Yikes. Nobody is going to like my story lol. I hope it doesn't discourage anyone.
Prior to my love affair with opiates, I wasn't doing too well. Once I hit puberty, I started noticing symptoms in myself. I had chronic headaches, pretty much daily, I was depressed (from mild to severe), I had severe menstrual pain, sleep issues, restless leg syndrome, I had little motivation or joy in life. I had brain fog, I never experienced a "runner's high". It seemed the only time I felt ok was after a bout of intense pain that would last 20 minutes to a half hour, presumably from the endorphin rush. Of course it never lasted long and I would crash back down again. I was taking horse doses of ibuprofen, which worked only some of the time.
When I was 24, I moved away from my home country (the US) and to the UK. Since my headaches were so common, it wasn't long before I needed to buy something there to treat it. I bought some ibuprofen, but weirdly I didn't take my usual dose, something I subconsciously avoided. I just took two. Before I knew it, the headache was gone, I actually felt happy, motivated and relaxed - something very foreign to me. That night I slept like a baby. I took a couple more doses in the days that followed that had the same effect. I looked at the box out of pure boredom and saw 12.8mg of codeine phosphate. No wonder they worked so well! I was naive, I assumed because you couldn't buy it in the US over the counter, you couldn't buy it that way anywhere.
For 3 years, I took approx 50mg per day of codeine 4-5 days out of the week. I did not build a tolerance. I stayed on the same dose and if I abstained, I did not have withdrawals. Then I had a severe pain issue that couldn't be rectified for 2 months. I was then prescribed dihydrocodeine, 8 tabs at 30mg a day to stay on top of it. I went from 50mg of codeine, to 240mg of dihydrocodeine per day and I felt even better. Once I didn't need them for that specific pain, I talked my doctor into continuing to prescribe them for my headaches. 6 months after that, I had to take them daily or I didn't feel well. I found it too hard to taper down short acting opiates. I was given methadone to taper. I felt great, until I began tapering.
The lower my doses, the more those old symptoms were back. I went to 0, then went on Tramadol because I just didn't feel right. I moved back home to the US and my doctor refused to keep me on opiates. So I detoxed. The first year was hell, with it only slightly getting better. This was almost 6 years ago and I've never felt back to normal. All my symptoms are back ten fold. I thought you're supposed to feel better after a certain amount of time. It however never happened for me.
I honestly hope others have had better experiences than I have. Since my dependency days, I've had opiates for acute pain just a couple times and they still had their magic with me feeling a thousand times better. I don't know what to do. It's not easy to get help for something like this. I'm scared I will never feel happy, never have the quality of life I once had before. I eat a lot of hot sauce to trigger endorphin production and I feel ok, but then comes the crash an hour later.
I do really envy those who end up feeling loads better because it sure didn't happen for me.
