Howard, I would suggest trying to get norcos. They have a lot less acetaminophen than vicodin. The vicodins you are currently taking have 750 mg of acetaminophen and the 10 mg vicodins have 660 mg. If you are taking more than one pill a day for a prolonged period of time, it can have an adverse effect on your liver and stomach. The norcos come in 7.5 and 10 mg of hyrdocodone and each of them only contains 325 mg of acetaminophen.
Mind you, I'm not a doctor and could be way off base here. But when ever I get a sinus infection (which for me last a week and are accompanied by severe pain), my doctor is usually hesitant to prescribe me anything with high doses of acetaminophen. Just tell your doctor you are concerned about consuming large amounts of acetaminophen.
Oh, one more thing. My dad slipped a disc in his back when he was in his late 30s (doing dead lift). He had surgery and physical therapy and was still in a lot of pain, especially his sciatic nerve. He then found this book
Pain Free: A Revolutionary Method for Stopping Chronic Pain and he's doing way better. Aside from minor pains that come with age, he's now way more active than a typical 50 year old.
The book's quite interesting. It basically says that because of the sedentary lifestyles that we live (as opposed to the very active ones we were built for) our bodies have gotten way out of alignment creating all kinds of painful ailments. This book will fix that.