Methadone, Bupe and gasp Codeine!

[Stiffeno]

Got some new news, my case worker called me today and told me that they are transferring me to a different bupe doctor, one that is based in the Suburb next to mine (as opposed to the current one which is 40mins away). This new doctor prescribes both Bupe and Methadone, he also has direct links with pain management clinics and specialists.

My current case worker is going to call me sometime next week after the paper work is all sorted and i will then be transferred. This new doctor should beable to directly help with both my addiction AND my chronic pain issues.

Im actually surprised this happened coz my case worker and bupe doctor were so dead set on not treating my pain issue..i guess they realized that my addiction and pain MUST be co-treated, and that given their jobs they couldnt give me the support i needed.

 

[Stiffeno]

Just had to take some painkillers which had codeine in them, though i dont class it as a slip coz i literally took it for the ibuprofen aspect. For the last 5 days ive had worsening pain in my right knee, at night and in the cold it kills like a son of a bitch, i wake up in the morning some days and its worse then my BACK!!! Though it goes after an hour or so. Its oike a really bad growing pain in the joint.

I have Advil gel caps which are pure ibuprofen but i cannot swallow pills, and these gel things ive busted open before...they burn ur mouth like bloody acid so that option was out.

I just hope this knee thing isnt the next "my back" thing =/

 

[Mr Blonde]

That's good news about the doctor change.

Also, I don't want this to sound patronizing, but I genuinely want to know how you can swallow the codeine/ibuprofen painkillers and not the Advil?

 

[footscrazy]

^ I thought earlier he said he dissolved the whole tabs in water then drank the gunk, but I may be mistaken.

Just had to take some painkillers which had codeine in them, though i dont class it as a slip coz i literally took it for the ibuprofen aspect. For the last 5 days ive had worsening pain in my right knee, at night and in the cold it kills like a son of a bitch, i wake up in the morning some days and its worse then my BACK!!! Though it goes after an hour or so. Its oike a really bad growing pain in the joint.

I have Advil gel caps which are pure ibuprofen but i cannot swallow pills, and these gel things ive busted open before...they burn ur mouth like bloody acid so that option was out.

I just hope this knee thing isnt the next "my back" thing =/

The codeine would have done fuck all anyway. You could always take a soluble paracetamol tablet (not sure if ibu come in soluble tabs or not). It'd be just as effective as the codeine/ibu combo you took.

 

[Mr Blonde]

^ I thought earlier he said he dissolved the whole tabs in water then drank the gunk, but I may be mistaken.

That sounds horrible yet familiar... I think he did post that earlier.

I've never seen ibuprofen in soluble form, but aspirin comes in dissolvable and chewable tablets and you can be prescribed dissolvable diclofenac (Voltaren).

 

[Stiffeno]

That's good news about the doctor change.

Also, I don't want this to sound patronizing, but I genuinely want to know how you can swallow the codeine/ibuprofen painkillers and not the Advil?

I also cannot swallow the codeine/ibu tablets (Panafen Plus/Nurofen Plus) i either use to stick a whole bunch in a cup of water and swallow the muck all in one go, or if i wasnt taking many pills at once id put em in my mouth with water and they would dissolve.

Advil liquid inside burns like acid when you crack the gel caps open, so that wasnt an option.

Straight Ibuprofen pills do not breakdown in water, however Panafen Plus (codeine+ibu) does break down quiet fast for some odd reason...and tbh Panafen Plus when crushed and drank doesnt taste too bad, paracetamol crush and Mersyndol tastes foul and actually make me gag. If any of you ever have to crush a painkiller for some reason, or have a kid that cannot swallow pills give em Panafen, atleast the taste wont make them sicker

EDIT: Just too add a little on my inability to swallow pills its not a mental block, like im not scared im gunna choke or nuttin (though i did a couple times =/) i cannot swallow them due to the way my tounge moves when i swallow. When i try to swallow my tounge physically touches the roof of my mouth, creating a physical block that stops the pill. It also makes it impossible for me to swallow alcohol shots =/.

Offtopic: Ive been starting to watch the tv series "House MD" and if any of you watch it you would know he is addicted to Vicodin (Oxycodone+Paracetamol). In the episode i watched last night he checked himself into rehab. You later see him vommiting into his person toilet to which he says to his team "Whoever invented Buprenophine to get of Vicodin should be shot, i think i need my meds adjusted" (something along those lines) lol. and in a later episode he gets put on Methadone for a while.

Offtopic Continue: Looks like House wasnt taking Bupe the whole time, turns out one of the workers in rehab was slipping hi Vicodin the whole time >.<

Edit: Wait isnt Bupe stronger then Oxy? why would House want to be slipped Vicodin while getting Bupe? Unless it wasnt working they great as with me (and yes i know the show is fake lol) but it should make some sense

 

[Christ!]

