Opioids Are there any tried and true ways to reduce tolerance?

[CaveJohnson]

My pain management doctors and all the literature tells me I can't have a "permanent" tolerance, but anyone who's never gotten that first time feeling back knows what I mean.

I took MSContin for years, 15-30 and even 60mg for a time, and took 5mg Oxycodone for breakthrough pain for a while too.

Now after 2+ years of no insurance, I'm back on MSContin 15mg. The issue this time is, it doesn't work. It doesn't do anything for me, and is barely a step above the ibuprofen that I take by the bucketload every day.

When I got to 60mg before and didn't want to go higher I was put on Fentanyl way back when, got very, very sick and went back to the Morphine. It helped lower the tolerance a bit but that was it.

Has anyone come across any way to fix tolerance issues? Being off opiates for years didn't do it, they work less well than they ever have. 5mg Oxycodone/Percocet/Vicodin/Tylenol 3's are equally useless too for the same reason.

Some have said my pain has just become that much worse, that's possible I guess.

 

[tricomb]

No.

 

[CaveJohnson]

No.

To the point, I like it. Since you're a mod, why the hell don't opiates have their own section? They're extremely prevalent.

 

[sekio]

The "tried and true" way of reducing tolerance is drug abstinence.

Opioids have never really had their own section because there hasn't been enough demand for it. There's only so many questions you can ask about opiates really.

 

[tricomb]

Opiate discussion belongs here in Other Drugs. We have a lot of poly drug abusers, which is why we don't have separate forums for everything, we have to be able to deliver harm reduction to people using combinations of drugs, and if we had separate forums, where would combination questions go? opiates + benzos could go in opiate discussion or benzo discussion, does this make sense?

Trust me, it's way better the way it is right now.

And yeah, there's no tried and true ways to reduce tolerance, people talk about NMDA antagonists, but I've tried various ones with opioids and never noticed anything significant. Waste of time IMO, the only way you can reduce your tolerance is to take less opioids, there's no "cheat codes".

 

[Captain.Heroin]

The "tried and true" way of reducing tolerance is drug abstinence.

I concur.

 

[beengerman]

unfortunately everyone is right.
have not found one yet.

 

[CaveJohnson]

The "tried and true" way of reducing tolerance is drug abstinence.

Opioids have never really had their own section because there hasn't been enough demand for it. There's only so many questions you can ask about opiates really.

2+ years didn't reduce my tolerance, it's actually worse than ever.

So what do I do?

 

[tricomb]

There's really nothing you can do except dose increases, which is one of the major drawbacks to opioids.

 

[CaveJohnson]

There's really nothing you can do except dose increases, which is one of the major drawbacks to opioids.

I'm hoping I get switched to something else, like Oxycontin. I was on Morphine for years and it now seems to not work at all, I'm not sure if the pain is way worse or the generic brand is different enough...no idea.

Fentanyl made me sick, Oxycodone/Hydro/Codeine short acting doesn't work in low levels either.

 

[tricomb]

Morphine works great for me, and oxycodone is a good pain killer but doesn't feel as good, but whatever, beggars can't be choosers. I've found that rotating medications works pretty well for me, basically rotating medications periodically between oxycodone, methadone, and morphine. It's very common in pain management, your doctors shouldn't look at you like you're crazy.

Fentanyl is a good pain killer too, I just really don't like the patches and how violent and how fast the WD comes on after 48ish hours. I've only been able to get 72 hours a handful of times. I really don't like the patches, they're flimsy as fuck and dangerous. I remember having to be extremely careful when going outside in direct sun because the heat issue.

 

[Mass08]

I find it very hard to believe someone took 2 years off and didn't have a tolerance drop. I went from doing heroin everyday to taking a 40 day break and that first day back instead of sniffing 4 bags I sniffed 1 and I was so unbelievably high. A month of abstinence completely dropped my tolerance, so I guarantee 2 years changed yours.