Methadone, Bupe and gasp Codeine!

[Stiffeno]

Got my xrays back, the note with them shows "Minor thoraco-lumbar scoliosis concave to the right, with a minor compensatory lumbar scoliosis to the left. The scoliosis measures approx. 5 degree's".

So seems nothing major wrong, just i gather from the wording a kinda "S" shaped bow in the back. Although they use the words "minor" the pain sure as hell doesnt seem minor. I seriously thought there was gunna be something worse like a slipped disc or something to make the pain make sense...

 

[Christ!]

Hey Stiffeno, great news that nothing is majorly wrong, at the same time it sucks...sometimes you just want a simple diagnosis or answer, I've been through that kind of thing before...the mysteries and things you can't pin down are the worst.

I'll be interested to see how you go on the methadone, hopefully it's what you've been searching for and gives you pain relief + kills cravings.

Just out of interest, when you said cravings in your original posts, did you mean the feeling you would have gotten from 400mg codeine? or just pain relief in general?

Seems like you're heading in the right direction with the seeing of counselors/other doctors/pain management peeps. Thumbs up

 

[Stiffeno]

By cravings i mean mentally my body is wanting the drug, driving me to use it. And when i dont it drives me crazy...like making me impulsive.

 

[misk]

i've actually just started this today (a bupe maintenance program)
to be honest, i'm not addicted to opiates to the point where coming off them would be hard, but i could see myself doing stupid things to get stuff in the future.
after 3 years of random medications that may help with some pain (which none were very effective or worked for a long enough period) i was over it and just wanted some relief.
recently i've been on a pack of 30 codiene/ibruprofen or more a day, plus 30-50mg methadone once or twice a week and perhaps some oxys if they are around, but nothing too hectic...

my goal has always been for pain relief and a bit of a relaxing mood so to speak, simply due to the fact of reduced pain etc. so now i'm on my 8mg dose of suboxone today, i have the option of going upto 16mg tomorrow for a week before review next week.

i prefer the suboxone as it feels less intrusive physically, which is good as im a removalist by trade. the methadone helps with the pain more, but i also feel i get high more off it.
so i will stay on 8mg suboxone as its only one tab for a few days before thinking about upping the dose at all.

sorry to hijack your thread, but there are others out there that are in a similar situation.
its a sad story when you have a better chance getting pain relief by selling yourself as being addicted enough to join a clinil

 

[Stiffeno]

i've actually just started this today (a bupe maintenance program)
to be honest, i'm not addicted to opiates to the point where coming off them would be hard, but i could see myself doing stupid things to get stuff in the future.
after 3 years of random medications that may help with some pain (which none were very effective or worked for a long enough period) i was over it and just wanted some relief.
recently i've been on a pack of 30 codiene/ibruprofen or more a day, plus 30-50mg methadone once or twice a week and perhaps some oxys if they are around, but nothing too hectic...

my goal has always been for pain relief and a bit of a relaxing mood so to speak, simply due to the fact of reduced pain etc. so now i'm on my 8mg dose of suboxone today, i have the option of going upto 16mg tomorrow for a week before review next week.

i prefer the suboxone as it feels less intrusive physically, which is good as im a removalist by trade. the methadone helps with the pain more, but i also feel i get high more off it.
so i will stay on 8mg suboxone as its only one tab for a few days before thinking about upping the dose at all.

sorry to hijack your thread, but there are others out there that are in a similar situation.
its a sad story when you have a better chance getting pain relief by selling yourself as being addicted enough to join a clinil

Well the amount of stuff you are taking you are more then ok to be on suboxone, so dont feel like you're cheating the system...coz ur not, you do need it and it will help you.

Only go up to 16mg if you think you need it (you might need it after a while on suboxone) coz my doctors just kept putting me up and up and now im on the max dose of 32mg a day...so my opiot tolerance is skyhigh now. When i see this Methadone clinic on the 11st of next month ill be looking to get stable on it, sub at a max dose isnt really cutting it for me and doing nothing for my pain anymore. As ive heard others say, "Its better to be stable on a small dose of methadone, then be unstable on a maxed out dose of buprenorphine"...and i 100% agree!

