H Withdrawal Soon/Chronic Pain & Health Problems/We Can Do It!

[ABetterWay]

Wrongguy, I'm headed for bed but I just wanted to say Welcome first. You aren't crashing us lol. Anyone is welcome.

Have a good night, guys. It will pass, don't forget. I know it sucks. I hope you guys feel better quickly Xoxo

 

[Sasha88]

Sasha and Socks - Do you guys think it'd help you gain better control of your intake if you kept a log of whatever is triggering you or causing you to want to reach for more? Maybe include how much taken/your goal for the day,, and how much is physical, how much is mental, how much emotional. Etc. You'd get better at keeping it the longer you did, as you reread it the next day and saw what dangers are particular to you. You know,? It might not help your intake, I don't know. At the least though it'd get you in touch with your reasons and reasoning.

Xoxo Thinking of you. You can do anything you decide you want to. I hope you feel better soon, guys. This will pass. Remember that.

Hey ABW - that's a good idea. I'll give it a go next time I fill my script. I mean, I'd do anything to just keep my pills for 3 out of 4 weeks instead of blowing through them in 1.5-2 weeks. Maybe your suggestion will help me not nibble on them quite so much.
thanks for the thought!

 

[jamesBrown]

I keep hearing withdrawal gets worse every time but, I have been keeping my dose constant lately. I went 14 hours without dosing yesterday and I am doing the same thing today. The main reason is that I really don't want to run out cold turkey again, and also I'd like to get rid of the compulsive aspect of my use which is unrelated to how sick I am. So, I like to dose heavy but less frequently and it's much more satisfying that way and I also feel like it creates less of a dependency than if I fiend every 2 or 3 hours... if I wait at least 12, I think that will be great for controlling my dependency and keeping my dose down. Since, when I do this and keep the overall daily dose the same, I get really high and my highs last longer, and I spend a lot of time sick that I have to learn to deal with. I also feel like my tolerance drops due to the good and solid time spent sick. I feel like it's not as bad anymore as it was at first, when I had been dosing compulsively every 2 or 3 hours for 6 months. Now that I've gone through several 12 to 18 hour periods willingly, and CT unwillingly, it's not so bad to get through. That being said, I'm laying in bed for the remainder of the 8 hours I have to go. The time will fly by and fuck will it feel nice to get some relief!
Then I get to add oxy to the mix soon and I'm going to use it in a way to boost my H up and use less H, not abuse the oxy itself since it's childproofed and all that.

Overall, if I can make it these stretches of time without opiates I am making progress. Maybe, this will become easy in a few weeks and I won't even think about it until it is time to dose. That would be wonderful and it's what I experienced last year after a while of tapering oxy. I am all for creating a schedule, sticking to it, only allowing myself to dose at certain times of the day - and if I need a break, still waiting until that time to dose, and just dose a little higher. It's really important for me to wait until I am good and sick, and eventually this will pass. That is when I know it will be time to lower my dose or change the frequency to even longer durations of time between using. Problems occur when I am disturbed by things that I have to do, but can't do without using. And I quickly succumb to compulsive redosing if I don't stick to my journal.

I think a huge problem is when my tolerance will get much lower than it is now. If I started dosing compulsively again or some shit, I could die. I'll probably switch to solely oxy at that point but I mean, the Heroin is with me forever. I love it way too much, I can't really see my life without it. I just want to keep it under control (for now, I have no true desire to quit, just get it under control before I start shooting up... I've already shot up once and tried twice more but missed/couldn't hit. I don't want to get into that or do it ever again.) I just feel like if I started shooting it, I would pretty quickly die and that scares me out of doing it. I was an idiot to do it that one time but that is getting to be a long while ago. I'm a sniffer at heart.

Also, this circumvents issues like constipation because closer to dosing time when I'm good and sick I will empty my bowels. Really important for the health of an "opiate problem user, or substance use disorder". I hate the word addict. So, I am all for infrequent dosing because then it isn't on your mind all the time, preoccupying your day, and you get to reward yourself with a solid hit as opposed to breaking up the hits. I get the most out of my H this way too, because I enjoy it too. I can really just lay back and put on some tunes, time 15 minutes on my phone (so I know when I should have peak effect starting) and then have a wonderful few hours and it is SO worth the suffering, which will eventually subside, I need to be patient! I've been using at a fucking insane rate for 5 years I can't expect to fix myself overnight. I believe that frequency of use is a factor in withdrawal severity regardless of dose. If you are doing mines every 2 hours you are going to have worse withdrawals in my opinion even if your dose isn't that much higher or even the same. This is just a theory I have by the way because I really believe sick time lowers my tolerance and I'm never really all that sick if I don't wait patiently for my fix. No heroin high is going to last 14 hours for me at this point, at the doses I take. If I really take this seriously, I won't even think of doing H for 6 to 8 hours and can easily last 12. I just have to get used to this new way of using, which is obviously beneficial, at least to me. It really helps me come to terms with the cravings and overcome them.