Offtopic Continue: Looks like House wasnt taking Bupe the whole time, turns out one of the workers in rehab was slipping hi Vicodin the whole time >.<

Edit: Wait isnt Bupe stronger then Oxy? why would House want to be slipped Vicodin while getting Bupe? Unless it wasnt working they great as with me (and yes i know the show is fake lol) but it should make some sense

1mg of bupe is way stronger than 1mg of oxycodone, but stronger on a mg to mg basis doesn't mean better.

Oxycodone is far more euphoric and enjoyable, which is why house probably prefers it

 

[Stiffeno]

1mg of bupe is way stronger than 1mg of oxycodone, but stronger on a mg to mg basis doesn't mean better.

Oxycodone is far more euphoric and enjoyable, which is why house probably prefers it

Ah i see, yes that does sound like House haha.

Personally ive never tried Oxy before, hell i dont even know wtf its called in Aussieland...or if its even available? =/

Edit: This knee thing is starting to piss me off though, took a couple of panafen for it (the Ibu im after not the codeine which at 25mg wont do shit lol). My Bupe would probably take most the egde off it but i gotta wait for my ride to get home from work so i can go get my dose (ran outa takehomes this week) so still another hour or so before i can get it.

Im even starting to walk with a bit of a limp now, i feel like House haha

 

[opi8]

Vicodin is hydrocodone, not oxycodone. The brands of medicine containing oxycodone in Australia are OxyContin, OxyNorm and Endone. Generally OxyContin is prescribed to pain management patients in Aus, OxyNorm for breakthrough pain and Endone for moderate short-term pain.

 

[Stiffeno]

Vicodin is hydrocodone, not oxycodone. The brands of medicine containing oxycodone in Australia are OxyContin, OxyNorm and Endone. Generally OxyContin is prescribed to pain management patients in Aus, OxyNorm for breakthrough pain and Endone for moderate short-term pain.

Man the members of this forum are helpful little googlettes lol. Thats a good thing btw, not being sarcastic . Thanks for the info!

Just went to get my dose of bupe and the pharmacist there (the one who is like the boss Pharmacist) as i walked in said "hey whats wrong with ur legs? ur limping!"...heck even she noticed my new hip limp =/.

She said i might be lacking in vitamin D (im very pale but i explained ive aqlways been pale) or it could be because ive gained 8-10 kilo in the last 5 months. Im going back to the doctor on Monday and gunna have my knees checked out, they hurt too badly for it to be nothing!

Ive actually got bowed legs at the knees, have all my life. When i kneel down i hear a loud pop and my knee (or somthing in that area) actually slips out of the socket (its painful but only for 5 seconds)...this has happened for atleast 15 years now but i never had leg pain due to it...now im not so sure! I might also be developing arthritus, as it runs in my family (im really hoping i dont).

Edit: About the painm its an aching feeling that sometimes throbs. Most of the time it feels like...like when you force your fingers to crack ur knuckles, but when u do it too much it aches sorta thing, well it feels like that all the time...it feels red raw inside! Walking causes a lot of pain, even standing too long does!

 

[the_ketaman]

That is WAY to much bupe for pretty much even the worst of addicts. I was using up to 400mg IV oxy a day and only need between 4-8mg bupe a day(though I did swap over from a high dose of methadone). MR_Ibis is right you are getting horribly addicted to bupe when its not needed and I am sure ou are causing yourself unnecissary grief maybe now and definitely in the future. taper much lower or see a pain specialist if its that bad, maybe you really do need meds?. Maybe a small dose of methadone(20-40mg but the doc will figure that out) will help better but it will restrict your life a huge amount due to the max amount of takehomes they will give you as well as it making it very hard to travel sometimes, the half-life sucks too and id hang out for it the next day, WD's are much worse. Methadone really is liquid-handcuffs and if you think you will find a doctor that will give you more privs because you work or have a bussiness or whatever then your kidding yourself. Ive only ever ebeen able to get 2 takehomes twice a week so 4 all u, bupe on the other hand you may be able to get a months supply and I always end up missing at least 2 days a week and never feel withdrawals until day 3-4.. Methadone was almost worse than using heroin/oxy/morphine for me, bupe is the best thing that ever happened to me and 4-8mg, strange as it sounds feels and holds me much better than 16-20mg which is what i started on. Less is more with bupe. Im planning to go down to -2mg.

