Have you tried anti-inflammatory medications? You would be surprised at how much different they work compared to basic pain relievers. It could be quite beneficial to you, obviously you have an inflammatory process involved. You can take it along with something like tylenol also, and the combination may prove well for you. The only OTC one would be Aleve, but I would recomend prescription strength for you (250mg I think) It that does not prove to be useful, there are other options. I am currently using Cataflam, and it works quite well for me. Ibuprofin is technically and anti-inflammatory, but I dont believe the properties of it are as effective as aleve and the others. You could ask your doctor, or just try aleve and tylenol combo and see how goes. You could always take 250mg of the aleve OTC if you wished, but I would advise a call to ensure its ok with your doc first. Also when I had the prescription of it, I could take it every 6-8 hours, opposed to OTC aleves 12hours, another thing I would ask about. Good luck to you. I hope you can find a good combination. There also are other narcotic type pain relievers available that may not make you as drowsy as codiene does, so I suppose you could talk about that also.

Best Wishes,