this post was submitted on 01 Jun 2025

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177

why does alcohol stop my back pain but medicine doesn't? (lemm.ee)

submitted 1 week ago by GrayBackgroundMusic@lemm.ee to c/nostupidquestions@lemmy.world

108 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I'm not looking for medical advice, but more understanding. I have chronic back pain. I can alleviate it completely with only 2 things - alcohol and a heating pad. Ibuprofen lessens it but it's still present. Muscle relaxers do nothing (which makes sense because it's not muscle related, it's spinal disk degeneration).

A tall glass of whiskey makes my back relax and I can move normally. Once it wears off tho, it's right back to tense and painful.

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[–] Libra@lemmy.ml 19 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Because you're not taking the good pain meds.

I've lived with chronic back pain for 20 years, and I have 3 stages of medication I go through (though mine is alignment-related, so muscle relaxers help): aleve (the only OTC painkiller that touches my back pain), tramadol (moderate-strength opioid, can't take it for long or it causes plumbing problems), and tizanadine (the serious industrial-strength muscle relaxers; knocks me out for 8 hours and usually fixes my back the first time.)

If you're looking for alternatives, THC helps somewhat with my back pain, but I dunno what's legal where you are.

[–] steeznson@lemmy.world 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Tramadol is quite nasty to come off as well because it functions like a combination of SSRI with opiod effects on your brain. I think it's the mu-opiod receptors as opposed to the normal opiod ones so more similar to kratom in that respect too.

[–] Libra@lemmy.ml 3 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Yeah, tramadol is weird because it makes you not care about stuff. Which is kinda good because it makes you not care about pain, but also, ya know, the other stuff too. But it was quite easy for me to come off of honestly; I didn't shit for a week and that was more than enough to make me stop taking it regularly. Now I take it maybe once or twice a month at the outside.

[–] steeznson@lemmy.world 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I believe it is like long term use of months or years which can be bad when coming off because it can feel like stopping anti-depressants at the same time as stopping opiates.

I am familiar with the constipation from those types of meds too. Not pleasant!

[–] Libra@lemmy.ml 3 points 6 days ago

Oh, yeah, probably. I only used it regularly for like a month or two, 3 pills a day, so it wasn't so bad for me.

[–] RedditIsDeddit@lemmy.world -3 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Meds don't fix back pain

[–] Libra@lemmy.ml 3 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Depends on the back, and the pain, and the meds. No, they don't fix the underlying issue, but for circumstances where the underlying issue can't be fixed they make it a lot more tolerable.

[–] RedditIsDeddit@lemmy.world 0 points 6 days ago (1 children)

True, but relying on the drugs is generally a bad approach

[–] Libra@lemmy.ml 5 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I take it you have some better approach than relying on medication when my back pain becomes incapacitating? Cause it's not fixable, I've seen numerous doctors about it over the years, not to mention chiropractors, physical therapists, etc. My choice is to take pain meds when things get bad or to just be incapacitated for the rest of the day whenever it flares up. So if you have a better approach I'm all ears, but just saying 'drugs are bad mkay?' isn't terribly convincing because so far my experience has been that not relying on drugs is all downside.

[–] RedditIsDeddit@lemmy.world -1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

you know one thing about social media that's really hard to deal with is that everybody seems to speak an absolutes about every single fucking topic on the planet. there's room for the gray in almost every conversation that has ever existed and people like to just point out well what about my special circumstance, of course there's room for special circumstances and other things why does everybody think everything is absolute?

[–] Libra@lemmy.ml 1 points 4 days ago

Except I was doing what's called 'speaking from experience', which means I was speaking about my experience. Which you then decided to weigh in on as if you know a damned thing about it, or me, or even pain in general compared to the four specialist doctors I've seen on the subject. So yeah, when you start slinging vague opinions and generalizations about something I have lived for 20 years I'm gonna have some shit to say and you're just going to have to accept that I speak in absolutes because I am the authority on my situation. If you have any actual experience or expertise to share on the subject then I'm all ears, but if all you want to do is whine because somebody knows more than you do about the nonsense you're talking than you do then I'm gonna go do something more productive with my day.

[–] captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 9 points 6 days ago (7 children)

I'm not convinced OTC pain meds do anything, especially Tylenol.

[–] SparroHawc@lemm.ee 4 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

Tylenol is interesting - it's a psychoactive drug. It reduces your brain's ability to experience pain, or even understand the possibility of pain, rather than reducing the amount of pain you're feeling. That means different people's brain chemistry will result in very different results with Tylenol.

Studies were done that show people are slightly more likely to take risks when they're on Tylenol. Wild stuff.

[–] phx@lemmy.ca 4 points 6 days ago

I think it very much depends on the type of and source of pain.

