Anti-inflammatory Pain Cream

My new NSAID cream came in the mail today, it is very fancy and actually contains 5 active ingredients. What is really cool is it came with a sheet that explained how each one works.

Note: most of the below explanations come from previously mentioned sheet (which is why they sound so intelligent.

Diclofenac: (The brand name of the oral from in Voltaren, aka my favorite NSAID cause I am cool enough to have a favorite NSAID) If you haven't guessed by all the stuff in the parentheses, it is an NSAID, and as the cool sheet says, it works by blocking the arachodonic pathways of the inflammation ( I really wish I actually knew what this meant, maybe I will google it)

Baclofen: A muscle relaxant and anti-spasmodic that reduces the neurotransmitter release from pain receptors generating ectopic impulses. (I understood everything except the second to last word, not bad)

Cyclobenzaprine: A muscle relaxant that helps control muscle spasms and tightness residing in the area of localized pain. (I understood all of that without any help from google!)

Piroxicam: Another NSAID, works by reducing hormones that cause inflammation. (I understand two in a row!)

Tetracaine: A local anesthetic to numb the site of the pain by blocking sodium channels. (Thanks to AP Bio I understand this explanation too!)

Of course I needed to test out this fancy cram right away so my dad got me latex type gloves (you are supposed to wear glove to make sure the joint gets the medicine and not your hand!) And I put it on my left hip!

The Gloves and 2 Bottles of the Fancy Cream

My Hand with the Sexy Glove and 1 'Dose' of Fancy Cream

I figure I would stick to one joint for now to see how it works. I am going to try to put it on for the recommended 3-4 times a day. It has a slight bio-freeze/ben-gay smell. I will update soon on how it works.

Comments

The Swollen Wrist

This morning I woke up to a red painful swollen wrist. My right wrist was not happy or useable for the better part of the morning. Of course my mom wanted to make a rheumatologist appointment for this week but I really did not think it is worth it. Since I am now in the 2 week period before my hip surgery I can not take anything but Tylenol anyway (no voltaren or fancy cream), so there is not a whole lot that can be done. We finally settled on me going to my GP (for the 2nd time in one week as I had a pre-op appointment with him on Monday), and I took a picture so I can show my rheumy at my next appointment. I managed to get an appointment at 11AM because my GP was in the office this Saturday. By the time of the appointment my wrist looked pretty normal, although I had the picture so he could see something was up. He had it x-rayed just to rule out any issues non rheumatology related, and as we both guessed the x-rays came out normal. My Lovely Wrist this Morning I was left wit

The Perfect Body?

Today I am going to write about a taboo subject- body image, and how living with chronic illness/pain has affected it. I get told how great my body is a lot, I am tall and fairly skinny. Not to be egotistic but I look pretty good in a bikini. I should love how I look. I should be confident of my body, after all I just bought a pair of size 2 jeans. Yet I still struggle with loving my body. My New Jeans! In middle school I thought my legs were fat, that was when I had muscles from horseback riding, today I miss my muscular legs. My thighs tend to be two different sizes, the left one is almost always smaller. The reason for this is simple, my left quad has atrophied from months of limping and being on crutches when I was 15/16, at one point it was so bad my doctor measured it and the difference was a good 2 cm in circumference. Today they are almost the same size, and probably look the same to anyone else, but to me they still look different. If you haven't guessed it yet,

Spring Break!

Ok so my spring break may not of been the most exciting, as I think I spent more time at PT then anywhere else, but it was nice not to spend the entire time in bed because of pain. In fact my heat pad only came out like once, what is this craziness? PT has been going great since I stopped flaring! As of Wednesday I am doing every exercise I had to stop because of my knees during the flare, plus new exercise. I am finally done doing pillow squeezes and glute sets, I now have very few table exercises. As of next week I am down to only two PT appoints a week instead of three, which means I won't have to go before school anymore! I did do something besides PT this week, I went prom dress shopping! I found a gorgeous blue and white open back gown. I am not going to post a picture until after prom but I love it. It fit perfectly but if I gain an ounce it will be an issue or if my hips choose to swell prom night. I also have amazing shoe, they are silver stilettos and over 3 inches ta

Life with a Flare

Search This Blog