tinyE: I had a double hernia last year, took care of that. The painkillers were great! :D
Of course I'm a cancer survivor.
I'm also on two different kinds of anti-depressants but I think a lot of that is my fault.
Contrary to what a lot of extremest media personalities say, the cancer WAS NOT MY FAULT! :P
Oh and I suffer from high blood pressure, but I think that has a lot to do with the entire block of salt I eat every morning.
Yes, painkillers can help, but unfortunately my problem isn't sever enough to warrant them. :\
As for anti-depressants, I was on some SSRI's before but keeping up with appointments to get said meds proved to be a pain(I sometimes don't feel like leaving the house and I missed many appointments because of that....leading to many mental health doctors blacklisting/refusing to see me). Also, I had some odd side effects: One pill I was on made me get extreme dry mouth/mouth/throat pain, so I was taken off it, and the ones I stayed on for awhile gave me either very vivid dreams(lucid almost) and/or no dreams, along with slight physical problems(I won't mention them as they pertain to more sensitive ailments).
Add to that the time I went into the watch unit(mental health) at the hospital after my blackout(listed above)...they put me on sleeping meds(I had trouble sleeping) which gave me problems sleeping when I was off them/out of the hospital.
Sidenote: It sucks to hear you had cancer(I hope you're better now?).....I have had several family members get/die from various types of cancer and losing them hurts when I think about them sometimes.
Sidenote 2: As for the salt intake....I wouldn't worry about it. Yeah, you might die earlier but imo it's better to live one's own way/have fun while doing so instead of severely limiting one's self and suffering mentally/emotionally because of it.