Opioids Does anyone else think that opiates aren't actually that good painkillers?

[pbuilder]

I think that they are really underprescribed, that's why some chronic patients turn to drugs like heroin in the first place, because they can't get prescribed what they need from their doctors.

But the outcome of long term opiate medication is always gonna wind up with people who are taking 1g + a day of oxy or another equipotent pain killer, with pain that is 100x worse when mixed with serious opiate withdrawal when the patient runs out of their massive amounts of meds early I'd assume which would eventually happen from over use. And then what else can a doc do, once their patient has enough opiate tolerance, so high that they begin prescribing doses as high as the ld50 or even higher. Someone can't be on opiates for chronic pain forever, and prescribing them to every joe blow is obviously not the solution lol.

 

[tricomb]

But the outcome of long term opiate medication is always gonna wind up with people who are taking 1g + a day of oxy or another equipotent pain killer, with pain that is 100x worse when mixed with serious opiate withdrawal when the patient runs out of their massive amounts of meds early I'd assume which would eventually happen from over use, and what else can a doc do, once their patient has enough opiate tolerance, so high that they begin prescribing doses as high as the ld50 or even higher. Someone can't be on opiates for chronic pain forever, and prescribing them to every joe blow is obviously not the solution lol.

I don't know man, I disagree, but agree with your last point, that prescribing them to everyone isn't a solution. Relying on opioids alone for pain management is going to be a very slippery slope in the long-term.

 

[BiggDirty01]

opiates are good for muscular pain and bone pain (broken bones etc) and sprains and strains, not good for nerve pain or burns. though they definitely help. but heroin is not the best pain killer, one thing, H is usually not very pure and has alot of other shit in it, also, it really is more sedating than anything else.

H doesn't do shit for my back pain, I would MUCH rather have some oxy or some morphine.

IME H just isnt a good pain killer

Methadone is an excellent opiate analgesic for nerve pain. With lyrica, its helped my neuropathy alot.

 

[Jktm]

I think when you get to a certain level of pain or type of pain nothing will really help take it all away. It is more a matter of making it tolerable for the patient.

That's exactly what they're for...there's a reason it's called pain management and not pain solutions...

and no, they don't just zonk you to the point of not caring...I'd estimate I could take about 120mg of MS-Contin at once and start to notice a high, but I definitely feel an assload of pain relief in comparison to nothing or my patch (about equal to 80mg morphine over 24 hours)...

the only pain solutions are taking out every nerve in your body...and for a burn...no...opioids aren't gonna do shit for that unless they're deep burns...maybe some lyrica might help with the hand...or alcohol (ethanol, drank obviously)...

 

[phatass]

.......

 

[burn out]

If you dont think opiates are a good painkiller than right now go tape your foot down so no matter what it wont move, then twist your whole body around so you do a 180 while your one leg is still stationary and your kneecap pops out and dislocates, now wait a good agonizing 20 minutes for the emts to arrive, and if you tell me that first shot of morphine dosent feel like a bunch of angels giving your leg a handjob you're flat out lying. I guess the name painkillers can be somewhat misleading they wont make the pain completely go away but they definatly will make it a hell of a lot more tolerable.

Did you read my first post? I was in severe pain from burning my hand. The pain was almost unbearable if I didnt have my hand in ice water. My first shot of heroin barely helped, let alone feeling like angels.

 

[Live on the Beats!]

Disagree. Opiates are so damn helpful for my chronic muskcoskeletal pain that if they didn't exist I cannot imagine how I could study/fuck/sleep/skate/do anything. Spent 4 years trying many different pain medications and massage/acupuncture/chiro/physio etc and the moment I got prescribed a half-decent dose of ER oxycodone I suddenly felt sane (not constantly thinking about the pain) and was able to study and fuck properly again etc etc. If only there was a widely used safe technique of keeping tolerance down.. (taking some dxm every day I do not feel is very healthy.. even 30mg makes my head feel a bit off.. useful though).

 

[chase_in_56ace]

I think that they are really underprescribed, that's why some chronic patients turn to drugs like heroin in the first place, because they can't get prescribed what they need from their doctors.

