Co-Dydramol/Frozen Shoulder

These Co-Dydramol tablets comprise Dihydrocodeine, 10 Mg and Paracetamol, 500Mg.

I am 73 years old, male, and have always played racket sports even up to my retirement about 6-7 years ago; I am left handed and the pain is in my right shoulder, seemingly proving the belief that this problem more affected the "non-used arm", as I have developed a very clear clicking noise in my right shoulder joint with any movement.

Subsequently, I was found to have a Rotator Cuff problem in my right shoulder (more commonly described as a frozen shoulder) and following physiotherapy, which did not seem to actually help, and appeared to be adding to the pain (akin to a knife being pushed into the shoulder joint), my doctor recommended taking one paracetamol and one 400Mg Ibuprofen tablet which I followed for about 4-5 weeks but although this reduced the pain level, it do not reduce the pain at all when I tried to move my arm much above my waist. Trying to scratch my lower back was and remained impossible.

Even upping this dosage to the same number of tablets in mid-afternoon made no difference at all and continuous attempts at exercise seemed to be making matters worse as the days and weeks went by.

In the mean time, I was added to a Consultants waiting list with a potential of being seen in the next 4-6 months and from there the next potential of an operation , but at least a year to wait for this to occur.

Subsequently, my Doctor put me on to Co-Dydramol 10/500Mg tablets with a recommended dosage of 2 tablets after breakfast and up to eight tablets per day.

I started these tablets at one only per day and actually found that this was sufficient to remove all pain in my shoulder, even allowing me to sleep well without pain occurring until the next tablet the following morning.

After 8 days on this regime I stopped taking these tablets, waiting to see when the pain would resume and was pleasantly surprised that nearly four days went by before the pain returned to its previous high level, with actual pain beginning to be noticed at the end of day two.

I am now back to taking one tablet per day and am again pain free.

OK, so everyone will have a differing level of experience on these tablets, I accept this. However I do believe that there are occasions that it makes sense to not blindly follow a given table regime, especially given that my maximum dosage was suggested as up to 8 tablets per day!

I also recognise that Doctor surgeries are over-worked at present and that not everyone would have the availability of medical advice from other than a doctor with an average of 7-10 days waiting for appointments.

I have never looked on tablets of any type to be a painless panacea of problems as inevitably most appear to have some element of side-effects from their main purpose.

While I would not recommend my practices for everyone as summarised above, however there would appear to be a growing problem where some individuals assume that where a prescription recommends a maximum per day number of tablets, that such is intrinsically "safe" and can be taken without risk.

It is my contention that the current propensity towards prescriptions stating a maximum dosage should also require that this amount be made subject to medical verification, (whether by doctor or by a visit to their dispensing chemist) before a patient should self-administer the maximum dosage for themselves.

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