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My story in short; drugs and pain

S

Skelu

Bluelighter
Joined
Jan 20, 2011
Messages
81
Hello everybody!

This is my first post in years. I thought that from the Dark side i could get some positive feedback :)! (move or delete if not appropriate) The first section was written in 9.5.2014 but i never sent it. Rest of the post (2-3) was written today.

1.
I have a lots of questions and only few answers. I have been suffering from 3 different chronic pain conditions (cluster headache started 2003 periodic, CRPS 2 started 2008 and this last thing is still under investigation).

I have been using many drugs for this and am now weening off, because i can stand the pain better then the other issues that my (ab)use of medication has arised. Secondly, i have found that psilocybin helps me to deal with the pain, i told that straight to my paindoc and she started crying that she knows that some peole with certain types of serious pain conditions gets better relief from drugs like shrooms, lsd and cannabis and she cant prescribe those. All my meds are prescribed by one doctor, who thinks she knows what she is doing.

Two years ago i was using oxycodone about 300mg orally/day, fentanyl 125mcg/h, lyrica 600-1500mg/day, clonazepam 1,5-3mg/day, diazepam 30mg/day, temazepam 40mg/ day, verpamil 200mg/ day and sometimes 4-12mg of tizanidine, 100mg orphenadrine or 25-100mg of hydroxyzine.

Then i stopped taking oxy and fentanyl and waited for 72h and when i couldnt stand it anymore and started a quick taper with buprenorphine. I started with snorting tiny lines and when eaven 12mg didnt ease my pain i dropped that amount by 1mg/day. After two weeks of quick taper i was only using 0.4-0.8mgs of buprenophine orally per day.

Due to the pain i was then prescribed to take 450-1200mg of tramadol per day with 240-360mgs of codeine, while lyrica, benzos and muscle relaxants were kept at the same dose as earlier.. I knew it was very dangerous, but took crazy amounts of tramadol and found out that the 400mg limit is not only for preventing seizures but tramadols other types of action (i think mainly serotonin for me) then opioid action!

I have now been off of lyrica for 50 days (they weaned me off from 1200mg/day to 0 in one week in hospital), three weeks off of codeine (quick taper from 360mg). I am still using tramadol 350mgs/day, diazepam 20-30mgs/day and 8mgs of tizanidine for nights. I can get oxycodone iv/im if i go to the hospital but i havent taken any since thay forced me to take those at the hospital two weeks ago.

Now everything is better! But not perfect! My stomach is not working (waiting for the possible surgery), and i am sweating 22 hours a day. Tramadol helps my pain better then any other medication i have tried and i have tried all there is in my reach). But it makes me sweat eaven more and i cant sleep while its working. I take my tramadol at morning 10.30 (100mg ir), noon 16.00 (100mg ir) eavening 18-20.00 (150mg ir) and usually i am feeling quite normal only at night 23-03 not sweating and yawning. Benzos dont seem to cause me any bad withdrawals unless taken with high dose of gaba (a) inhibitors (Fluoroconazol-antibiotes, many nsaids and tramadol in very high doses to list few i have taken togethter and gotten very weird and scary reactions especially from ciprofoxacin and moxifloksacin).

2.
I am now much better (31.7.2014). Still using tramadol 350mg/day and 15mg/day of diazepam. I have been prescribed all sorts of opioids and benzos because they dont want me to suffer too much. I havent bought/used any of them besides tramadol and diazepam (tempting to buy, because i dont have to pay any of my medications anymore). Doctors know that i am tapering by myself but they dont see any reason for that anymore and are thus prescribing more medications cause they think that i dont get properly addicted!!!

3.
The biggest problem right now is my stomach hurting so much that i cant live my life. Second problem is that i hate tramadol. It helps my pain immersely but i get severe depression which eases at nights. Have been exercising, eating only fresh food and some supplements. I dont drink at all and it havent eaven crossed my mind to ease my mental or physical state with any other drug except weed, atleast before all the whidrawal symptoms have faded. This has been such a journey! Something that i wouldnt hope to my worst enemies! I have learned a lot of myself in the process. I just want to share my story with anyone willing to read!

If someone has anything to say about the lenght of their whitdrawal i would love to hear it! I am not losing hope! They already tried to put me in methadone about 5 months ago, because they didnt believe that it was possible for me to stand a chance against the multi whitdrawals and the pain that i had in the beginning!

I just need a little more strenght and this will be over!
 
Yes i have tried all the triptans injectable and nasal sprays. My problem with those was that you
should take those only 2 times a day and in my case that wasn’t enough as my head was exploding like 6-8 times a day mostly nights.

What actually helped me was shrooms and vitamin d-3 in high doses. I was amazed how 250mcgs of d-3 could take away something that oxy couldn’t even touch regardless of the dose taken. I thought for years that opioids like oxy and fentanyl would probably help for the pain. I am very pleased that i have had a chance to test it myself and at least for me it wasn’t the help i needed. Took too much with other stuff and lost my consciousness almost every night. But it didn’t ease the pain! It was sick that i was in terrible pain and still losing my consciousness and actually it has been said that i would probably have died without the headache waking me up.
 
