Meloxicam - should I take it or not?

Hi
I believe that my low back pain is due to TMS, but... I also have a huge depression.
I am sure that my depression is due to backpain - not the opposite.
I struggle the pain so long, it locked me so much, that simply my mood worsen so much that reallg I have moments when I see no sense to live any longer...
Meloxicam takes my symptoms away and than my mood is dramatically better. I feel happy again. Should I take it or not? What is your experience?
I know that I cannot take it forever, but I really did a lot of TMS work during last 6 weeks and my backpain doesn't want to leave me.

 

Hi Ania,

I noticed there are no responses to this post so I'll chime in with my two cents. Even when the pain is due to TMS, I don't think we should suffer beyond what we can tolerate and sometimes that means using medicine to get you through the rough spots. It's been my experience that the relief from meds is pretty short lived and tolerance occurs quickly. Meaning, you have to take more meds to get the same effect. Each person is different. Meloxicam gave me no relief (plus made me feel loopy) but my brother said it helped him greatly with arthritis. My brother stopped taking it when he starting experiencing significant side effects. The myriad of side effects from Meloxicam are well documented.

I know 6 weeks seems like a long time when you are in pain, but most folks take much longer than that to heal. For me, it was well over a year before I saw significant improvement. It's been over 3 years and I still work the program almost every day because I'm very susceptible to symptom imperatives. I spend 30-60 minutes a day listening to podcasts, reading this forum, meditating, and practicing self-care.

Three years ago, I was at rock bottom. My marriage was in deep trouble, I had horrific pain, and my future looked bleak. Now, I work full time, my marriage is better than it's been in a decade, I have very few physical limitations, and I'm content -even happy- most days. Please hang in there and keep working the program. When you are discouraged, read posts by the Grand Eagles on this forum. Below, you will find a list of fantastic resources. Keep the faith!

https://ppdassociation.org/resources/#podcasts (Recover From Home — Psychophysiologic Disorders Association)

 

Ania,

I love @HattieNC’s reply to you. While I can’t speak about the specific meds you mention, I totally agree that it’s ok to take medication when you need it. There is absolutely no need to suffer unnecessarily especially if a medication has a history of working for you.

Take it if you think it will help.

The only caution really is that in taking meds people give up on the psychological aspect. I found medication and other healing practices support emotional work, mostly because they grant some breathing space.

As Hattie says healing is truly about making real and lasting changes to the ways we experience and deal with emotion. Every stage in healing is a lesson in this, an opportunity to yield, soften, listen, be with something incredibly challenging, to learn how to soothe and speak to ourselves, to learn how to love ourselves.

Plum x

 

To which great advice from @HattieNC and @plum, I will add that I agree, six weeks is not very long, AND it's important for you to know that depression is a well-known symptom imperative. Along with anxiety, depression often rears its ugly head after someone has started their their TMS journey, especially if they have had any kind of success in banishing some of their symptoms. Again it's a well-known symptom imperative. An evil one, to be sure, and very very difficult to endure, but that's what it is.

In that sense, the depression is associated with your pain, but it is NOT caused by your pain - it is the result of your TMS work, and this too, shall pass, if you stay strong, and keep working. I promise you.

 

@HattieNC , @plum, @JanAtheCPA thank you much for your replies.
Finally I decided to take the pills, stronger doses as before (before I was taking just half of pill) - and this time it did nothing to my pain!
And I am glad it didn't work because this is another proof for TMS!
On the other hand it soothed my nerves a bit, as I knew I just took care of myself.

 

I just joined this site, very fascinating. Your topic really caught my attention, Meloxicam. I recently started very persistent sciatica and started on the medico journey from my doc, x-rays, injection, specialist, PT, MRI....etc, etc, etc. It is going on three months now and shows no signs of abating so I am still investigating what might be the cause. My Ortho spent about 15 minutes with me over three sessions. He sent me to PT and put me on Meloxicam.

I am very anti-drug but I agreed to try it. I took it for about 5 days and it seemed to make no difference with pain other than as another respondent here said, made be feel a little loopy throughout the day. So I discontinued it.

On my last session with the doc we talked about it again. And he said I really needed to at least give it a longer period like 30 days. So I started taking it again. I got to about 5 days with the similar experience.

So I stopped taking it. I remembered back to sitting in the waiting area and one of those ubiquitous pretty young ladies from pharma walked in. They seem to pop in nearly every medical office I am waiting in. The ones with the short skirts. Chatting amiably with the office staff she was arranging a lunch for the docs and promising cookies and yummy pizza for the staff.

Maybe it is just my skeptical nature, or maybe it is something else but I decided to continue boycotting the drugs as much as possible.

 

I think Meloxicam is the current "drug of the month." Everyone I know that visits the ortho gets a script for it. About 6 years ago, I was experiencing significant anxiety. This was before the pain from TMS hit. A doctor was trying to convince me to take an antidepressant. He was quite belligerent when I told him no. When I asked him why he recommended this particular medicine he actually said "because it's the drug of the month!" I almost fell out of my chair. Needless to say, I didn't take the drug and never returned to that doctor.

 

Meloxicam (Mobic) is an anti inflammatory. It will not help for TMS at all. Any help you get from it is placebo in my opinion. You are much better off taking an anti depressant so you can reason better and function better mentally to do the TMS work.