And coz Methadone is a full agonist ill get significantly better pain relief!

Edit: As for you being on Bupe its a good way to go, i was in a similar situation with you where i would take anything i could get my hands on (mainly codeine based pills)...and after a while you are taking so many different things, and poutting so much shit like fillers and ibuprofen and paracetamol and all kinds of shit, your liver and bowls are gunna go haywire...and in the end shutdown. I remember a while when i couldnt shit for a week straight...
When you're on bupe you can just take one thing, the bupe...weather 1, 2, 3 or 4 pills depending on ur dose, but its a lot less messy then dealing with 400 other drugs...AND making sure you have enough left over for the next day.

In the end maintaining codeine, oxy, and everything else becomes impossible, coz ur on sooo much of it a day that you can never keep urself supplied. With bupe you just take ur dose and ur set...not to mention its 100% legal and pure so you know you will never get refused service (like a chemist that cracks onto what ur doing) and you know ur suboxone is clean and hasnt been cut with battery acid and shit like that =/

 

[Stiffeno]

Went and seen a doctor about my increasing knee pain and he checked it out. He made me squat down and my knees went "Crrrrrrr pop" crunching noise followed by a loud pop from both knees and HEAPS of pain. See i have bowed legs at the knees but never really had major pain till 2 weeks or so ago. When i knee down my knee bone literally pops out of the socket for a second and pops back in...which is what the pop noise is. It hurts like crazy for a few seconds but then stops.

He stood on my foot and started pulling on my leg forward and grabbed the knee cap and moved it side to side.

He said i need to have an MRI scan on my knee/knee's. Its going to cost like 250 bux for the damn scan coz apparently MediCare doest cover it =/, only Xrays (im going to see another doctor tomorrow though and get a 2nd opinion on the "Cost" of the MRI so i dont needlessly pay money for nothing.

See the xray only shows bones, but the MRI shows bone, cartalidge, muscle and tendons and such...so it will show the doctor exactly whats wrong. Turns out my knees are actually worse then my back...HEAPS worse =/...

 

[footscrazy]

^ You can get MRI's cheaper, I don't think any lower than around 60 bucks, but you'll be waiting months.

 

[opi8]

I've done the same things as you Stieffeno. They can interperet the results as they see fit. If they either don't like you/think yuo're looking for drugs/are incompetent/or other reasons I'm too smashed to think of, they will just fuck you around. The fact that you ahve admitted to "abusing" drugs, whatever reason that is doesn't matter, makes your chances of getting legitimate pain relief very slim. That is the system. That is why it is often better for your own best interests not to tell the complete truth to your health professional. This is backwards and needs to be changed, but at the moment it is how it is.

 

[Stiffeno]

I've done the same things as you Stieffeno. They can interperet the results as they see fit. If they either don't like you/think yuo're looking for drugs/are incompetent/or other reasons I'm too smashed to think of, they will just fuck you around. The fact that you ahve admitted to "abusing" drugs, whatever reason that is doesn't matter, makes your chances of getting legitimate pain relief very slim. That is the system. That is why it is often better for your own best interests not to tell the complete truth to your health professional. This is backwards and needs to be changed, but at the moment it is how it is.

If i even sense they are starting to screw me around i will straight up tell them, dont fuck me around! This is my life they are toying with, and they damn well better do everything they can to give me the support (in whatever form is nessisary) i need.

Hell if things got really bad i could always go give my story to ACA (A Current Affair), give them some major negative publicity which puts pressure on them. Ive seen companies buckle to the "victims" needs after a couple ACA reports haha :D

EDIT: I dont think they will see me as drug seeking coz im legitimatly not =/, i dont think they will see me as incompetent because ive always been a fairly intelligent person (though my spelling could use some work lol)...hell at one time i was study to be a software design (C/C++ programming to be exact) but ended up quitting near the end due to major stress related problems (try doin a test which involves coding something, writing a 300 line short program and having to rewrite the entire thing 4 times over, each with different algorithms all because you made the mistake of using an upper case T instead of a lower >.<).

