Opioids Why doesnt heroin take this pain away?

[fizzymk]

I have been having some bad pain in the heel of my left foot this past week, it is the worst when I get up in the morning, I have to limp around for the first 15 minutes, and is also bad whenever Im sitting down, driving or off my feet for over 30 minutes anytime, Ive looked it up and it appears to be Plantar facitiis, which is the muscle that connects the heel to the calf.

I take methadone for back problem, but even when Im on a big dose of this it never even touches the foot pain, so I thought Heroin would definitely take the pain away, but when I used a few days ago, even that didnt do shit, didnt even dull it..???

I thought powerful narcotics like methadone and especially heroin take pain away...the methadone does a great job of taking my back pain away and the heroin does too, heroin actually takes more of the pain away too.

It just seems strange something as strong as heroin could not take simple foot pain away, does this sound normal, BTW, I know the dope was good, I got good and high from it, just no relief from the foot pain. Anyone know about this?

 

[sekio]

Opioids aren't magical medicines, in fact they are quite poor for some sorts of pain, doubly so if you have a tolerance to them.

If the pain is inflammatory in nature taking opioids is only going to mask some of it and encourage you to further damage your joints/muscles... the best option for relief of inflammatory pain is a solid dose of NSAID (say 400-600mg ibuprofen, naproxen etc - not acetaminophen, and pref. not aspirin - celecoxib (celebrex) if you can get it). NSAIDs actually decrease the amount of inflammation which leads to faster healing times of physically injured (swollen, etc) tissues. You can also investigate topical lidocaine or something. And ibuprofen is actually pretty stomach friendly compared to many others, say diclofenac.

Another thing you should do if it's an inflammation of tendon or muscle is rest it as much as possible and try not to strain it any further.

Realistically if you want to treat pain effectively you need to investigate all possible options and try not to rely on opioids exclusively. Also remember that heroin and methadone share pretty much the exact same mechanism of action, the only difference is heroin/morphine probably causes more itchiness and lasts much shorter.

 

[HdoubleODeezy]

Maybe a muscle relaxer like baclofen, flexeril etc in addition to ibuprofen could be of some benefit to help lessen any spasms (whether you feel them or not) they usually occur when a muscle is injured.

That is of course, if you can get an rx for them.. or find some.

 

[Smoky]

In my experience if I was taking a lot of methadone I couldn't feel the heroin on top of it very much.

You may want to try ibps every 4-6 hours for a few days so they build up in your system to decrease inflammation. Cox II inhibitors are great also, like vioxx etc … although not on the market so much nor prescribed today, but some are still available. They are stronger for inflammation.

 

[The Doc.]

When we use these drugs to get high when the time comes where we need pain relief we seem to be shit outta luck when compared to opiate naive individuals. Also as sekio said Opiates alone are not the best pain reliever the doses patients need to achieve pain relief with opiates alone are usually high doses that cause side effects such as constipation, nausea, dry mouth/dehydration and can cause respiratory arrest. Small doses of multiple drugs are generally better for most patients this is why combination drugs such as percocets(acetaminophen/oxycodone) or vicoprofen (hydrocodone/ibuprofen) are on the market for pain patient's. I can vouch for this information too first hand. For instance I found buprenorphine kills almost all my pain if I take acetaminophen/ibuprofen with my dose whereas bupe alone hardly touched it.

 

[Bliss26]

Yes, taking multiple meds together causes kind of a symbiotic effect where each one works better than if taken alone. It's the same with artificial sweeteners. Lol

re the pain, plantar fasciitis pain is acute pain, whereas most pain meds are for unrelenting, chronic pain. My pain meds work well from unrelenting muscle, joint, back pain, but when it was in hospital and they needed to cut down to the bone for an infection (locally!!!) I was almost unconscious from all the dilaudid and Still screamed like I never had before. Almost jumped off the bed. You know the kind of primal scream where you don't even mean to, it just comes out?

 

[fizzymk]

Opioids aren't magical medicines, in fact they are quite poor for some sorts of pain, doubly so if you have a tolerance to them.

