Intermittent pain due to medication injury

[kushami36]

I have been having episodes of intermittent pain for nearly a year.

The pain starts in my abdomen, moves to my thigh muscles, then to my knees, then subsides. Pain scale can be anything from 2 to 7. Episodes last from 15 to 45 minutes and happen up to five times a day.

It occurs at random but also can be triggered by urination or bowel movement.

Also, if I exert my legs, or have DOMS in my legs from exercising, this pain seems to pile on top of any aches from the tired muscles.

Pain is caused by a medication injury from Ritalin, similar to that described in this case study:

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi...

I have spoken to my GP multiple times about it, and she says that unfortunately there is nothing she can prescribe (or that I can get OTC) that will take effect quickly enough.

I am inclined to think she is right. The only thing I can see working is entonox (gas & air), and no-one’s going to give me that at home for this “minor” pain.

Is she right?

(Non-medication techniques, heat packs etc., have no effect. Distraction works if the pain level is low.)

The pain is not that bad overall, but I am quite unwell with another condition and sometimes a 7 has me in tears when I’m already having a bad day.

[DevineOne]

So sorry to hear you are suffering. Please look into L-citradine or L-arginine or niacin (B3), alpha-ketoglutarate, moringa and white willow bark. This will help increase nitric oxide in the blood vessels which will also dilate them to get your blood supply into the deep tissues. Also it will promote healing, reduce inflammation and reduce pain.

For diet I would abstain from any sugars and reduce your carbohydrates. This will also help reduce inflammation and thus pain.

I hope this helps you. Please report back your results.

[kushami36]

I just wanted to do a quick update: after about 14 months, the pain has stopped. I did not find any painkillers to help and just managed by relaxing with a heat pack in cold weather (didn’t do anything for the pain but felt nice) and probably swearing a bit in summer.

I hope it is gone for good. I did speak to another person with the same Ritalin-induced pain. Hers went away but came back after she was ill with a bug.

I hope mine doesn’t come back. And I hope this post might be helpful for anyone else in the same situation. Pain is listed as “arthralgia” on the list of side effects for Ritalin, but it isn’t listed as possibly persisting after the medication is discontinued. But it can (see case study in medical journal linked in my original post).

[kushami36]

Just wanted to update that this pain finally went away after about 18 months.

Nobody medical offered me any help or showed any interest in reporting it to the TGA (our body to report to in Australia). I reported it myself – doesn’t really do anything but maybe if a hundred or a thousand people make the same report it will register somehow.

One GP started insisting that I had restless leg syndrome, despite the fact that my legs weren’t restless (and she never even bothered to ask me that rather important question).

I just waited it out and it’s now been long enough since an episode that I’m confident it has gone.

I hope this post might help someone else out there who is googling the same thing.