I have two 8mg subs I got from a friend. I am not educated enough about suboxone to blindly take it but my friend gave me a taper plan. I'm not sure if I will need it... I'm doing pretty well. Being able to wait 14 hours when you have dope on hand, is great in my opinion. And it is fucking tough not to give in. Maybe when my dose gets much lower, I switch to oxy and oral use over sniffing, and then I can do it then instead of CT.

Like you said^^, you could die given how you are using your heroin(although technically you could die even if you used H differently than you do now)...so I think it's a good thing you are at least thinking about weaning off, potentially(and hopefully) with the assistance of suboxone.

I highly recommend beginning to taper down and then eventually using LOW DOSE suboxone(~ 0.5 - 4 mg's/dose)for at most a few weeks to get clean(That's exactly how I got clean after several years of an ~ $200/day habit). Because even though you say you feel as if you have this whole heroin use thing under control and the way you do it is unique and allows for consistent heroin abuse without nearly as much risk for full-blown addiction or messed up/fluctuating tolerance levels....you still need to remind yourself that this is heroin we are talking about. And most people who have become hardcore heroin addicts have thought the same way(feeling like things are under control)at least once in their addiction "career". I call it a "career" because heroin addiction truly is HARD FUCKING WORK unless you are ultra-wealthy. And even then it is still quite a hassle.
I hope it all works out for you...not that you were really expressing much concern for your habit. But I'm still allowed to express concern for you.

 

[Wrongguy]

I agree with Jamesbrown, and am concerned. You should really think about treating your pain with just pain meds only, I hear what your saying but you are saying it like every user has thought at one time or another. You can control your pain without using H, but I don't care what anyone says at some point H is always in control, not you. That and the thing that makes us addicts addicts is that we compulsively use (every day), and tell ourselves some story to make it all ok and just look forward to that time of the hit and high. You are chasing the high, you even said, and I don't blame you I know what it's like.

I know what your trying to do and I hope it all works out for you. You must admit to yourself what is truly going on, that is the only way anything will ever change anything someday. You know you are thinking about it all day every day, if you act on it or not doesn't matter, the thought is there. Your counting the hours (already admitted)

In the end no matter how you want to try to look at it, H is a motherfer and will out wit you eventually. No matter how smart you think you are compared to it. It already has you by the balls and you even admitted that it has already fucked you over... break off this relationship it's destructive relationship.

I'm not ganging up on you, so please don't take it that way. I am glad you speak your mind that's what you should do, it's honestly best for everyone. Others looking in can see the destructive nature of your relationship way more than you can, and it's because all H does is whisper sweet lies in your ear, compelling you to do what she says...... evil

Now saying that I know what it is to control pain with H, and I totally know where your coming from... I remember telling myself it's doing more helping than harm and I couldn't function without debilitating pain without it (lies, there are other ways, I just didn't care what theyou were). And I was going to find a way to make this relationship work, I loved her way to much, I couldn't just leave her, plus she made me feel so good (at times, but majority was worse)... I was living in a dream world (total nightmare) and a fantasy land.... it was not reality

 

[Wrongguy]

Just keep working and striving towards your goals. You are getting there, and congratulations on every step in you (and everyone) have made in this marathon. Keep up the good work and try not to get discouraged. Every single step you make is a step reguardless.... and you become one more step closer to your end goal. Don't worry about how far you have to go, just know how far you have come and try not to stumble or fall and just get the next foot step down correctly. Only concentrating on the end of the journey and not looking down and what's right in front of you makes you stumble and possibly fall on the next foot step.

So the importance of each step along the way is actually more important than dwelling only on the end of the journey. You can't finish an up and down a mountain trek without paying attention to the places you put those footsteps along the way. All the while remembering which direction your heading so you don't get lost along the way.

You seem to know where you wanna go and who knows maybe you will hit the goal and decide you can keep going..... best of luck to you during your journey and hope all goes well. Wish you the best of luck for you and stay strong

 

[Wrongguy]

I will cross post what I posted in a different thread and add to it, it's gonna be a long one but bear with me...

