Opioids long term opiate use for legitimate chronic pain?

[mc17473]

ive been using a combo of IR and ER oxycodone for nearly 2 years now, and i've had chronic pain for roughly 6-7 years, the last 2-3 years getting way worse. had surgery on my neck in 2014 (made issues WAY worse), then another corrective in late 2015 (seemed to help at first, but now ~9 months later it seems like it's back to how it was before unfortunately. i've pretty much just accepted this is how life is going to be. i'm not even 30 yet!

of course friends/family don't want me to take opiates, but i just don't know. i don't know if it's causing me additional pain when it starts wearing off before my next dose, or if it's just gotten worse on it's own. does anyone use opiates long term for what it's intended to be used for, and not at all to get high or anything? i also use Soma, mainly at night, to help me sleep, and it's a life saver because i so rarely get a good nights sleep.

i'm torn on if i should try and stop opiates all together and see how the pain is, or keep using. i personally like the ER better because it doesn't wear off NEARLY as fast as the IR.

as far as the pain goes, the 2 surgeries were C5/C6 neck surgeries, first one being a disc replacement with an artificial implant to replace the disc, second (different doctor) was to remove the implant that didn't even seat/fuse right in my neck, and a traditional fusion was performed. then i have some kind of weird pain/feeling in my left arm and hand, assuming nerve pain/damage. can't really even describe it, doctors don't know what is it. i'm planning on making an appt with a doctor to check if it's carpal tunnel (worked in IT type work for 10+ years), but i basically have to keep like stretching my fingers (bending them backwards etc) but it never goes away. that's really the best i can describe it. i also have a similar feeling in my ankles when walking, last few months i've been wearing braces on each foot that help a BIT, but it's still there. really sucks and depressing, especially considering my age not even being 30 yet....

what do you all think? should i try to stop (i tried once, went 10 days without and couldn't handle the WD and started taking the oxy again) and that was like 6 months ago. i've tapered since then, taking a lot less than i was. not sure what to do....it's even more frustrating not really knowing exactly what is causing the pain in my hand, if a doctor could tell me, i could at least have something to focus on/research and go from there, but i don't.

this definitely changes your life, as i'm sure a lot of you on here know, and friends/family/co-workers etc say they know/understand/relate, but most cannot, and that is also VERY annoying, but honestly it's hard to blame them. before i had chronic 24/7 pain, i would never have known what life is like with it either, so again it's hard to blame them for thinking they understand what i live like...

just looking for opinions on continuing/stopping medication, options on things to do/try, etc.

thank you in advance!!!!

 

[Rambo!12]

Man, Im sorry that you are going through this at such an early age. Using for chronic pain is great at first. However, as the years go by and tolerance builds you need more and more to not feel the pain. Of course the better alternative would be not to use it. It seems as though the withdrawal was getting to you more than the actual pain was. If this is the case and I am reading the post correctly then just fight through it. Opiate withdrawal feels like your dying, but your not. Tampering is definetly a good idea, if you have enough willpower to not overindulge as you tamper off, which is very easy to do. Go ahead and give it a shot to quit. It won't hurt to try and it seems to me your slowly moving across the border from legitimate use to abuse. We all give our reasons as to why we need or have to have a drug to go on about our day, but none so convincing as situations such as you are in. I found a website that I read about the topic the other day and will answer all of your questions. I don't want to type it all out because well there is no point lol. It is a study done by John Hopkins University that gives specific details on the side effects, a placebo effect study, the usefulness of the drug on chronic pain problems, and many other useful topics you would be interested in learning about. hope this helps. best of luck brotha. http://www.hopkinsarthritis.org/pat...risks-of-opioids-for-chronic-pain-management/

 

[Mracid]

I have chronic pain in both my left epididymis (the thing close to the testicle that contain sperm and create testosterone), I also have chronic muscle tension which gives me a random problem everyday, one day its a headache so intense that I want to kill myself and the other is cramps on legs/arms/fingers and the worst mouth.

The only way I found to be relieved is to accept the pain without any help from drugs, sure I used cannabis for 3 years but since my LSD trip I kinda felt like I could live with it without anything but my will to live. I also have a plan to study chemistry and take off class biochemistry at the university (no exam, you just pay for being present at the class). When I get that I will work on what is causing my pain and try to litteraly get rid of it. That goal help me too.

So apart using psychedelics, my guess is that the best way to get rid of chronic pain is accepting it sober and use drugs when its too much for you to be stable (as much psychologically as productively). Making tolerance lower since you use it less frequently and challenge your conscious mind to handle much more intense pain, it will make you grow and evolve. thats what it did to me and I am only 18 (ima be 19 in 15 days). My left epididymis pain is from 2 years ago and spasticity is from the moment I began to create memories. I can't even imagine my life without physical pain but I will work to get there. Without having to take a drug everyday. I am half way there and am happy to be.

What I mean is that pain is a challenge not an affliction, you can either win or lose. Choose what you want to be.

 

[mc17473]

thanks for the responses guys. yea it sucks especially being so young. it's without a doubt changed my life and things i had planned to do, things i used to do for fun, going places, etc. and what "hurts" as much as the pain itself is the fact that a lot of people, especially family, seems to not understand that and gives me a hard time "come anyway its just for a while, just suck it up" etc...that tells me they don't get it at all. if they did they wouldn't say stuff like that and just let me be when some days the pain is so bad i don't want to do ANYTHING.

i do agree, i hate how you quickly build tolerance. i substantially reduced what i was taking, i was on 120 30mg IR oxycodone a month and 90 40mg oxycontin ER a month, and i don't take the 30's anymore, so i GREATLY reduced the amount. i do want to eventually taper off, but still get them and just take them truly AS NEEDED. deal with the pain most days and when it's incredibly bad and hard to tolerate, i can use the IR or whatever to get some relief. sucks, but yea, i've accepted that is basically my life and it's more than likely not going to change.

 

[mike.vick]

Opiates are gonna be phased-out except for end of life, because it makes pain worse over long-term, to say the least.

 

[mc17473]

yea, i'm hoping some of my pain goes away when i'm completely off of it. to keep some for random times (let my tolerance go way way back down) to use if the pain is SUPER bad would be great, but i think im ready to stop daily use.

 

[tightlywound]

I have chronic back pain -- totally fucked up back, and I'm only 23. =/ I have a herniated L5 disc, 24 degree and counting scoliosis, a more recently fractured T10 (or 11? don't recall exactly at this moment) vertebrae, and tons of accompanying joint dysfunction as a result of the back problems, like my SI in particular, as well as accompanying muscle spasms due to the scoliosis. my back causes me a lot of pain.
I have opiate addiction on my record ...so I can't get jack fucking shit for pain. I mean, I'm on buprenorphine, but honestly at this point it doesn't do ANYTHING in the way of pain relief. I take a lot of acetaminophen and robaxin (methocarbomal, a muscle relaxant). I'm still always in pain in one way or another.
so I feel you.

I find that the lower my weight and the better shape I'm in, the less my back hurts -- less load for it to bear you know. except the fractured vertebrae ...that tends to end up hurting more when I'm very thin, as my spine is more exposed and any way I sit/etc in which there is any kind of pressure on my T10-11 causes me immense pain. but the other issues tend to be mitigated by weight loss. kind of a catch-22 though ...there's really nothing I can do to make the whole situation entirely tolerable.

its possible that you could be experiencing opioid hyperalgesia, in which case it may actually be beneficial for you to work on getting off the opioids.