Medical update: medicines

Sleeping, sleeping, sleeping.
Is this a result of my very busy (for me) week, or of the fact that my meds went down about 30% at one shot?
Oh, that fact? That last one... the 30% one? Yeah, well it turns out that the Fentanyl patches weren't *only* helping the joint pain-- rather also the nerve pain. We had originally thought that it was categorized as Fentanyl is for the joint pain, and Lyrica is for the nerve pain. Well...

Thursday night & Friday showed me otherwise. O M G. The nerve pain I suffered on Friday is *not to be believed*. More than I can remember since "scrapey" (donor site on other leg) had jangled nerves.
It was: pins & needles with real pins, pulling sensations all over my leg (left one we are talking about here) like belts grabbing it all over. There was also punching feeling in a few places for many hours. Incredible.

So incredible, in fact, that I couldn't bear it. I used a "booster" of Fentanyl- the lollies that I have as back-up pain relief. I haven't used one since my surgery 4 months ago. I needed it. Nothing to be gained from staying in pain. It *helped*, thank the Dear Lord. After half an hour (of having half of a lolly, that is), I felt  R E L I E F. Later when I felt the nerve pain starting up again (Shabbat evening), I took the other half. Just for point of reference- the lollies are 400mmg (micro-milligrams). My patches are *now* (for a week) 37.5 mmg, down from 50mmg. Yeah, now *that's* a booster. I took 200mmg to get relief from this nerve pain... and I had no side effects at all. If it were too much, I'd have gotten woozy, a bit high (which would have been welcome), and headachey (I was a tad that, but not bad at all).

Maybe the Fentanyl and the Lyrica actually work together? Or, that the Fentanyl helps the Lyrica work efficiently? There was still lots of breakthrough nerve pain, even with the Fentanyl 50 and Lyrica 900, so was it the Lyrica which needed boosting, or the Fentanyl?

However, daytime on Shabbat showed real relief, without the added booster. I went to shul, walking both ways with not much pain. I ate the entire meal with the family, and even managed to clean up- with no pain. Poor Robert has been the sole setter-upper and cleaner-upper (with scattered help from children- yes, we are working on that) for many weeks now because of pain and/or tiredness on my part.

Then I put myself to bed, after a good morning.
Slept all the rest of the day, until now: woke at 3:15am, now it's 5am, and I'll go back to sleep for a bit.

I yearn for a time of predictable patterns.
I know it will come.
Well, maybe I don't really know it will come, actually.

PS- I have been told by a few reliable doctors that having the reconstruction surgery will solve the nerve pain problems. Right now I am just doing a "wait-and-see-where-this-is-all-going" approach...