[
Withdrawal sucks but I feel H can definitely help with pain upfront. But you may be able to help your pain short term but you will start to run into problems later. After extended periods of use i wonder how much of that pain that you feel is actually there (compared to if you were not on anything like that for extended periods). What happens is when you are using it helps but when you are not on it your pain becomes magnified a large or even huge amount) Meaning it dulls the pain when dosed but it also magnify's the pain you have when you are not on it. Therefore, in a sence, you make your pain worse or seem worse than it actually is and in turn make you beleive that you need it to feel ok on the pain scale.... then factor in withdrawal (which is a whole other kind of debilitating pain/problems) and you actually make yourself actually need it to function period without pain or withdrawal rather than just needing something (preferably meds rather than H) for some pain control sometimes. Its a Vicious cycle

Do not get me wrong some people most definitely need pain control ofor some kind and even long term pain management. Sometimes those people can not get the amount of help they truly need and deserve. It's absolutely horrible that they limit people who actually need it. Sometimes this can drive people to street drugs for relief. Pain sucks
]

Now that's the problem I ran into, it helped somewhat but it was not what your/our mind makes it cracked up to be. It helps some but not to the extent we beleive. And factor in the magnified pain level and you truly beleive there is no better/other way. It took me getting off the H and even pain meds for a extended period to actually fully understand this effect and that alot of the pain I was feeling was being blown way way out of proportion by this.

Have you tried extended (meaning a couple months at least, takes a while for your body to rebound and level out back to a natural medium) periods of no opiates at all, or just your pain meds with no H (since you have started to use H heavily for pain control, it has to be after to know forsure your non exasperated H pain level)? Because until you do that your living in the magnified region that you will not want to or be able to go without. Long term H is not an effective way to control pain for these reasons in my book. Even pain meds alone can have this effect to an extent.

Now I know full well how amazing (at the the time) H was/seemed to be, at a whole host of problems. And that made me fear not having it and the withdrawals even more. But true horrible consuming pain can not be taken away by opiates (safe levels of at least) and only dulled. I know how great even the dull agony can be when compared to the complete and devastating agony of full on pain.

I could argue a bunch of pros over the cons too (and during my/our active full use of H for pain I would never be convinced that there was anything better. Its something you must experience to truly understand that there are and why there are better ways). I truly believe based on experience that at the end of the day there are way more cons vs. The real pros.... There are so many better options for pretty much every ailment than H for long term pain control, especially for street H that becomes all ailments

I'm with you on how shitty doctors are to pain patients sometimes. They either don't want to or are unable to prescribe enough to actually help people. Then alot of them treat anyone that needs pain meds like "pill seekers" and they are treated like drug additics (Of course I'm seeking pills I'm feel like I'm dying and of course I'm addicted the pain is unbearable... WTF that should not be a shock but don't treat me like a peice of garbage because of it or in spite of it). And often try to skate by giving small amounts of pills and weaker than needed pills that won't touch the pain. It's ridiculous and as a result patients suffer, even if they truly need it to not be in complete agony.

 

[ABetterWay]

Trevorrrrrrrr!!!!!

Muah.

Xo

 

[ABetterWay]

Shroomy,

What is the nature of your back injury? I'm asking because I did years and years of research trying to figure out what was wrong with me since no doctors put more than 5 minutes into it. So I've learned a lot, not just about my condition. Perhaps I can give you some pointers or tips.

I recently figured out how to crack my spine back into place because everything slides all over the place in there. Very helpful.

But yeah, lmk the nature of the injury/injuries. Hopefully I'll have something helpful to say about it.

Any way to reduce the pain and increase functioning is a good thing.

Xoxo

 

[ABetterWay]

Good post, Wrongguy

Yeah, pain is a bitch. And so is pain control.
Xo

Also, hello and Welcome, jamesBrown

 

[Wrongguy]

What ever works for you is important, good luck... hope you reach your goals

 

[jamesBrown]

Good post, Wrongguy

Yeah, pain is a bitch. And so is pain control.
Xo

Also, hello and Welcome, jamesBrown

Hello to you too!

...and thank you for welcoming me. I have been on here(BL, especially OD) for like 7 years, not counting the several years before that where I just read posts/threads from an outside perspective. But I still appreciate your warm welcome nonetheless....even if it is belated. LOL.

 

[Speed King]

I used to take Opana/Oxymorphone. I came off it by vaping hash oil, candy edibles and lots of dank medicinal. By the way, I
also get Ketamine infusions. That really helps pain and depression. YMMV.

