Quitting before hitting bottom

[neversickanymore]

Yeah.. disease to begin with was sarcoidosis.. this disease is very broad in it effects and severity, i had it bad. then the fibro came.. so after four years i got pissed read all my med records.. thousands of pages.. did all my own research.. my field is very diverse in the sciences went in to my dr and told him I wanted three different test, one of them being the vitamin D.. all three came back bad outa wack.. went in and told the dr i wanted to be taken off this and put on this and this and this, was dramatically better in three weeks and substantially better in three months and have now made a complete recovery from everything.. and i count my lucky stars everyday.. oh wait the last thing my immune system attacked before I got it calmed down was my pancreas.. so it left me with type one diabetes. Living with three different types of moderate to severe pain at once for years (severe joint and muscle pain from the sarcoidosis, really severe bone pain from the vitamin D deficiency, and nerve or brain created pain from the fibro) i truly do know what it is to live with pain and what a god send opiates are, But having had some pretty severe negatives i know that all of what opiates bring isn't even close to good..

I wish you the best in your search for relief.. dont give up.. I almost did and now i am living a life free of pain or disease.

 

[Anthrogirl]

Yeah.. disease to begin with was sarcoidosis.. this disease is very broad in it effects and severity, i had it bad. then the fibro came.. so after four years i got pissed read all my med records.. thousands of pages.. did all my own research.. my field is very diverse in the sciences went in to my dr and told him I wanted three different test, one of them being the vitamin D.. all three came back bad outa wack.. went in and told the dr i wanted to be taken off this and put on this and this and this, was dramatically better in three weeks and substantially better in three months and have now made a complete recovery from everything.. and i count my lucky stars everyday.. oh wait the last thing my immune system attacked before I got it calmed down was my pancreas.. so it left me with type one diabetes. Living with three different types of moderate to severe pain at once for years (severe joint pain from the sarcoidosis, really severe bone pain from the vitamin D deficiency, and nerve or brain created pain from the fibro) i truly do know what it is to live with pain and what a god send opiates are, But having had some pretty severe negatives i know that all of what opiates bring isn't even close to good..

I wish you the best in your search for relief.. dont give up.. I almost did and now i am living a life free of pain or disease.

I hear ya! I look at opiates in this way... They allow me to function daily, take care of my child and do the physical therapy/exercise the doctors want me to do so that I can get stronger and help the pain better on my own. The physical therapy will also allow me to have surgery. But opiates aren't a "fix". They just dull your pain. I want to fix my problem. Luckily, I can at least probably fix my back issue with surgery and that will get rid of most of my pain. If that's taken care of then I won't need opiates. So, I'm very hopeful.

Wow, this has turned into a really interesting and heartfelt conversation. Thank you!

 

[Space Firebird]

Sure, no need to hit bottom to stop! Just keep trying, but opiates sure do sink their addictive teeth into their users.

Good analogy, I've always felt the same, that every day the drugs were just sinking their teeth deeper into my flesh.

"bottom is wherever we choose to stop digging"

Awesome.
There is no bottom, IMO.
It's bottomless.

 

[Nucynta_80]

Nucynta MIGHT be an acceptable alternative. Ive been on the same dosage for 3 years and have experienced limited tolerance compared to other opioids that I have been prescribed to control my pain. It has moderately potent NRI properties, but lower SRI properties than tramadol. Its about 3x the potency of tramadol, as its opioid affect isn't as strong as hydrocodone but certainly more Mu potent than tramadol. It has weak NDMA antagonist properties that might help slightly with the pain and might be partially responsible for a slower building tolerance. Finally, with the exception of anti-depressants and stimulants, it has less drug to drug interactions than most opioids and less gastro effects too.

The downside is that it seems to be "hit and miss", in that it generally works well or doesn't work at all. Also, its a Tier3 medication, and a C-II. IMO it has considerably less abuse potential than oxycodone, but to say its not there would be naïve. I caution you that there is definitely some risk for addiction but again less than most opioids. It can cause undesired closed eye visuals, limited but undesirable hallucinations, and limited dissociative properties at the 150mg dose (which is the max most docs would recommend, normal is 50-100mgs and these affects occur rarely at those doses.)

I take Nucynta 75mgs x3 a day and its helpful towards my back related injuries.

 

[Em123]

If you need to take something for pain, why don't you switch to something that's harder to abuse and that's less euphoric like the Butrans patch?

Just want to say that the Butrrans patch is very hard to get off. It is basically subutex in a patch, granted very low dose but still hard to get off. I have those & there are many reasons they don't work well...#1 is you can't get them wet, so taking a shower is a pain as is the heat of the summer where you sweat. In NY we recently had a heat wave with a heat index of over 100, every one was sweating, even with AC.

My motto is to really research what i will use from now on. I listened to the doctor & got a mega addiction to pain pills.

I posted this before i read the entire thread. Sorry for duplicate info but the Butrans patch scares me.