The best thing I found for intense pain, at least in my case, was a combination of Hydromorphone (Dilaudid) and a 12-ounce glass of ice cubes covered with Jim Bean Honey Bourbon. I wash down the pills by slowly sipping the Honey Bourbon over a 2 hour period just prior to bedtime. This usually provides me with about 4 hours sleep before wearing off, at which time I get out of bed to pee, and grab a couple extra-strength Tylenol, which usually kicks in in about 30 minutes, and provides me with enough relief to sleep an additional 3 hours before the phone starts ringing and a scammer from New Deli calls and tells me that he is with either the IRS, Social Security, Medicare, Pain Management Center, Amazon, etc...

In my case, after seeing 3 different GI docs, having a colonoscopy that revealed I had colitis, which I already knew from the previous colonoscopy, my condition began to worsen. The doc that did the colonoscopy put me on Prednisone, which did nothing but cause insomnia. I knew something nasty was going on, talked with a general surgeon friend of mine, and he said it sounds like I have a fistula between my sigmoid colon and bladder. He gave me the name of the best coli-rectal surgeon in the area, he agreed, did some minimally invasive surgery, and ended up removing 8.5 inches of my sigmoid colon. I now have a permanent colostomy, which at my age, is far too dangerous to reverse. The surgeon said that technically, the colostomy could be reversed, but there was a 37 percent chance that it would not hold up and I would end up dying from sepsis.

Hang in there, Diki, do what you can to endure the pain, which will eventually go away. And, be thankful that you don't have a plastic bag glued to your side. Maintaining that bag on a daily basis is by every description, "A crappy job."

Gary