I take it you don't live in FL. I'm sorry, but you're wrong on this one tri. If they're overprescribed in FL, and we have the most CPP living in our state statistically... and we statistically, once again, have been the top supplier of both legal and illegal opiates for the entire U.S., you can't say doctors underprescribe so CPPs turn to heroin. I'm sure a small % do, however the vast majority turns to heroin when they can't afford the pills they have been overprescribed and now have developed immense tolerances to. This leads everywhere from prescribing even higher doses, to obtaining more opiates for many. Prices have skyrocketed. They turn to heroin.

Blame the DEA. FL and our clinics. But blaming MDs for underprescribing? Lets be real here

 

[laCster]

morphine is, and will always be, the best painkiller. hands down....

 

[pbuilder]

Yes I've heard it's "the golden standard" of pain meds

 

[yteek]

Considering with prolonged usage, they have the capability to interfere with your natural ability to tolerate pain and actually distort/amplify pain levels. The idea of tolerance also co-exsit with this, the pain continues and the drugs sometimes lose their effect and you feel the need to take more. Rather it be medicinal use or recreational usage, your brain and body in a physiological sense can not tell the difference. Knowing the nature of these kind of drugs, the way they interact with your neurotransmitters...for better or worst, the person you are on opiates is not the same as the person you are without.In my eyes rather people realize it or not, they don't just kill pain but they also have the potential to kill the person you really are on the inside while putting you under a chemical cloud.

 

[burn out]

Disagree. Opiates are so damn helpful for my chronic muskcoskeletal pain that if they didn't exist I cannot imagine how I could study/fuck/sleep/skate/do anything. Spent 4 years trying many different pain medications and massage/acupuncture/chiro/physio etc and the moment I got prescribed a half-decent dose of ER oxycodone I suddenly felt sane (not constantly thinking about the pain) and was able to study and fuck properly again etc etc. If only there was a widely used safe technique of keeping tolerance down.. (taking some dxm every day I do not feel is very healthy.. even 30mg makes my head feel a bit off.. useful though).

I am not saying opiates aren't tremendously helpful for pain. I am just saying that they work by making you feel high and causing some pain relief, rather than by causing a great amount of pain relief. The combination of being high, plus whatever pain relief they provide, is what makes them so desirable. I know that when I feel bad, if I take heroin I generally feel a lot better. However, if I am in pain, I can still feel the pain. It just doesnt bother me as much. This as opposed to drugs like alcohol and ketamine which can actually render you unable to feel pain.

I am just saying this because opiates have some kind of mythic status as a painkiller, which I think is not fully deserved because in my opinion alcohol is a better painkiller. Of course alcohol isn't used medically because you wake up the next day with a hangover and you feel even worse, whereas with opiates as long as you have a supply you can just keep taking them and never experience the full consequnces until you try to stop taking them, voluntarily or involuntarily. Now some of you regular or heavy drinkers out there might not think alcohol is such a great painkiller, but that's only because you have a tolerance to it (same thing happens with opiates though) try to think back to your first few times getting drunk though, and how numb you felt. I remember being so drunk I could not feel my body, when I was new to alcohol. Once I became an alcoholic, no matter how drunk I got, I could never achieve that complete numbness I felt early in my use.

 

[F.U.B.A.R.]

Interesting. I also agree to a certain extent, but it depends upon the type of pain. I used to have a lot of trouble with excruciating toothache, but heroin did absolutely nothing to alleviate this - in fact it sometimes made it worse. Same with bad headaches. I find ibuprofen is far superior for these kind of pain symptoms.

 

[cook]

morphine is, and will always be, the best painkiller. hands down....

Agreed, except for the "always will be" -part. I am sure that somewhere in time the medical science will come up with a method that 100% cuts down all the pain signals in your body. Maybe even in our lifetime.

 

[epiks]

I do IV heroin and its the best pain killer i've ever had. I have extreme lower back pain, its not even noticeable in the least when I'm on dope. Same with oxy. But anything lower than oxy can't normally touch my back pain. The weaker pills work for all other pain related things on my body but not my lower back. I'd prob kill myself from the pain in my back if i didnt have dope!

 

[InHerOwnWrite]

When I am in pain I always take an NSAID like ibuprofen on top of opiates as I've found opiates on their own insufficient. Keep in mind burnout that I believe you've been on opiates for quite a while now so they won't give you pain relief to the extent they would a non-tolerant person. It's funny cuz I've been on heroin for a while like you and when I burnt my hand last week I had a reaction similar to yours, I did a shot and was like "how does this still hurt so fucking bad?!"
Lol hope you're ok now

 

[DelDiablo]

Ymmv

They are supposedly such good painkillers that they continue to be widely prescribed even they have a high potential for abuse and many are diverted to the black market. YOu would think that if doctors could find an equally effective but nonabusable painkiller, they'd switch to it right? But luckily that wont happen, for a while at least, because opiates are supposedly so effective.