That's when I started using pain medication. I got diagnosed with interstitial cystitis. Noone believed me didn't get any medication for it so I started buying it off the streets. Started out as taking 10 mg hydrocdone norcos to now shooting up 2-5 bags of heroin everyday. And now the pain has gone away but the addiction hasn't. If i can give you any advice stop taking pharmaceuticals and try herbal remedies. I just turned 17 and dug a hole I cant get out of.
 
^
You are still very young. This is the time to change your future! The fact that you are admitting your problems to yourself is a good start!

I have been using benzos daily for years. I have been able to taper my dose from approximately 60-80mgs to 10mg in few months. I am seeing a doctor but she cant help me as she doesn’t know these things so well. I started tapering about 2,5mg a week. My general feeling has been much better the whole tapering process or then I am just somehow turning anxiety to physical pain. Well at least my head is starting to function as it used to!

Question is, should I slow my taper for these last 10mgs? Does it sound stupid if I change 5mg of diazepam to 10mg of temazepam? Those should be about equal but of course temazepam has much shorter half-life compared to diaz. I don’t feel any bad withdrawal symptoms (mainly insomnia due to pain). I have understood that 10% is a good dose to drop and at this dosage I should slow my taper a bit.

I don’t feel like I need to slow down. I have once got a bad reaction from gaba antagonists while using benzos. That time I stopped without tapering cause benzos didn’t have any positive effect for months.

I have only 10mg pills. I take 5mg at evening (10pm) and another 5mg when going to sleep (2-3am) .So I was thinking if my next move would be to stop taking the 2am dose and take 10mg of temazepam when I wake up first time (5-6am) so I could maybe sleep an hour or more...
 
I like that the vitamine D is helping. Have you got your levels checked for this. I was very sick for over five years and low vitamin d ended up being responsible for a bunch of symptoms. I was already taking the highest recommended dose, but asked for a test anyway. It came back very low and I needed to take 200% of the dose for a while.

Given the relief you experience from the mushrooms and tramadol have you considered trying a SSRI to see if this would benefit you.

I would also consider trying a short course of methadone. Not because you need it to replace the drugs, but to see if it helps your pain. I had significant neuropathic pain with my illness and methadone worked, BY FAR, the best out of anything I tried. It can be very hard to get off of, but it also could end up being the miracle medication you are seeking. For this reason I would consider giving it a short try, I think you could see if it would have positive results with a very short course, a course that would not put you in danger of switching to a methadone dependency.

Methadone has complex interactions. Here is some information about it and nerve pain. There is also a wealth of information contained in this book you may find helpful.

Neuropathic Pain: Causes, Management and Understanding

Do you have sleep issues or a sleep disorder?

I hope you find the relief you're looking for, keep searching.:D I finally figured my condition out five years and many doctors later, I ended up having to do it myself. Im totally recovered and going on two years symptom free.
 
Thanks neversickanymore! I have tried ssri, snri and tricyclics, as they are so called first line of treatment of chronic pain where i live. Though i must admit that i never had enough patience to see if they would have helped.

Methadone is the only opioid left that I haven’t tried. Other strong opioids helped me through hard times but in the end I noticed that they were causing me to feel my pain even more. Regardless the dose taken. In my case I know that I can function while on opioids, but there is this thought that I am really able to function better without them as my worst pains are not eased by opioids. Not before OD´ing.

My goal now is to taper my current meds and after that use oxy or morphine as needed. If that doesn’t work and I am starting to think that I need daily opioids then I will try methadone. Where I live methadone isn’t no longer used as a pain killer but almost exclusively as a opioid maintenance drug. Here oxy and other strong opiods needs a so called narcotics prescription and those are used mainly in palliative care.

I have serious problems with sleeping. I wake up all the time and can´t fall asleep again because of my stomach hurting so much. It has been diagnosed and I can´t do anything about it for now. I feel that the stomach pain must be mainly in my head, though I have some alarming physical symptoms (bleeding and losing weight)

I finally got my vitamin d levels checked and I am still a bit low which is very odd as I have been taking high doses for months. I know that vitamin d3 is poisonous if taken large doses and it builds up to your body
 
Last edited:
Hello people!

I am still tapering my meds and its going great. I am now tapering diazepam. My dose is 8.75mg/day. I just realized that I have forgot to take my nightly dose of 5mg two days in a row. So actually have been taking just 3.75mg/day. Am I one of the few people that just feels better when tapering? It sure feels like it and that’s awesome!

I was very scared to start benzo taper after reading all the horrific stories. I actually never noticed any addiction to benzos. I was initially using those for pain or that’s what they were prescribed for. I have been using benzos recreationally when I was younger but that was always with booze or strong opioid s (stupid I know)

I have always been very skeptical about therapy etc. Here I read few stories about mindfulness and decided to try it myself. Happy I did that as it is now one of my ways to cope with the pain and other issues!