Also i dont think they will hate me coz i always attend appointments, have never been rude (though this will change if they fuck me around lol) and am generally very nice.

Offtopic: On an unrelated note my mums pure bred Siamese female just gave birth last night to 6 kittens . Her last litter was a disaster and 5 of 6 died due to various reasons (which is odd coz she had never lost any babies before, and she isnt overbred as my mother does let her get pregnant straight after a previous litter...as to give her body a chance to have a break...as law states with licensed cat breaders - to which my mother is).

The kittens go on sale at...err im not sure what age, i think 8-14 weeks? not sure, all i know is they sell for upwards of 550 bux per kitten :d haha. Thats 3.3grand a litter...though there is food expenses, microchipping, vaccinations and so forth which lowers it by a few hundred bux!

Offtopic 2: After being away from the game for 9 months i have just started playing World of Warcraft again for anyone who plays. I play on the Realm Barthilas (which is an Oceanic PVP i believe), my character name is: Khealingyou on allience side (its a shadow/disc priest at level 45...get it Khealingyou, killingyou/healingyou lol).

I have some level 85s (the max level) but i dont play them.

My other main i play is a level 63 deathknight on Allience, named LucaBraso on the realm Khaz'goroth (not Khaz'gorath) which is an Oceanic PVE realm. I will be switching between these 2 the most. And somes play my warlock on horde side of Barthilas named Nerffear.

 

[footscrazy]

If i even sense they are starting to screw me around i will straight up tell them, dont fuck me around!

I'm sure that'll do the trick

In all seriousness though, I hope it works out for you.

 

[chugs]

The fact that you ahve admitted to "abusing" drugs, whatever reason that is doesn't matter, makes your chances of getting legitimate pain relief very slim. That is the system. That is why it is often better for your own best interests not to tell the complete truth to your health professional. This is backwards and needs to be changed, but at the moment it is how it is.

depressingly true.

Its a difficult act to juggle though. very difficult. But then again the OP has been given bupe and insane quantities of it as opposed to been given pain meds, bit of a karmic swap in some ways. Bupe is some powerful stuff. I remember having less then 1mg of it and been absolutely fucked for days.

To the OP, just go do the hard-yards. I've just gone through it this last week, from a daily heroin use for the past 6 months and to say the least it was nasty but you know its an accomplishment and its freeing that although I had a lot of fun and pleasure, that I am free from the withdrawals the agony they bring on.

If one was insistent on using drugs to get a monkey from off their back then I would go to your case worker and suggest that you use all the therapies in rotation. Valium, bupe, meth etc but you use them in rotation to avoid addiction and have a plan to taper the rotation of doses down till your having very little.

Or else a taper from codeine. I.e. drop the bupe, meth etc and then just go straight back on your codeine. Then, using excel, devise a timetable where you reduce your dose by X every day/week. I find tapering to the be the most effective, even if your in pain. You'll find that your more sensitive to pain because your brain isn't turning on your natural levels of painkillers (cAMP to MU recepators ain't workin). Your cAMP system was turned off because your body thought with all the codeine it was receiving that it didn't need cAMP to bind to your mu-1 receptors and release your endogenous opioids.

However If you want to be on shit, back and forth between doctors, experiencing complications from your use (look up Opioids and chronic renal failure) for the rest of you're life then continue down the path your on. We've all got demons to face fears to overcome, insecurities to banish and pain to experience (oh lordy the pain) but if you don't put a bit of catholic sado-masochistism (pleasure in pain) into your attitude then you'll be forever whimpering under the bitch of back pain and such. then again I know you can't be told to get over pain & addiction.

here is hoping you have your moment of clarity one day.....

 

[opi8]

However If you want to be on shit, back and forth between doctors, experiencing complications from your use (look up Opioids and chronic renal failure) for the rest of you're life then continue down the path your on.

OP has pretty much stated this is his intention.

 

[shoo-bop]

If one was insistent on using drugs to get a monkey from off their back then I would go to your case worker and suggest that you use all the therapies in rotation. Valium, bupe, meth etc but you use them in rotation to avoid addiction and have a plan to taper the rotation of doses down till your having very little.