Yet I have not experienced this to be the case. For instance, I burned my hand tonight and it hurts like hell. So what did I do? I went and shot up heroin and guess what? My hand STILL hurts like hell. I can feel pain just fine under the influence of opiates, they really dont help very much at all. Granted, I have a major tolerance. But the again, so do many pain patients and even when I didnt, I felt the same way. Opiates do not make your body numb.

My theory is that opiates get the patient high and provide some minute pain relief. But really the way they work is by getting you high, providing a bit of pain relief and calimg you down/relaxing you. They make you feel a lot better, so you're no longer freaking out about the pain. Thats also why its so hard to find a drug that competes with opiates. Because if it doesnt get the patient high, the patient is gonna prefer opiates.

The implications of what I am saying though, are that doctors could use other drugs to treat pain. I mean, I bet if you gave somene in pain MDMA they would feel a lot better too. Being high is what eases the pain. Anyone agree?

Now there are drugs which actually kill pain. For instance, ketamine, nitrous oxide and large doses of alcohol are capable of rendering you numb such that you would not feel the pain of a burn on your hand. I think if was really desperate for pain relief, I would reach for the K and not opium. The problem though, is the duration.

Opiates work. Period. YMMV but there's little doubt they work at many things, including pain killers. Now that's not to saw the in pill form, where the govt pressures Pharma companies to load them up with Acetaminophen so you 'can't' abuse them without really hurting yourself, or forcing them to limit the dosage so they can't be abused by dying cancer patients who might get 'addicted'. Nitrous has a tiny efficacy window, so small that unless you have a steady input, it's worthless.And the vit b deficiencies can be very harmful. Alcohol? Not worth the collateral damage in most cases. Not being argumentative, in fact I understand quite well where youre coming from, but the problems aren't shortcomings of opiates.

 

[StartedHydro]

I find that opiates/opiods do not "kill the pain" as much as they change the way you percieve pain. If I take an opiate during times of intense pain im still in that intense pain but its not as important.... as in the pain does not completely take front center stage in my mind. It(opiates) will allow me to be in a better mood, concentrate, by taking my mind of the pain even though the pain is still present. Hope I made sense.

What I notice opiates do mostly for me is big time increased energy, able to overcome intense heat, cold, long periods no food, great concentration, increased focus and attention. No matter if its Heroin, Oxy, Hydro, Hydromorpho9ne, morphine, bupe, methadone I take in AM and im instantly awake and ready to go... if I take to close to bed I can not sleep for the love of god, odd considering how if I take amphetamines, coke I get sleepy and can sleep.

 

[burn out]

When I am in pain I always take an NSAID like ibuprofen on top of opiates as I've found opiates on their own insufficient. Keep in mind burnout that I believe you've been on opiates for quite a while now so they won't give you pain relief to the extent they would a non-tolerant person. It's funny cuz I've been on heroin for a while like you and when I burnt my hand last week I had a reaction similar to yours, I did a shot and was like "how does this still hurt so fucking bad?!"
Lol hope you're ok now

Claudia good to hear from you. I am still waiting for you to return that phone fall. I know it seems ridiculous for me to be waiting for over 7 or 8 months or however long its been but you did eventually return the last call after about a year, so I haven't given up hope. Anyway, I actually started using heroin to combat the extreme pain of benzo withdrawal which I was going through at the time and even though I had no tolerance, the heroin had a hard time touching that pain also. I would say i got maybe 20-20% relief, but benzo wd is exceptoonally bad. Now i am feeling so much better and dont really need the heroin anymore but am still hooked.

 

[burn out]

I find that opiates/opiods do not "kill the pain" as much as they change the way you percieve pain. If I take an opiate during times of intense pain im still in that intense pain but its not as important.... as in the pain does not completely take front center stage in my mind. It(opiates) will allow me to be in a better mood, concentrate, by taking my mind of the pain even though the pain is still present. Hope I made sense.

That's exactly what I am saying. If you want to kill the pain, you need a drug like ketamine. If you want to just feel better despite the pain, then you can take opiates.