I hate to say it but man up and just quit cold-turkey, it will hurt but will do you good in the long run. Id get lots of valium/benzos, lots of plain old APAP/Acetaminophen/ibuprofen/aspirin whatever you choose. Maybe get some seroquel if you can just to relax you a little more and tough it out watching your fav movies or doing whatever you like doing when being lazy. You can do it bro, ive seen people go cold turkey from much higher equiv doses of heroin/other opiates that are MUCH more potent & addictive, ive experienced it many times myself and while it wasnt fun we were glad we did it in the end and looking back it wasnt as bad as you always think its going to be, with methadone i have to say though is 10x worse than I thought it'd be, meth WD is truely HELL!. But do remember A LOT OF IT IS IN YOUR HEAD! Good luck mate, I hope you succeed one way or anoter.

 

[Stiffeno]

I will be seeing a pain management clinic next week once im transferred to my new doctor, 32mg of bupe isnt working for me. I tried only taking 8mg/16mg but i couldnt do it, i always ended up taking my full dose again. Less is more might be the case for some (or even a lot) but not for me it isnt!

I do know for a fact that ill need to be put on some type of med, weather its Methadone or something else i dunno, but bupe is NOT cutting it for me. Ive already started using again which i TOLD my doctor would happen but oh well. I will def have to get physio and stuff but with the pain i get (and now with my knees going on me) i wont be able to manage without a med portion of treatment!

And as i said, even if i need to be on Methadone (or some other med) for the rest of my life to manage the pain, then so be it. Quitting cold turkey might be hard as hell at the best of times, but when you have chronic pain its amplified 10 fold trying to quit. Ive tried before when i was just on codeine and i didnt even make it 3 days it was so bad! At this point with a 32mg bupe addiction cold turkey with my bad back isnt an option!

Hell if i end up on the Methadone train i wont care, so long as it deals with my pain. Hell in the USA and UK plenty of doctors prescribe Methadone JUST for pain in some patients, ive got an addiction and chronic pain so =/. As for the takehomes that dont really bother me.

Relief is the olny thing that matters to me!

EDIT: Oh and my mother said that if she ever catches me on, or finds out im back on drugs she will throw me out onto the street!

 

[footscrazy]

You started using codeine again? Do you think it's doing anything for you?

 

[Stiffeno]

You started using codeine again? Do you think it's doing anything for you?

Exactly my point, how long till it wants something stronger? (my brain/addiction that is)

 

[footscrazy]

You have to take some personal responsibility though. Throughout most of your posts I've got the sense you think of your addiction as something that's 'happening' to you, something almost separate from you. How long til your brain wants something stronger? Probably not long, regardless of whether you're on bupe, methadone or IV heroin. That's the nature of addiction, and the problem of basing your addiction, and its cure, on external factors.

but bupe is NOT cutting it for me. Ive already started using again which i TOLD my doctor would happen but oh well.

It's not your doctor's job to stop you using. That's upto you. You obviously have the insight to know that you were vulnerable to using at this point - so what did you do about it? Do you have ways of dealing with cravings? Have you identified some of your triggers so that you can do your best to minimise them?

I don't think curing the 'symptoms', so to speak, of your addiction is likely to lead to lasting change. Moving to different or stronger opiates whenever you start craving again, or your pain breaks through, is a bandaid situation which ultimately has a limit. Give yourself some credit for being able to control your addiction. Addiction most likely originates in quite primitive areas of the brain so the desires are extremely strong (and can have the same urgency as desires such as hunger, thirst etc), but ultimately, the prefrontal cortex, you, has ultimate control. It's not possible or practical to just stop the desire to use. That isn't the point of dealing with an addiction, at least not in the beginning. It's recognising these strong instincts to use for what they are, and using your vastly superior prefrontal cortext to deal with them, even though at the beginning that usually means just existing through the bad feelings, even though it feels unbearable.

I don't disagree with the use of maintenance opiates at all and I don't mean to say that you need to quit using everything, but I do think you need to take away some of the power you've given your addiction. Thinking of it as an uncontrollable beast that you just have to obey, and then deal with the consequences afterwards, is self fulfilling.

 

[Stiffeno]

You have to take some personal responsibility though. Throughout most of your posts I've got the sense you think of your addiction as something that's 'happening' to you, something almost separate from you. How long til your brain wants something stronger? Probably not long, regardless of whether you're on bupe, methadone or IV heroin. That's the nature of addiction, and the problem of basing your addiction, and its cure, on external factors.



It's not your doctor's job to stop you using. That's upto you. You obviously have the insight to know that you were vulnerable to using at this point - so what did you do about it? Do you have ways of dealing with cravings? Have you identified some of your triggers so that you can do your best to minimise them?

I don't think curing the 'symptoms', so to speak, of your addiction is likely to lead to lasting change. Moving to different or stronger opiates whenever you start craving again, or your pain breaks through, is a bandaid situation which ultimately has a limit. Give yourself some credit for being able to control your addiction. Addiction most likely originates in quite primitive areas of the brain so the desires are extremely strong (and can have the same urgency as desires such as hunger, thirst etc), but ultimately, the prefrontal cortex, you, has ultimate control. It's not possible or practical to just stop the desire to use. That isn't the point of dealing with an addiction, at least not in the beginning. It's recognising these strong instincts to use for what they are, and using your vastly superior prefrontal cortext to deal with them, even though at the beginning that usually means just existing through the bad feelings, even though it feels unbearable.