It's really not clear to me that this is helpful or useful advice. Firstly, I'd be very surprised (but please let me know if I'm wrong) whether you could find a doctor anywhere in Australia that would prescribe a rapid rotation between these medications. My impression is that they either want you on bupe or methadone for a while. I've heard rather often of people transitioning from one to the other after a few months, but I've never heard of anyone transitioning between them repeatedly every few weeks. And as far as the valium went, every few weeks is what you'd need "to avoid addiction" because benzos can cause physiological dependence with just a couple weeks daily use. As for "avoiding addiction" to the other two, well isn't it a bit late in this person's case? And they're both opiates, with cross tolerance and all, so thinking that you're "cleverly" avoiding addiction to methadone or buprenorphine by swapping between the two every few weeks is a bit silly. What the above seems to me to be a recipe for is repeatedly going through diazepam-attenuated methadone withdrawal for a few weeks every few months while gradually developing a benzo dependence. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but this is perhaps the worst suggestion I've seen in this thread.

 

[Christ!]

It's really not clear to me that this is helpful or useful advice. Firstly, I'd be very surprised (but please let me know if I'm wrong) whether you could find a doctor anywhere in Australia that would prescribe a rapid rotation between these medications. My impression is that they either want you on bupe or methadone for a while. I've heard rather often of people transitioning from one to the other after a few months, but I've never heard of anyone transitioning between them repeatedly every few weeks. And as far as the valium went, every few weeks is what you'd need "to avoid addiction" because benzos can cause physiological dependence with just a couple weeks daily use. As for "avoiding addiction" to the other two, well isn't it a bit late in this person's case? And they're both opiates, with cross tolerance and all, so thinking that you're "cleverly" avoiding addiction to methadone or buprenorphine by swapping between the two every few weeks is a bit silly. What the above seems to me to be a recipe for is repeatedly going through diazepam-attenuated methadone withdrawal for a few weeks every few months while gradually developing a benzo dependence. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but this is perhaps the worst suggestion I've seen in this thread.

There's a lot of doctors out there, and if you presented to the right one with the right conditions....

All I'm saying is never say never, I'd agree that MOST wouldn't do this, it'd be rare to find a doctor that would do it...especially for someone that has drug abuse in his notes.

The switching opiates isn't unheard of in pain management. Usually methadone is in the rotation for some reason...maybe because it's cheap? Not sure about that one. Anyway, they find this switching to an equivalent dose of a different opiate to be way more effective than staying on the same one. However - the chances of the OP getting this are slim like you said. You'd need to have a real solid history of pain with x-rays and stuff to back it up I'd guess, and no offence to the OP - but you might present like a slight drug seeker, and not someone that will need opiates for the rest of their lives.

I think opiate-free pain management is getting more popular? I think it's a good thing so long as the people who really need the opiates still get them.

 

[Stiffeno]

Well i see my new Psych tomorrow, then only another week till i see my new doctor. I hope i dont look like im drug seeking coz that will just screw with the help they choose to give me =/. I dont wanna be put in a situation where they think i just want hard drugs, then have them rapidly kick me off bupe or whatever else, then i fall back onto codeine...mum finds out and chucks me outa my home as she swore she would, be on the streets and start taking heroin, then be dead on a park bench 8 years from now with track marks everywhere.

There is no way id be able to manage on codeine even with CWE and tappering, i tried it before and i failed, its why they put me on bupe i gather...
There is no reason to think that i could suddenly pull it off, and now that my knee's are on the blink (they hurt about 50% of the time now)...ill be in a worse situation!

EDIT: On a more positive note, i just bought a new 40" (102cm) 1080p bigscreen lcd tv for my bedroomv :D, its great playing the Xbox3shitty on haha

 

[footscrazy]

Self fulfilling prophecy mate. Until you take control of your life and realise that it's completely upto you where you end up, you're always going to be playing second fiddle to your addiction, and addictions are never wise or rational (though yours is doing a good job so far convincing you it's looking after your best interests).