If the pain is inflammatory in nature taking opioids is only going to mask some of it and encourage you to further damage your joints/muscles... the best option for relief of inflammatory pain is a solid dose of NSAID (say 400-600mg ibuprofen, naproxen etc - not acetaminophen, and pref. not aspirin - celecoxib (celebrex) if you can get it). NSAIDs actually decrease the amount of inflammation which leads to faster healing times of physically injured (swollen, etc) tissues. You can also investigate topical lidocaine or something. And ibuprofen is actually pretty stomach friendly compared to many others, say diclofenac.

Another thing you should do if it's an inflammation of tendon or muscle is rest it as much as possible and try not to strain it any further.

Realistically if you want to treat pain effectively you need to investigate all possible options and try not to rely on opioids exclusively. Also remember that heroin and methadone share pretty much the exact same mechanism of action, the only difference is heroin/morphine probably causes more itchiness and lasts much shorter.

Yeah, that makes sense, my foot pain is definitely an inflammation problem, when you look at this from this point of view, its kind of strange that all these pain mgt doctors are doling out narcotics left and right, when it seems other drugs may be better at actually treating the pain...makes me wonder if they are not taking advantage of the addictive nature of these narcotics, to ensure patients keep coming back each month.

I have seen the pain mgt doctor I have been with for over 10 yrs, grow like crazy, they can barely keep up with all the patients, and its frequent to see patients by the door waiting for them to open in the morning, mainly waiting to pick up their scripts...thats a pretty good guarantee that patient is going to continue to be a patient...for years and years! LOL

 

[Zerrr]

There was a TED talk on netflix from a guy who deals with chronic pain, if you haven't seen it before I think it is this one

 

[belfort]

yeah i honestly found heroin/opiates to be a shitty pain med for several different types of pain..

 

[ThaDudeAbides]

I have nerve pain in my feet that opiates never help. Lyrica has been the only thing that has helped pain in that region. People assume pain killers will kill any and all pain. That couldn't be further from the truth. Masking it is the better term. And as mentioned already that masking of pain can often lead to more damage as you feel like Superman (or woman) and do shit you shouldn't. Then to wake up the next day in even worse shape.

Have you considered seeing a foot specialist?

 

[TheLostBoys]

Like others have stated, opiates don't help all kinds of body pain......some pains can be better dealt with muscle relaxers & ibuprofen for the inflammation.

Soma ime has helped with all my pains except for headaches.

 

[fizzymk]

I have nerve pain in my feet that opiates never help. Lyrica has been the only thing that has helped pain in that region. People assume pain killers will kill any and all pain. That couldn't be further from the truth. Masking it is the better term. And as mentioned already that masking of pain can often lead to more damage as you feel like Superman (or woman) and do shit you shouldn't. Then to wake up the next day in even worse shape.

Have you considered seeing a foot specialist?

You are right, even when I take a big dose of methadone, and am feeling great, I can still feel certain aches and pains, they arent totally gone, more like dialed down a little, to the point that you know the pain is there, but you are feeling so good in the head, it doesnt bother you...I imagine this does lead to alot of people making their conditions worse.

If Im still a patient at my pain mgt doctor next week,(waiting on drug test results!!)... Im going to see if they can give me a shot of cortizone in my heel, Now, this does take a good deal of the pain away, Ive had a few cortizone shots in the past, sometimes they last for weeks, but sometimes they dont work at all.

 

[sekio]

Cortisone is an anti-inflammatory steroid, if it works for your pain there's a good chance NSAIDs would too..

 

[Smoky]

Transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation, localized sometimes helps. One needs to go back though for consecutive treatments. I had it done near my ear due to my spinal degeneration that transferred pain up into my ear and jaw on the left side. It may or may not provide relief for your type of pain.

IME Lyrica helped with my nerve pain in same area somewhat, and it lasts longer than Gabapentin. I just happened to be taking it for opiate withdrawal and noticed it works rather well… Of course there are side effects…