I don't disagree with the use of maintenance opiates at all and I don't mean to say that you need to quit using everything, but I do think you need to take away some of the power you've given your addiction. Thinking of it as an uncontrollable beast that you just have to obey, and then deal with the consequences afterwards, is self fulfilling.

Yeah i see your point exactly. But see, seeing it as something that is "happening to me" is better for my self esteem (which i have very VERY little of). If i acknowledge that its my own actions (wheather from primitive parts of the brain or not) that means that im basically a total failure at life, and in controlling my drug use.

I know it isnt the doctors fault, and im not trying to shift the blame away from myself. I just think in the last month or so the doctors didnt act 100% in my best interest! Though seeing as im being transferred to another doctor, i think they have realized this . Im optimistic in a decent outcome.

EDIT: As for the opiot replacement it was a safe move as i wasnt aware of things such as cold water extraction, so it was only a matter of time before my liver just shutdown due to paracetamol or ibuprofen toxicity. Also the amount of time i was spending travelling around different suburbs buying countless packets of pills was staggering. A couple of chemists actually told me not to come back without a prescriptions since they caught on to what i was doing!

It wasnt gunna be long before i would be using so many pills that it would be near impossible for me to manage it. At least with the bupe i can take a reasonable (though in many forum members opinion was too much) dose of a med and not run out the next day and be screwed. Sure 32mg of bupe is a lot, but its a lot more managable then taking 35 pills a day, running out of packs a couple days later and needing to return to a chemist that i bought a pack from 2 days prior...and in turn being refused service!

EDIT2: I actually use to send my gf, mother, gfs brother, gf father and my grandparents to chemists to get me packs of pills so not to get caught out. My gf of 4.5 years (of who i have a son with) dumped me and chucked me outta my home because she was sick of being asked to go "buy me pills".

At the pinnacle of my addiction when i was on about 45 pills a day, i remember my gf buying me 2 packs of pills (30 packs) and at this time she didnt know about the addiction...basically i had to ask her THE NEXT DAY if she could buy me another pack coz i was out.

In her words "WHAT THA FUCK???? ARE YOU SERIOUS? I JUST FUCKING BOUGHT YOU 2 PACKS, YOUR A FUCKIHNG JUNKY"....yes she said that to her bf who suffered severe depression. Shortly after she broke up with me.

 

[footscrazy]

Yeah i see your point exactly. But see, seeing it as something that is "happening to me" is better for my self esteem (which i have very VERY little of). If i acknowledge that its my own actions (wheather from primitive parts of the brain or not) that means that im basically a total failure at life, and in controlling my drug use.

I get what your saying. I guess I think that avoidance only helps up to a certain point though. If you admitted that so far you've been a failure at controlling your drug use, what would it mean? Would it really cause a collapse of your psyche? I don't know, maybe it would, but surely at some level you do recognise that your addiction is at least partly caused by perhaps maladaptive choices you've made. And I don't think that makes you a failure at life. Many of us here are addicts, myself included. Up until a month ago I used 400-800mg codeine daily, and I'm all too familiar with the feeling of being refused service at chemists, and trying to find the one chemist you haven't been to in the last week .

It wasnt gunna be long before i would be using so many pills that it would be near impossible for me to manage it. At least with the bupe i can take a reasonable (though in many forum members opinion was too much) dose of a med and not run out the next day and be screwed.

You say this, but you also say you're still not happy on the bupe. I can see you have some legit reasons to want to change, but I also think you're chasing your tail to some extent. I don't think you're ever going to find the 'perfect' medication or dose, and at some point you're going to have shitty feelings, of cravings or physical pain or whatever. I think it would be helpful for you to maybe learn some other coping mechanisms for these, otherwise I fear you're going to find yourself at the max dose of methadone, or shooting up as much smack as you can afford a day, and realise that your problems are still there but you have nowhere left to go.

 

[Stiffeno]

Just got home from having a full spine xray done, they took like 10 or more xrays of me standing at various different angles. I get my results back tomorrow morning since it wont be ready to pickup tonight!

Edit: Just got a call from my new Pshych/Counsilor and arranged an appointment. Now just gotta wait for my new Bupe doctor to call so i can start seeing some pain management clinic places

 

[Stiffeno]

Just got a call from my case worker and i have an appointment with my new doctor and a methadone clinic on the 11th of next month .

 

[Crankinit]

Good luck, hope it works out for ya.