 

[jamesBrown]

I used to take Opana/Oxymorphone. I came off it by vaping hash oil, candy edibles and lots of dank medicinal. By the way, I
also get Ketamine infusions. That really helps pain and depression. YMMV.

You get ketamine infusions?! I do to! You are the first person on here that I have come across that also gets K infusions.
I get mine through a new part of my pain management doctors clinic. Basically I just go to my pain doc like I'm going for a regular visit but I go sit in an armchair instead and get my infusion over about an hour. It works WONDERS on SO MANY THINGS! Especially my nerve pain and my mental state.

 

[Speed King]

A month ago,I went to emergency room and got a low dose shot and it worked wonders.

I also learned (my opinion)that if you get your head straight and relax before a K infusion, the effects last longer.

Once I was a little wired before a K infusion, I stayed up. It was cool, but I felt it wasn't as effective.

Ketamine treatment changed my life.

 

[jamesBrown]

I've been interested in K infusions for a while now. I wonder if they could help because I'm very depressed as well as having the pain. I think I'd have to go to America to get one. Interesting topic to bring up. Fascinating really. I've heard that ketamine can treat depression really quickly too... unlike more commonly used antidepressants which can take a while to start working

Honestly, you have no idea the potential ketamine infusions have in reference to all types of ailments...especially depression/mood disorders.

You mind if I ask where you live since you mentioned you're not in America?

 

[Speed King]

Let your doctor know about ketamine. It may help to bring some information about it.

My doctors were happy when I told them about it.

 

[ABetterWay]

Woodhouse!

 

[jamesBrown]

I live in Canada. there is a "fentanyl crisis" here and ever since that hit the news, my doctor has been an asshole towards me. It's like everything changed. He used to joke that I'd get a tolerance, like wagging his finger at me "you're gonna get a tolerance..." lol. But he was always like, "we can increase that" when I got the 10mg ER's. Years later, I'm still on the stupid fucking 10mg ER's. Oxy doesn't even do it for me anymore. I hate it.

I don't think K treatment is a thing here but I think that there may be some studies at universities going on and maybe I could participate in one. I don't think I could bring it up to my doctor because he would automatically think I was a druggie looking for some psychedelic trip.

I would recommend putting together all the information you can find that details the benefits, as well as the increasingly widespread utilization of ketamine infusions(from all over the world). Then present it to your doctor when you bring up the issue of infusions so that he can, at the very least, understand how serious you are and how you are not just looking for another high.

If you think it would help, I would be more than happy to send you the information(packets/brochures/etc.) that my pain doctors' "Ketamine Infusion Practice" shows it's patients to help them understand. That should at least show your doctor that actual, legitimate, and highly respected physicians are increasingly getting involved with these infusions. I could even ask my doctor(who truly is VERY good at his job and held in high esteem by his peers) if he could even write a letter to your doctor to help him understand the benefits and the seriousness of this.

Oh, and btw, we are also having a fentanyl "crisis' in the US as well. Actually, it's more of an opioid crisis, but fentanyl is the one that I hear spoken about the most on the news these days. It used to be oxy, now it's fentanyl...especially fentanyl laced heroin. It literally looks like they are actually TRYING to scare the public into thinking fentanyl is the next heroin. They usually forget to mention that fentanyl is one of the most commonly used opioids for people with cancer/AIDS pain as well for people in hospice care, or that the fentanyl in the heroin that they always talk about is almost always a fent analogue....all they seem to remember is that "It's 50 times more potent than heroin!!!!!"

*Ha!..you keep editing your post every time I try to respond to the last edit. I'm not complaining, that's how you're supposed to do it. It's just becoming very difficult to keep up with you lol. How about this....why don't you PM me with any questions/ideas you may have about ketamine infusions and I will GLADLY help you out the best I can. BTW...I think the infusions will cost a lot less than you think. For example, it's ~$300 per infusion at my pain doctors office. And I'm pretty sure you don't have to be a patient of his to get infusions.*

 

[TrevorStJohn]

A Better Way !
Big kiss and hug !!!!
Feel like shit on day 4 again.......oy vey !
I got my hands on some 300 mg gabapentin that helps a bit....at least I can sleep a little......and lope helps.
XO . My friends

 

[Stormcloud]

I totally am with you on this one. I take a number of psych meds including benzos and am also on subkxone, for all my scripts I have to see my doctors twice a month to renew my meds. My life is all about meds, meds and more meds. I am bi-polar and despite it all am STILL depressed. I despise it all.