Opioids Oxycodone - I'm pretty much fucked in NJ

[boostemente]

Ok, well I'm new here. I've read for a few years but never had a reason to post until now. I'm going to lay it all out; whether it's just to speak my mind and feel better, or maybe get some good advice.

A little over 2 years ago I got a doctors name from a friend. He told me this guy out in Long Island, NY will help you out with your back pain, no problem. I make an appointment, bring the MRI's, and find out that this is hands down the most liberal doc I've ever heard of. He puts me on 4 oc80's per day, and 12 30's for breakthrough pain. That's 120 80's and 360 30's per month. No, I'm not dying, I don't have severed limbs, I just have a few herniated discs. I knew this was a lot of meds, and up until then I had just been bouncing around between docs getting scripts for 3 a day, stuff like that. So this was quite literally the mother fucking load.

About a year and a half ago when the OC's turned into OP's, I told him my insurance wouldn't cover brand name drugs, and I couldn't afford to fill them anymore. So he substituted the 80's for another script of 360 30's. Thats 24 per day, 720 per month. He said the max per script was 360 so he would give me 2 scripts each for 360, and the only pain in the ass was that I had to go back to the pharmacy every 15 days instead of 30, but a small price to pay for what I was getting.

Fast forward about a year later. The doc tells me the DEA has audited his records and he can no longer give his patients more than 360 30's per month, period. Since contin and opana are brand name only, he recommends using a compounding pharmacy to make me 85mg oxycodone SR pills. He gives me 4 per day, 120 a month, plus the 360 30's for breakthrough. Ok, so that's 700mg per day. I've been on this configuration for 6 months now. But I've been on 700mg per day with other configurations for a little over 2 years since I started with this doc.

Now the bad news..... So about 4 weeks ago I get a letter in the mail from the doc. He states that due to shit beyond his control, after 20 years of pain management, he can no longer treat patients on opiates or suboxone. One more appointment with him and then that's it, so long, see ya. So 3 weeks ago I go for my last scripts. It was weird bc this guys hands were shaking so bad he couldn't turn the pages in my chart, and he's normally a laid back kinda guy. He tells me I have to find a new doctor, and it was nice knowing you, so long....

So now I'm stuck with a 700mg tolerance. I've gone to a couple of doctors in the past few weeks trying to find someone to continue my treatment. I've gotten yelled at, lectured, and shown the door. The best I've gotten is one guy that will give me 150mg per day. He says I shouldn't go into withdrawals reducing from 700 to 150. Pure bullshit, but beggars can't be choosers, so I took the script. I know I'm at fault here too. I knew I was on a high dose. But what do I do now? Some people have told me I should try to find a methadone doc. Since no doc is willing to write anywhere near 700mg per day, I might have better luck getting put on a dose of methadone that will keep me comfortable. I have zero experience with methadone, and I'm wondering if someone with this high tolerance can be treated with methadone, and remain comfortable, and not go through withdrawal.

PS For what it's worth, I took a urine screen with this doc every month and never had any problems. I never asked for an earlier appointment, and I never "lost" my meds. I was an all around good patient that tried to make the docs life as easy as possible in this situation.

Any suggestions? Thanks for reading, I know it was a long post.

 

[Captain.Heroin]

It sounds like the DEA is against large doses for pain management.

Best of luck. I know it is going to suck.

 

[mrflowers00]

find a way to get methadone or subutex/suboxone those are the only drugs that a doc will give you enough of to stay out of withdrawal

 

[SaosinEngaged]

I'm from NJ, there are a LOT of corrupt doctors in the area. I know of three in NJ/NY that will pretty much give you whatever you want, and have somehow thus far not gotten in trouble. It has taken every ounce of willpower for me to not just cave and go to one of them (I have friends that do, and get like 180 blues every 2 weeks for "lower back pain"). I have four ruptured discs and massive disc dessication, and the best I can get from a legitimate pain doctor is 1-2 15mg every 4 hours and a small Opana script bi-monthly. This is after a year of pain management.

So you most definitely were seeing a crooked doctor that was prescribing you all those meds to make money, not because it was warranted. Unfortunately, going to a legit doctor will never yield that kind of ridiculous amount of medication.

Your best bet is to either immediately get into a suboxone clinic (there's a literal fuck ton in NJ) or methadone, although i prefer Buprenorphine.

Second to that is to get a shitload of strong Kratom, Tramadol, a Benzo (please, please, be careful, you'll be taking this just at night to help you sleep), and a script for Lyrica (should not be hard to get any legit pain doctor to prescribe this, Lyrica is the most effective medication I've come across to combat opiate WD) and use those to battle the WD's until your dependence lessens. It's not going to be easy or fun by a mile, but you have absolutely no choice. If you do go this route PM me and I'll give you a basic dosing regimen, but PLEASE be so fucking careful if you add a benzo into the mix, although it will help with the massive WD's you're likely to go through very shortly. That kind of dependence pretty much shits on the Thomas Recipee, so you're going to need some good pharmeceuticals.

