karmadharma
Greenlighter
- Joined
- Dec 15, 2013
- Messages
- 8
It has taken me a whole year to get up the courage to start this post.
I have taken solace from the site, mourned when the community lost some of its own, and used the knowledge here to try and find my way.
But, I have to just admit, I am lost. All the wishing and reading and hoping in the whole damn world won't change the fact that I have crossed over from being a chronic pain patient to being a full-on addicted user.
It was almost exactly a year ago when I put my feet down on this path. As I try to get clean over the next few months, I vowed to first come here and get some advice, introduce myself to the community, and hope that sharing my journey might help somebody else some day.
Background: As a writer, artist, and gamer, I tried to build a life that felt authentic to me. Then, I got sick. This was 5 years ago. Through episodes that would knock me to the ground, make me throw up for days, we finally found out that I have bilary duct disease which causes me to have chronic pancreatitis. Two years ago, I started going to a Johns Hopkins for treatment. For the past two years, I have spent months there getting procedures, etc. Last year, I spent Christmas and New Year in the hospital. I came home on Jan. 3. Sick. So sick. By the 5th. I was dehydrated, and hospitalized.
I ended up having renal failure, and then from throwing up so much, a blood clot. I was fed through a stomach tube for 2 weeks and then through a PICC line with intravenous nutrition. I got dialuadid, 8-10 mcg, mg?, every 3 hours by IV along with phenagran every 4, and zofran in between. I stayed for 34 days like this. When I got to go home, the IV went with me, along with dilaudid and phengran administered by my family every 3 to 4 hours for another 6 weeks.
At the end of this, I had the PICC line removed, and lost my mind. I was shaking so bad they thought I had a seizure. I was so sick. And nobody seemed to know why. I did.
I had done enough research to know: I had built up a physical dependency to the dilaudid. No doctor ever said after all that time on such huge doses that they should do a taper. They just took me from huge amounts of D by IV to little amounts orally.
I read up. I was so miserable I did not want to live. I found out how to take those little white pills, use some of the home health supplies still around, and one day in May, gave myself my first self-administered banging dose of dilaudid.
Now it is Christmas again. I now have a pain doctor. I failed my last UA due to having to travel during the refill time, and trying to bridge the gap myself using some earlier prescribed oxycontin that I had kept. Big mistake. My UA of course showed that, and little of my dilaudid. I got my script that day, last week, but I won't have another, I am sure. My appointment, for January, I am sure, won't be kept. They will call me and say I have been dismissed.
I will go to the forums and ask for help in trying to develop a taper that makes me not want to die. I am so scared, and thought, the only people who know what this is like, are the folks on BL. So many of you have been down these roads. I may need you to just tell me how you survived.
Thanks for listening, and I hope that by sharing maybe somebody else will be helped.
k
I have taken solace from the site, mourned when the community lost some of its own, and used the knowledge here to try and find my way.
But, I have to just admit, I am lost. All the wishing and reading and hoping in the whole damn world won't change the fact that I have crossed over from being a chronic pain patient to being a full-on addicted user.
It was almost exactly a year ago when I put my feet down on this path. As I try to get clean over the next few months, I vowed to first come here and get some advice, introduce myself to the community, and hope that sharing my journey might help somebody else some day.
Background: As a writer, artist, and gamer, I tried to build a life that felt authentic to me. Then, I got sick. This was 5 years ago. Through episodes that would knock me to the ground, make me throw up for days, we finally found out that I have bilary duct disease which causes me to have chronic pancreatitis. Two years ago, I started going to a Johns Hopkins for treatment. For the past two years, I have spent months there getting procedures, etc. Last year, I spent Christmas and New Year in the hospital. I came home on Jan. 3. Sick. So sick. By the 5th. I was dehydrated, and hospitalized.
I ended up having renal failure, and then from throwing up so much, a blood clot. I was fed through a stomach tube for 2 weeks and then through a PICC line with intravenous nutrition. I got dialuadid, 8-10 mcg, mg?, every 3 hours by IV along with phenagran every 4, and zofran in between. I stayed for 34 days like this. When I got to go home, the IV went with me, along with dilaudid and phengran administered by my family every 3 to 4 hours for another 6 weeks.
At the end of this, I had the PICC line removed, and lost my mind. I was shaking so bad they thought I had a seizure. I was so sick. And nobody seemed to know why. I did.
I had done enough research to know: I had built up a physical dependency to the dilaudid. No doctor ever said after all that time on such huge doses that they should do a taper. They just took me from huge amounts of D by IV to little amounts orally.
I read up. I was so miserable I did not want to live. I found out how to take those little white pills, use some of the home health supplies still around, and one day in May, gave myself my first self-administered banging dose of dilaudid.
Now it is Christmas again. I now have a pain doctor. I failed my last UA due to having to travel during the refill time, and trying to bridge the gap myself using some earlier prescribed oxycontin that I had kept. Big mistake. My UA of course showed that, and little of my dilaudid. I got my script that day, last week, but I won't have another, I am sure. My appointment, for January, I am sure, won't be kept. They will call me and say I have been dismissed.
I will go to the forums and ask for help in trying to develop a taper that makes me not want to die. I am so scared, and thought, the only people who know what this is like, are the folks on BL. So many of you have been down these roads. I may need you to just tell me how you survived.
Thanks for listening, and I hope that by sharing maybe somebody else will be helped.
k
