Voltarol vs generic ibuprofen gel

Hello all. I know there are a few here that occasionally (or unfortunately more than occasionally ) have cause to use topical NSAIDs.

I use ibuprofen gel to reduce the pain in my destroyed big toe joint. It helps, but it's not brilliant.

Voltarol is more expensive, but it's also not ibuprofen based, being diclofenac instead. All the articles I read say it is better, but then most of those articles appear to be commercially biased. So here I am asking the collective oracle of you lot, because I know you'll give me honest opinions.

 

I get prescribed diclofenac,solpadol and diazepam when my back goes into its spasm

I find the solpadol is the best for numbing pain along with a good single malt

 

Never found any of the rub in stuff worth bothering with, even the stuff on prescription is just pointless, clueless.
I only take tablets, anti inflammatories, for my back when I really need to.
Then its Naproxen.

 

We can have Voltarol on prescription here too, also diclofenac tablets. I find it better than normal ibuprofen gels.. but I also find the pink ibuprofens better than white ones (slow release I think). Pete's right though, naproxen is the boy, can give you dodgy guts though so was prescribed omeprazole with it as I don't do well with tablets/reflux.

 

Yeah, I get Omeprazole as well, so take both at the same time.

 

Unfortunately I can't take omeprazol or its standard alternative lanzoprazol. Both give me side effects that basically render me even more useless than my defective foot does. In that I get abdominal pains that feel like I'm being stabbed, extreme nausea, and headaches. I'm OK with ranitidine though, but in any case, all of these products work by messing with the balance of digestive juices that are produced. In effect, ranitidine turns your gastric acid into little more than saline. That basically means your intestines have to do extra work to digest food that should already be dissolved. Therefore long term, oral meds are far from ideal if they're not essential. This is why topical treatment really is the only viable option for the long term.

That plus a bit of diy podiatry because the NHS simply isn't working for me in this case. I plan to modify some boots to see if I can divert load away from the defective joint.