Thanks so much, KraziKat. I hope you are able to beat this. Are you a PM person? As a PM person here, I had to do something to cut myself off from the PMD. I smoked mj a couple of times so I couldn't back out of telling him to ct me off. I knew I couldn't pass a UA anyway, so it made it pretty easy to consider that source closed. I'm not a fan of mj, but as far as sacrifices go, it was minimal to say the least. I had been trying to taper - pretty. Unsuccessfully and for reasons that I will never understand, my requests to be switched back to oxy - a MUCH weaker med than what they had switched me to, had gone all but ignored. I was only offered comfort meds after I grew tired of the game, smoked mj, quit taking the meds and announced at my next appointment that I had stopped taking them and didn't want anymore. I'm still struggling a little with anger towards the 2 PMD's I saw. (One of which -the one I switched to for help tapering off the medication - a joke, I have an appointment with in 2 moths to discuss a nerve stimulator). In the 6ish months that I complained to TWO DIFFERENT PMDs that I thought the medication was making the pain worse, that the benefits of taking the medication no longer outweighed the downside and that I wanted to stop taking the medication to see where my pain level was without it, I was tapered from 60mg to 40mg. Every time I tried to go to 30mg on my own, serious withdrawal kept me from staying there - I'm self employed and outside of a nice long Christmas break, I couldn't just take even a week off. I guess I just say all that to you because before this, I trusted my doctors. Now I think they're as duped as we are by bigpharma. If you really want off, unfortunately, you may have to do it by yourself (or with the help of people/places that don't benefit financially from you coming in for your own personal handcuffs every month. I wish you the best and would be happy to answer any questions or anything if you'd like. I'm not sure I'm qualified but could share my experience.
ON the Kratom:
I did something that was maybe kind of stupid to stop taking it. I'll suffer through the embarrassment of sharing because that's what this forum is for, sort of, right? I took loperamide - 2 doses of 50ish mg - for a 24 hr period. All the research I did on it boiled down to: that, in clinical trials, healthy adults could take up to 60 mg with no adverse effects except some potential vomiting but it was uncommon. My plan had been to take it for three days if needed, tapering each day. Two things happened that made me stop sooner: 1) on the morning of the second day, UNlike every 4-6 hours with the K, my symptoms felt manageable, 2) it worked SO well that it scared me and I worried that any more time with it would turn into a K situation and I'd just be hooked on it...in addition to the fact that I'm trying to heal my body and mind and anything that is stopping that process in its tracks is going in the wrong direction. I think that 24 hrs with Lope was very helpful for me - I think I would have suffered a lot more quitting the K at a time when I already felt ready to crack - but I don't really recommend it because of the dangers - I don't think anybody going through this can be called an "otherwise healthy adult."
So, for what it's worth, there is a little secret I was keeping. Sorry for the Novel. I AM feeling pretty good this morning!
ON the Kratom:
I did something that was maybe kind of stupid to stop taking it. I'll suffer through the embarrassment of sharing because that's what this forum is for, sort of, right? I took loperamide - 2 doses of 50ish mg - for a 24 hr period. All the research I did on it boiled down to: that, in clinical trials, healthy adults could take up to 60 mg with no adverse effects except some potential vomiting but it was uncommon. My plan had been to take it for three days if needed, tapering each day. Two things happened that made me stop sooner: 1) on the morning of the second day, UNlike every 4-6 hours with the K, my symptoms felt manageable, 2) it worked SO well that it scared me and I worried that any more time with it would turn into a K situation and I'd just be hooked on it...in addition to the fact that I'm trying to heal my body and mind and anything that is stopping that process in its tracks is going in the wrong direction. I think that 24 hrs with Lope was very helpful for me - I think I would have suffered a lot more quitting the K at a time when I already felt ready to crack - but I don't really recommend it because of the dangers - I don't think anybody going through this can be called an "otherwise healthy adult."
So, for what it's worth, there is a little secret I was keeping. Sorry for the Novel. I AM feeling pretty good this morning!