For me, Tylenol works for headaches and some cold/flu stuff but I've never really found it effective for strained muscles etc

[–] GalacticGrapefruit@lemmy.world 2 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

Ditto what the others said. You might have just rolled bad RNG (DNA) at character creation (birth) and just gotten stuck with immunity to certain painkillers. It happens. Bad luck, friend.

[–] Two2Tango@lemmy.ca 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I think it depends on the person too. Tylenol doesn't work well for me, even prescription Tylenol; it kind of just makes me nauseous. Advil works great though.

[–] RampantParanoia2365@lemmy.world 2 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

My parents both seem to prefer Ibuprofen, but I swear by Excedrin as a miracle drug. But Excedrin is like, everything.

But Ibuprofen is better for muscle pain.

[–] logos@sh.itjust.works 2 points 6 days ago

I have a type of rheumatoid arthritis (spondylitis) and nsaids have a pretty profound effect.

[–] RampantParanoia2365@lemmy.world 1 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

Oh, Excedrin and Tylenol absolutely help headaches. I've had some splitting headaches that weren't migraines, and I can feel the pain get a lot better over 15-20. Of course water also helps, but it's faster than natural, I think.

[–] captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 1 points 5 days ago

Basically the only thing that help my headaches is caffeine. But that's probably a me problem.

[–] Psythik@lemm.ee 1 points 6 days ago

They only work for me if I take a much larger dose than what the label suggests, but I fear for my liver.

[–] Krudler@lemmy.world 4 points 5 days ago

I've read a lot of comments.

My personal experience is very different than what people are saying, maybe it applies to you, maybe it doesn't.

I have the same thing over my life with different types of pain. I would be given different pain relievers from surgeons, dentists, doctors, etc. For the most part it did fuck all.

Now that I am decades older and I've gone through all this bullshit, I basically learned that I'm immune to most painkillers. I metabolize caffeine very quickly and codeine and morphine are in the same family - so they're useless on me!

Freezing at the dentist always took double or triple. And very often the dentist would have to stop mid procedure and reapply freezing.

These are just a few, but certainly not all of my experiences, being completely baffled at the ineffectiveness of painkillers.

My friends could never understand why I was so blasé when I was prescribed heavy duty medications. And I could never understand why they were doing flying cartwheels to get them off me. It makes a lot more sense now that I figured shit out.

And like you, I turned to alcohol, actually at the advice of one of my oral surgeons who finally just said "look go home drink a 6 pack you won't feel any pain".

Let's leave all the completely unethical recommendations out of the discussion for now, and accept the fact that we now have more knowledge about painkillers than we did back in the day.

All of this to say, you may be just simply immune to painkillers. There's a variety of reasons for that, and it's no sense trying to explore those in the comments with laypeople like myself.

But on to any advice that I might give you? Perhaps not advice per se... but to tell you that what I did which helped me and perhaps it will help you.

I finally got over all my chronic pain by stretching and strengthening. I'm not going to sugar-coat it, certain parts of it were hell. I went to an athletic therapist who made me cry, but made me stand up straight. And I devoted myself to doing all the exercises and stretches... yes... 45 minutes every 2nd day for like 10 weeks. But damn did it pay off. That initial investment (not trying to half-ass it or go through the motions) got me to a certain plateau where I barely have to stretch anymore, my body is pretty happy.

I sincerely hope any of this applies to you and can be used but if not oh well maybe it will help someone else!

[–] Bebopalouie@lemmy.ca 4 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

Been pretty much 10 years with back pain and I also have arthritis and neuropathy.

I tried NSAIDS, I tried the other ones, I forget name, tried the brain ones. They were worse than the pain. Destroyed my gut or made me want to blow my brains out and 0 relief.

I don’t really like opiates. Not too worried about the addiction as I am Larry Flint type and don’t really care if I am on or off it. They help better (to reduce pain not alleviate) than all the other crap I mentioned. I also take Baclofen once or twice a week to rest me muscles.

I take cannabis for my Aphantasia(a longer story not for here) which as an added bonus it also helps alleviate pain. I eat fruit bottom Balkan yogurt once every 2 days and have no plumbing issues since I started the yogurt.

[–] altphoto@lemmy.today 3 points 6 days ago

Do you do chair exercises? You sit on a chair and then bend your upper body forward as low as you can. Not sure exactly what it does but seems to help. I had sciatica for 3 years and that helped get it fixed. I still get pain in my back when the weather changes or when I get sick like the flu or cold or covid. But otherwise my body learned somehow that the sciatica is not pain.

It was on a weekend when I went swimming with family and then the next morning I could not get up from bed due to back pain. And the exercises from a Kaiser permanent pamphlet were the thing that worked. But dude, they were painful as hell. I hope It helps you or someone else.

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