However, I still highly recommend you get on Suboxone/Methadone instead of the above. It will be much easier and safer. I've used the four chemicals above to very successfully block WD, but you have to know your body and your limits (of which your huge opiate tolerance won't be the issue here). So please get yourself into a Sub doctor, but in case for whatever reason you do not, PLEASE PM me before you go taking a multi-drug cocktail to combat the WD, I will help you do it based on my own experiences of how to dose safely.

 

[Tommyboy]

Now the bad news..... So about 4 weeks ago I get a letter in the mail from the doc. He states that due to shit beyond his control, after 20 years of pain management, he can no longer treat patients on opiates or suboxone. One more appointment with him and then that's it, so long, see ya. So 3 weeks ago I go for my last scripts. It was weird bc this guys hands were shaking so bad he couldn't turn the pages in my chart, and he's normally a laid back kinda guy. He tells me I have to find a new doctor, and it was nice knowing you, so long....

Shit was in his control, he just abused it so therefore lost it.

So now I'm stuck with a 700mg tolerance. I've gone to a couple of doctors in the past few weeks trying to find someone to continue my treatment. I've gotten yelled at, lectured, and shown the door. The best I've gotten is one guy that will give me 150mg per day. He says I shouldn't go into withdrawals reducing from 700 to 150. Pure bullshit, but beggars can't be choosers, so I took the script. I know I'm at fault here too. I knew I was on a high dose. But what do I do now? Some people have told me I should try to find a methadone doc. Since no doc is willing to write anywhere near 700mg per day, I might have better luck getting put on a dose of methadone that will keep me comfortable. I have zero experience with methadone, and I'm wondering if someone with this high tolerance can be treated with methadone, and remain comfortable, and not go through withdrawal.

PS For what it's worth, I took a urine screen with this doc every month and never had any problems. I never asked for an earlier appointment, and I never "lost" my meds. I was an all around good patient that tried to make the docs life as easy as possible in this situation.

Any suggestions? Thanks for reading, I know it was a long post.

Methadone should work for you, and as much as I never recommend it for people that have not tried suboxone without any luck, I would recommend it for you. The deal with heroin addicts all the time with tolerances higher than yours, so you should be OK. You may not be comfortable at first, but within a few days you should be fine. Not to lecture you, but saying that you never went in early for a script or lost any doesn't mean much considering how much you were getting. If you couldn't get by on 700mg a day then I wouldn't know what to tell you. Anyway, I would go to a methadone clinic, work out a taper plan, and after stabilizing at a lower dose (40-60mg) switch over to suboxone to complete the taper. If you don't want to get off of the suboxone then stay at a low dose for a while until you figure that part out.

 

[BiggDirty01]

Even switching your ER medication to methadone (w/ oxycodone for BT) would be a safer, more stable transition than going from 720mg to 150mg right away. You might just have to accept that your ER meds will not be the ones you can catch a buzz from...thats what I do at least with my meds.

Going to even a suspect doctor with a 720mg/day oxycodone habit might cause another doc to feel uncomfortable treating you. Best you be aware of that fact.

Good luck bro, PM me if you need help

 

[BlueberryfishY]

Being on 700mg of oxycodone is very much... actually thats ALOT, so obviously no other doctor is going to right you close to that amount, so either ween down the best you can with what you got left or get to a soboxone/methadone program.

 

[helium-4]

Any doctor that let you get to 700mg oxycodone a day is a pretty poor doctor IMO. He wasn't doing you any favors in terms of your pain treatment.

 

[BlueberryfishY]

i dont mean to rush you or anything but be ready and think about what your gonna do cause wants your meds run out your gonna be bed ridden for days, horrid withdrawal

 

[Tommyboy]

Well a doctor won't be likely to even write a dose of methadone that is 3/4 of the equivalent to that oxy dose, so I think a clinic may be your only option if you wish to do down that route. You can try a private doctor and assure them that you will accept a lowered dose every 2 weeks or month, but the odds aren't in your favor.

 

[TheLostBoys]

Some people only get Tramadol for the pain you were going through & you were getting meds that even some cancer patients dont receive but the thing is, you got lucky & got a liberal doctor that didnt care much about his patients addictions. This day was bound to come along where he wouldnt be able to give you the pain meds anymore & he left you with an addiction that is severe.........imo, that was a ridiculous amount of pain meds to get for herniated discs, hence, you are left with a ridiculous tolerance & paying for it since the DEA has been & will be cracking down hard on doctors.