The real shame is uninformed people like your mother who think that methadone or bupe are somehow 'okay' because they are 'medications', despite being a hell of a lot stronger than codeine and getting on them being probably the worst decision made in your addiction thus far. If you fell back onto codeine it would be a GOOD thing - but at this point in your addiction, you couldn't fall back on codeine anyway. Codeine isn't even going to touch the sides anymore, you cured that addiction by raising your tolerance with bupe - insofar as it'll be a long time before you can ever get high on codeine again.

 

[Stiffeno]

Self fulfilling prophecy mate. Until you take control of your life and realise that it's completely upto you where you end up, you're always going to be playing second fiddle to your addiction, and addictions are never wise or rational (though yours is doing a good job so far convincing you it's looking after your best interests).

The real shame is uninformed people like your mother who think that methadone or bupe are somehow 'okay' because they are 'medications', despite being a hell of a lot stronger than codeine and getting on them being probably the worst decision made in your addiction thus far. If you fell back onto codeine it would be a GOOD thing - but at this point in your addiction, you couldn't fall back on codeine anyway. Codeine isn't even going to touch the sides anymore, you cured that addiction by raising your tolerance with bupe - insofar as it'll be a long time before you can ever get high on codeine again.

You are 100% correct about my mother, she see's the bupe as being "legal and prescribed" by a doctor so it makes it a better choise....she is wrong as hell but no matter how much i drill it at her, she will never accept buying 10 packs of pills, crushing em up, extracting the crap in CWE and taking it as a "proper way to get better"...

But as you said my tolerance is shyhigh now so no point even bothering with codeine, im at the mercy of the doctors now...hopefully they dont fuck me around. Ive never been one to have much patiences in others and doctors! I speak my mind so they know exactly where i stand on the matter!

 

[Stiffeno]

Ok got some new news, went and seen my new doctor today (after waiting an hour due to someone once again fuckin up my paperwork)(Apparently my surname is hard to spell =/)...anyways my current doctor just happened to show up too. So after speaking for an hour or so they have chosen to keep me on Bupe 32mg for today, tomorrow...then on Sunday i take nothing and then on monday they are going to switch me onto 30mg of Methadone. Im happy with the outcome so far.

Im going to see my GP tonight and getting a pain clinic referral (apparently this new place isnt directly tied with a clinic like i was led to blieve...but no biggie).

So ill post back here on monday (or earlier if questions are asked ) with how i went!

I went and said bye to the staff at my current chemist where i dose bupe at, however i explained that once im on methadone for a while ill more than likely be able to dose at the chemist again (the staff told me this). The staff wished me good luck .

Offtopic: I went on a spending spree the other day and bought a 40" 1080p bigscreen tv, a Panasonic Blu-Ray player (with The Evil Dead and Terminator 3 on disc) and also a brand new iPod Touch 4G . Oh and i got Foxtel IQ hooked up in my room :D.

Once my mother buys her new 65" massivescreen tv in a few months, we are upgrading to Foxtel IQHD for 720p and 1080i viewing :D

 

[Stiffeno]

Sorry for the double post but i have a question, when im switched to Methadone what is the typical form they will give me it in? Is the liquid form the general one used? coz i cannot swallow pills so i hope they dont give me a pill version!

Edit: Just rang the Methadone clinic and they said it will be in liquid form good good! (Well they lady on the phone said "its a drink")

 

[Christ!]

The real shame is uninformed people like your mother who think that methadone or bupe are somehow 'okay' because they are 'medications', despite being a hell of a lot stronger than codeine and getting on them being probably the worst decision made in your addiction thus far.

It is a shame...it's often not just mothers/non-drug users but the users themselves that think getting on bupe or methadone would be a great idea. For a small dependence on opiates it's the worst decision like you said, probably one of the worst in their entire lives. I know getting on bupe is the worst decisions I've made, and I was taking much higher doses of codeine + oxys.

I think you'll be happy with methadone for a while Stiffeno and it's not like anyone else can you tell what's best - most of us have to learn from experience unfortunately.