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  • BDD Moderators: Keif’ Richards

advice needed to cut down on opiates

dailydoze

Greenlighter
Joined
Feb 26, 2012
Messages
6
Location
South Carolina
I am newbie from the south and i need some help. i have been on opiates for >10 years and currently take over 2000 mg of 4 different types every day. a new doctor is in town and wants to take away my meds. im scared to be bed ridden and also of wds. I am disabled and have steel rod in neck and back so Im not just a high chaser although maybe I have become one, I am not sure.
So I take 6 oxy 80's, 3 oxy 40s, 2 40mg opana, 2 20mg opana, 2 10mg opana, then 4 roxy 30s and 5 8mg dilaudid for break through. then 4 xanax and elavil 50mg to sleep for 3 hrs before i start over again.... what i need to know is the dr wants me to choose what to give up, hell idk how they all work i just know they make me able to semi be mobile and not die in pain. can anyone help me
understand how these work for me and what i should give up without giving up my life. sorry i kinda bust in with a huge ? my first day here
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Edited the title, lemme know if you need it changed to something different.

That's a cuntload of opis you're taking.. what do you mean he's asking you to give some up, you mean he wants you to stop taking either the dilly, oxy, or opana?
 
^ ya thats a shitload to take combo wise and even on your breakthrought your using a combo or i read it wrong... i would need to know more about your situation.. but what takes care of your pain the best..? do you do anything else to help your pain like stretching or any excercises..?
 
I think I understand what you're getting at.

Personally I would give up either the oxymorphone or the hydromorphone - assuming you're a good-guy and only dose orally. They have very poor BA's (bioavailability), meaning that only a small % of the drug gets properly absorbed and used by your body. There's a bioavailability chart around here somewhere.

Oxymorphone = Opana, Hydromorphone = Dilaudid (I would probably choose to keep the Dilaudid, but that's your call).

They both have like 20-40% BA orally.

Oxycodone on the other hand, has a BA of ~85% orally. I would personally prefer to keep ER and IR formulations of this, and Dilaudid for BT pain. Others may have a valid reason to keep the Opana instead, but I don't like some of the inactive ingredients (microcrystalline cellulose in the ER ones).

If you sniff them... that changes things a bit.

Need a bit more info to give you a proper answer, but that's my $0.02 for the time being.
 
yes he is asking me which works least, wants to get me into "one class" i believe was what he said. c i was only on oxy then after reformatted it the pain was back and i couldn't get around (still require walker) so added opana after trying a few others then kept increasing opana dosage until i was close to similar mobility. i ve been on the roxy n dilaudid for bt pain for at least five years just keep increasing amount as tolerance goes up.
 
i dont bend so i dont do a lot of anything xcept get in spa or pool for some relief. idk what takes care of pain xcept the combo of these as it seems i am at a point where if i even try to leave out one of the 40 mg oxys i can tell i just dont understand how i am going to decide or why i have to give up anything as the other dr got me to this level and now its got to b changed
 
what does microcrystalline cellulose do? i will occassionally snort the opana, dilaudid and roxy as it does seem to feel a lot more powerful when I do but it doesn't last
thanks for the 2cents worth really
 
I'd give up the opana myself. But did you ask this dr why, when you're just gettin as comfortable as you can and not even 100%, why he is makin you do this anyway?
Sometimes drs really piss me off...
Good luck with your decision and I hope it doesn't leave you in a lot of pain.
 
cut down slowly, and find alternatives for pain treatments; must be one hell of a habit
 
You might look at fentanyl with dilaudid for breakthrough. I understand where your doctor is coming from. That's a ton of meds. Fentanyl comes in the form of a patch. It takes about 8 hours to start working (you'd need to take dilaudid during this period) but then releases the drug continuously for 2 days. Instead of eating a small meal worth of pills everyday, you'd only need to change a patch every 2 days and take dilaudid for breakthrough. It's a lot simpler, and I am betting your doctor would like it more. The only downside is that you might need 2 fentanyl patches at a time as 100 micrograms per hour is the strongest they make.
 
You might look at fentanyl with dilaudid for breakthrough. I understand where your doctor is coming from. That's a ton of meds. Fentanyl comes in the form of a patch. It takes about 8 hours to start working (you'd need to take dilaudid during this period) but then releases the drug continuously for 2 days. Instead of eating a small meal worth of pills everyday, you'd only need to change a patch every 2 days and take dilaudid for breakthrough. It's a lot simpler, and I am betting your doctor would like it more. The only downside is that you might need 2 fentanyl patches at a time as 100 micrograms per hour is the strongest they make.