Since you have a 700mg a day habit, I recommend going to see about methadone like some others have above...........because there is no way any doctor will give you 700mgs a day of oxy unless you get extremely lucky like before. There was a doctor in my home town & he had an office that had about 10 other doctors under him & he was in charge, it was his business, anyway, he is doing 20 to 40 years for over prescribing to his patients.....DEA made an example of him, its a shame. One guy he was prescribing like 240 oxy 80's a month & was giving the guy 5 or 6 scripts a month, this was back in 2006 I believe.

 

[Tommyboy]

Let's try to help the OP instead of just saying he's fucked and it was bound to happen. He did what a lot of us would have done and went to a doctor with a heavy hand, and his addiction got out of control from doing so. Sure they are both at fault, but nothing good will come by stating the obvious.

 

[helium-4]

I'd say fent patches with oxycodone for breakthrough would be your best bet. One bad thing about using methadone for the purpose of long lasting pain control is the blocking effect that it has starting between 60-80mgs.

 

[TheLostBoys]

Let's try to help the OP instead of just saying he's fucked and it was bound to happen. He did what a lot of us would have done and went to a doctor with a heavy hand, and his addiction got out of control from doing so. Sure they are both at fault, but nothing good will come by stating the obvious.

Im not judging him Tommy but I cant tell him to go ahead & get some Fentanyl or something that will mask his tolerance. He needs to get on a plan to bring his usage down because its too high for the physical pain he was suffering.

Sure we could all be in his shoes & if I was, I would be right here asking the same questions he is..........

 

[Tommyboy]

^ I meant to clarify that I wasn't saying that to you specifically, it was more of a general comment since it looked like the thread was headed down that road.

I'd say fent patches with oxycodone for breakthrough would be your best bet. One bad thing about using methadone for the purpose of long lasting pain control is the blocking effect that it has starting between 60-80mgs.

I would agree if the OP really needed the pain relief, but I think that the pain from his herniated disks would be adequately treated with the methaodne. He seemed to be implying that he didn't really need any pain meds to begin with, or if he did he didn't need much.

 

[TheLostBoys]

^ I meant to clarify that I wasn't saying that to you specifically, it was more of a general comment since it looked like the thread was headed down that road.



I would agree if the OP really needed the pain relief, but I think that the pain from his herniated disks would be adequately treated with the methaodne. He seemed to be implying that he didn't really need any pain meds to begin with, or if he did he didn't need much.

I know it was a general statement towards everyone but I felt I was obligated to state my position


If I was in a position where I could get that many pills, I would hoard them for months on end........talk about a massive stock pile.

 

[phenethylo J]

I don't blame him for stopping or being nervous concidering how hard the DEA is cracking down now. Writing scrips like that could land him behind bars for several decades. Not to mention how dangerous a dose that high is for you. I sugest finding a methadone clinic or suboxone clinic asap. You don't want to wait until you run out to decide to go looking.

 

[Swain]

That doc is crazy.. I mean all it takes is one patient to OD, an audit of his records, BAM 20 years gettin raped behind bars.

 

[boostemente]

First of all, it's really nice to see all the people willing to help out a new user here. Thank you.

The talk about the doctor seems to be going in the direction of greed. I have a different opinion though. In these days of hardcore DEA scrutiny many docs are simply unwilling to treat patients with opiates. I simply cannot see the upside for my doctor to do what he did. I think this guy was basically saying Fuck You to the DEA, these are my patients, I'll be the one who decides what they need. As far as money goes, we all know that any doc willing to write one monthly script for 180 30's can have a line out the door and charge cash. My doc wasn't charging any more than these other pain clinics, but was certainly giving us a lot more for our money. His true intentions we'll never know, but greed does not seem likely. Shit, the doctor that performed my discectomy charged my insurance about 50 grand for ten minutes of work, THAT is greed IMO. I must stress, this was not your average pill mill. It was a general practice that held a pain management program on certain days of the week. No sign outside his office would indicate he did pain management (I almost left before I went inside on my first visit, thinking I was wasting my time). The point is you absolutely had to be referred by another patient or you would have no idea what was going on.

As far as my predicament, methadone seems to be the best idea being kicked around. I would hate to have to go to a clinic and be labeled an "addict" for the rest of my life, but thats a decision I'm going to have to make now. The only smart thing I did was use this last month wisely, I've been slowly tapering down to about 450mg currently. The meds that were supposed to run out this week will last another 2. But that's small comfort.

I'll keep you all updated, and thanks for the advice.

 

[Tommyboy]

If you were able to taper that much then maybe give suboxone a try first. At first I thought you were going to be taking the 700mg of oxy until the very end which is why I suggested methadone, but I think you should be at a low enough dose to be able to give suboxone a try.