Last night wasn’t much better than Sunday night, and by the morning I was still in quite a lot more pain than normal so I rang the GP surgery to get an appointment. I took a tramadol with my morning meds to try to help get me started. I actually had a really productive few hours work before my appointment.
I saw Dr Penny again. Whilst I’ve never really had a problem with any of the GPs at the surgery, I always feel more comfortable seeing Dr Penny or Dr Godwin, as I feel they know more of the background to my spinal problems than the others.
After an initial chat about my symptoms, Dr Penny did a neurological check and determined there was nothing new. She asked about my last visit to the surgeon, and whether I’d heard back from London yet. I explained that I hadn’t heard anything, and that Mr Sepahi didn’t feel further surgery would gain anything. Dr Penny seemed rather puzzled that there appeared to be no further plan, so she will write to the hospital, explain I’ve seen her with increasing pain and wobbliness, and ask what happens next.
We talked about my medication and concluded I had probably reached the stage where I was getting insufficient benefit from the tramadol to outweigh the side effects. She pointed out it is really only targeted at patients soon after surgery, or for managing pain in cancer patients. I will therefore start to ween off it, sticking to every other night (with no morning extras) and then to every three nights etc. At the same time I am to take 600mg of gabapentin three times a day (doubling the lunch time dose to match the morning and evening). She has also changed me to 500mg of naproxen twice a day instead of 400mg of ibuprofen three times a day. I have an appointment for a further review in three weeks.