Graham;

You have lost morphine as a pain medication. Every single oral medication eventually no longer gives pain relief because over time, your body is forced to learn how to detoxify it. Your liver is responsible for getting rid of all foreign chemicals, including medications. Your liver has learned how to very efficiently change the morphine into something else very fast so the morphine, from the very second it starts to circulate in your blood, gives you very little long term pain relief. The more morphine or any other drug or chemical you take,  the faster your body will have to learn how to do this to protect you from being poisoned.

Your breathing problem sounds like some symptoms usually associated with congestive heart failure, a build up of fluid around the heart and possibly an enlargement of the heart muscle so it doesn't pump effectively. That makes your breathing very inefficient all by itself and the congestion or m\heart muscle damage may be made worse by the morphine. You will probably have to learn to sleep in a recliner chair. Talk to Brent. He wanted that kind of chair and might have a spare one he could sell for a really good price. Then you won't be lying down and having such a tough time breathing.

You can improve your breathing by steady, all day long physical activity like walking, to improve circulation and strengthen your heart, no alcohol or smoking and losing body fat. Congestive heart failure isn't always associated with fat but the two very often go together.

You might not be able to walk all day today but your body will be able to walk all day in a matter of a few weeks. If you literally do your best, every day, for about 3 days all you will get is sore muscles but by the end of a week, it will amaze you how far you can go, taking short breaks when you need to.The weakest thing in most people is not their body, it is their willpower.Your body has more power to do physical things than most people will ever admit or find out.

I have seen congestive heart failure before and usually the person who has it says they cannot do various physical activities. This is a disease that you cannot negotiate with. You either do what you need to or you die many years before you have to. If you have it, and you refuse for any reason to become physically active and make whatever lifestyle changes may be required, your doctor will prescribe pills which will give you much worse symptoms that you have now. The pills will disguise your symptoms so death will be less obvious as it sneaks up on you but the pills will NOT lengthen your life or make you feel better.

There are certain food supplements that can, over time, help with circulation and ope up the blood vessels tha are causing cramping and help you get oxygen to the cells but you should get a proper diagnosis first. Jay tried a product I recommended and within a month or so was able to get rid of his prescription high blood pressure medication and save about $50 a month.

If you hope for good help from people you talk with, you absolutely have to have an exact diagnosis. You have to get that by making sure you demand it from your doctor - the exact medical name for what you have. There are 3 forms of congestive heart failure, for instance. Although you might do some of the same things for each one, you would have to do some things for one form that don't apply to the others. You getting an accurate diagnosis and you knowing what you are talking about makes a BIG difference. Guessing or thinking you might have got it right is what kills people.

On member of this forum took 1 prescription medication that had been prescribed for him months before - 1 pill if I got the story right, and his body had improved because of exercise etc, and he didn't need it that medication any more - but he never asked anybody, not his doctor, not his pharmacist, not anybody on the forum and wound up in hospital, could have died and it cost him almost $1000. In some cases that would have just been a sad story but given his financial situation, it was a catastrophe. Drugs KILL. You take nothing you don't critically need to stay alive. If you haven't been taking it, you NEVER start up again before checking with somebody who REALLY KNOWS!!!

Most doctors know from many years of constant experience that most of their patients are completely useless at doing anything for themselves that takes longer than 3 days or requires any willpower and that the patients would prefer for the doctor to give them a pill than to actually change diet, exercise or lose weight and so the doctors don't teach their patients anything.

If you hope to get good pain relief and any better breathing, you have to take a very serious, lifetime, every single thing that is involved, every day, interest in what you have and get your doctor to describe what is going on inside your body.

Then stay away from the quacks who will guarantee that their little potion or pill will grow back your hair, make you sing like Elvis etc etc. Those things don't exist.

Go get a diagnosis, come back and tell me about the diagnosis and your physical condition and I will tell you what the doctor will tell you for drug therapy and what other things will and won't work.  Been doing that for 40 years this June. Ask others on the forum if I know what I am talking about if you like.

Regards

Goldeneagle