
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My 39 y/o daughter went to the ER yesterday with severe lower back pain. They gave her Tylenol, Ibuprofen, morphine, Diazapam and a lidocaine patch.

If your mother is still I pain, take her back to the ER and insist on imaging. She may have broken her pelvis or hip, even without a fall.
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GardenArtist Jul 2021
Barb, I hope your daughter is feeling better today.    Was she able to get a diagnosis for the back pain?
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I recently read that hospitals are giving tylenol with advil to help manage pain.

Two advil and two tylenol together would knock me out, so I guess it would be good pain relief for me. Maybe it would help your mom rest if it doesn't relieve her pain.
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LiveinHope Jul 2021
The Tylenol/Advil thing might actually work pretty well. I've never used it to treat pain, but I've used it many times to treat fever in my children. (Alternating the two different types of drugs keeps the patient from overdosing on either one.)

Here's a brief article on treating post-surgical pain with this one-two combination. (Again, I'd try to run this by a nurse or pharmacist if you can't speak to her doc.)

http://www.med.umich.edu/1libr/Surgery/MPOPeducation-ManagingPainWithoutOpioids.pdf#:~:text=not%20present%20%20%2012%3A00%20PM%20%20,200%20mg%29%20%20%201%20more%20rows%20

I'm so sorry your mom is in pain.
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This is what my daughter told me, she is an RN. Tou can take tylenol and if inv2 hours you can take Advil. Because theyvare two different kinds of pain relievers. But I would not do anything until I spoke with her doctor which u should be able to get hold of on a weekend.
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I am so sorry your mother is going through this. Tylenol will not touch the pain of a herniated disc. It may be a long shot for your mom but I highly recommend the book Treat your own back by Robin Mackenzie. You can get it off Amazon. It saved my husband's life when he was in intense back pain from an injury and not even Vicodin would touch that pain. The surgeon only wanted to do surgery and said there was nothing else he could do.
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Thanks to all. I will buy some ADVIL.
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She cannot take ADVIL or any Ibuprofen, including ALEVE. It causes bleeding in her stomach
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Can you correlate the onset of pain with weather, i.e., a brief cold spell?    Over the years I've found that old injuries flare up during colder weather, and now sometimes with rainy weather.   

I can't offer any solutions for that, but it might provide some insight into when and why the flare-ups occur. 

The only things I've found that really help are music, a heating pad, gentle exercise, and dietary changes, specifically, eliminating as much as possible any foods with sodium and sugar, or at least decreasing consumption of those foods.   I read that they negatively affect arthritis, which I have.    It's perhaps something your mother also has, and complicates the existing disc issues (just a supposition from a nonmedical person).

Has your mother ever been to a orthopedic specialist?    I gasped when I read "12 muscle relaxers".    To me that seems as if someone really didn't know what to do and just wrote a prescription.    

One of the ortho doctors who treated my father is now with a different practice, which provides its own pain management clinic.   

I certainly hope someone provides some better treatment for your mother.    Pain that crippling is so difficult to tolerate.
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kaki3152 Jul 2021
Thanks for your insightful comments. The pain is caused by her herniated disc, which is aggravated by her gardening bouts. This time, she pulled some weeds in the front yard and sent her into spasms of pains.

I am going to get a heating pad to try and alleviate the pain. Thanks for that suggestion. I am going to ask her doctor for a referral to an ortho- pedic specialist to help her deal with her disc problem. Her doctor has already told her that they prefer not to operate because of her age.
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I realize it is a huge pain for doctors to prescribe pain meds these days, but come on! She's 89 and has a herniated disk! I'm not sure if it would help, but maybe try a patch with lidocaine? I know Salonpas has a 4% lidocaine patch that you can buy over the counter that maybe you can try.
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