This was my first thought.

What I would recommend is cutting out the opana, wearing a 100mcg Fentanyl patch and taking Dilaudid and oxy for BT pain, cut down on the oxy though.

My grand father is in a similar situation by the sounds of things, he's on a walker with a broken back even though they told him he would never get out of bed again. He wears a fent patch and takes Oxy and Dilaudid pro re nata.
 
Good advice from everyone - especially on the Fent patches.

Regarding administration of Oxycodone - don't snort it. It'll kick in quicker (1/2 the time), but also has a lower BA (bioavailablity - how much is absorbed) and will last FAR shorter (depressingly so, even). Oral Oxycodone is MUCH better than nasal for analgesia.

Oxy-/hydromorphone is the opposite. VERY low oral BA - about double nasal BA.

Microcrystalline cellulose is the tamper-resistant ER formulation. Sniffing this can cause all sorts of lung and nasal complications. Usually w/ prolonged usage.

Does dilaudid gel up when mixed with water? I know -morphones increase in nasal BA quite a bit when made into an aqueous solution. (NOT morphine, -morphones). Opana won't work for this because moisture causes it to gel / clot up.
 
thanks for the advice everyone...
i tried to wear a fentanyl patch but my skin of course blistered up and got infected so not an option
this is the list i found for opana inactive hypromellose, polyethylene oxide, polyethylene glycol, α-tocopherol, citric acid, polyvinyl alcohol, titanium dioxide, macrogol and talc. In addition, the 5 mg, 7.5 mg and 30 mg tablets contain iron oxide red. The 7.5 mg tablets contain iron oxide black, and iron oxide yellow. The 10 mg tablets contain FD&C yellow No. 6. The 20 mg tablets contain FD&C blue No. 1, FD&C yellow No. 6, and D&C yellow No. 10. The 40 mg tablets contain FD&C yellow No. 6, and D&C yellow No. 10. am i crazy i dont see the microcrystaline cellulose listed.
if i dont snort the opana it doesn't do shit for the pain anymore so....
the dilaudid does not gel up in water it is completely smooth n soluble i guess
 
I agree that you should cut the Opana out. Chances are they are going to reformulate it again in the future so that you can't sniff it, so you are better off getting off it now before it comes to that. Even if they don't reformulate it, you don't want to be sniffing it daily. I'm not sure about the ingredients, but I suggest that you read over this thread.

Right now your tolerance is very high and your body is dependent on that dose. Taper off whatever medication you choose to remove to make the transition easier. Chances are that you may get the same amount of pain relief once you stabilize at the lower dose. Your body will just need time to adjust. I know a lot of people that got better pain relief from taking a reduced amount of all of their medications correctly than they did when they were taking more of them incorrectly.
 
First off: WOW, that's a lot of medication. Good God. Sorry to hear that you have to take that much medicine to relieve pain, that's crazy. I thought I was bad when at one point I was taking 100mcg/hr of Fentanyl Patches along with about 600mg of Oxycodone Instant Release per 24hrs.

I can vouch for the Fentanyl Patches ( I'm in UK, I use Durogesic Matrix patches.. ). As I said, I was on about 600mg of Instant Release Oxycodone a day at one stage, and still suffering from pain as a result of my injuries ( another story ) when I tried the Fentanyl Patch. Once I was used to it I found that it gave me way more pain relief than that huge amount of Oxy did, but still stayed on the Oxycodone for another year or so anyway. Then I started to wean down the Oxy until I was taking 320mg a day, when one day I suddenly decided to stop cold turkey :S I don't know what made me do it LOL, but I'm glad I did ( another long story, it was hell, I DO NOT RECOMMEND stopping just like that, you should wean down, and I paid the price by not doing so. But I'm all good now ;) )

So as of now I'm just on the Fentanyl Patch, and now just over a month has passed since stopping the Oxycodone and my body has nearly adjusted to the huge decrease in opiate intake, but some good news is that I'm finding that in general the pain that I am taking these medications for has been reduced quite a bit. I don't feel great, I admit that, but that's PAWS I guess.

But moral of the story is: Try the patch, with the amount of pain medication that you are taking, your Dr's for sure will let you try the patch to get off some of those meds. Good luck my friend, PM me if you have anything specific you would like to know regarding Fentanyl, its a good drug for pain treatment if used correctly.
 
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