I Must say that bluelight has given me so much power, as there is so much people going thru the same things. Keep up the good work people! Thank you!
 
Hello. Just updating my tapering process. I am now at 3,75 mg of diazepam per day. Its going much better then I ever could have hoped for. I had some difficulties tapering when I was over 20 mg a day but after that its been very easy. Below 20 mg I have been tapering 1,25 mg every 9th day and it seems that I could taper faster but whats the point.

I am doing this for myself. My doctor don’t still see any reason for this but I want to live without daily benzos. This far it seems one of my smartest choice in life. I am starting to remember things again. Does anyone else have same kind of experiences? I am one of those who have been told that I don’t need to stop taking benzos if I don’t want to. I actually thought for years that I would need these for life as those never lost their effectiveness.

I still have many problems but you have to start somewhere. I just wanted to tell my experience because there are so many horrible true stories about benzo taper and not that much those ones where people actually feel better tapering.
 
Hey, skelu, thanks for the update. While I have used mindfulness for anxiety and for dealing with a terrible tragedy (cannot say enough about life-changing effectiveness there) it was not until this summer when I began to suffer chronic pain that I was able to see that it can also be very effective in dealing with that. What was interesting to me was that the anxiety and anticipation of pain as well as the hopeless thinking that can accompany constant pain was greatly decreased and thus made the pain more bearable while in the midst of it. It was also helpful to use the strategy of teasing apart each sensation and focusing on it which I found to be strangely helpful as well. In the case of negative emotions it helps to welcome them rather than run from them, questioning and learning from them. In the case of constant pain it can help to notice what the particular sensations are and separate them from our thoughts about those sensations.

Glad that you are getting off the benzos and that your taper is going well. Maybe someday we will have pain clinics that employ the use of mushrooms rather than opiates. Can you imagine?<3
 
Skelu said:
^
You are still very young. This is the time to change your future! The fact that you are admitting your problems to yourself is a good start!

I have been using benzos daily for years. I have been able to taper my dose from approximately 60-80mgs to 10mg in few months. I am seeing a doctor but she cant help me as she doesn’t know these things so well. I started tapering about 2,5mg a week. My general feeling has been much better the whole tapering process or then I am just somehow turning anxiety to physical pain. Well at least my head is starting to function as it used to!

Question is, should I slow my taper for these last 10mgs? Does it sound stupid if I change 5mg of diazepam to 10mg of temazepam? Those should be about equal but of course temazepam has much shorter half-life compared to diaz. I don’t feel any bad withdrawal symptoms (mainly insomnia due to pain). I have understood that 10% is a good dose to drop and at this dosage I should slow my taper a bit.

I don’t feel like I need to slow down. I have once got a bad reaction from gaba antagonists while using benzos. That time I stopped without tapering cause benzos didn’t have any positive effect for months.

I have only 10mg pills. I take 5mg at evening (10pm) and another 5mg when going to sleep (2-3am) .So I was thinking if my next move would be to stop taking the 2am dose and take 10mg of temazepam when I wake up first time (5-6am) so I could maybe sleep an hour or more...
Click to expand...

Definitely don't switch from 5mg of diazepam to 10mg of temazepam. They're roughly equivalent in potency when taken as a single dose but the huge half-life of diazepam means that it builds up in your system and the actual level of your habit is higher than you might think. If you switch to soomething short acting like temazepam it's going to be pretty much all eliminated from your system each day and as the diazepam drains out of you you will be left with long periods each day where there isn't enough activity at your receptors.

Re how people feel when tapering....it makes me feel fucking shit, so send a little prayer if it's making you feel good! Experimental evidence shows that about a quarter of people can detox from low doses of diazepam with no noticeable withdrawal symptoms. Unfortunately I don't seem to be one of them.:X
 
Glad to hear about the benzo taper, just be careful because the issues start once you're completely off them.

As far as methadone goes, I was taking oxycodone and morphine. I was able to check in and detox with methadone, 5 day taper. I felt the same as you, the meds weren't helping my pain anymore and like you said it, it felt worse. I was on all this stuff for 7 years. Methadone is a good drug to use to get off opiates, but as a maintenance plan, its nearly impossible to get off of. Like neversick said, maybe try it for only 5 days then make your choice. Of all opiates, methadone has the longest half life, upto 80 hours. If you take it in any great quantities after a year it might take two years to fully detox, unless you use a masking agent like suboxone, but you'll still be taking one med to offset the other and could become dependent on that. Tough one to call, the other thing is for sleeping, seriquil (sp) will get you through the night. This is addictive as well but if the point is to manage pain through meds then this is a good choice. Just know what you're getting into. I wish you the best, stay strong.

Bob

Ps in the end, any opiate you take you will need more and more over time to counter your bodies tolerance.
 
Thank you all. I truly hope that there will be other ways to cope with chronic pain in the future. For example mushrooms works for wonders for cluster headache, but are still illegal.

I was always using few benzodiazepines at the same time. My dosage was mainly 0.5-1mg of clonazepam three times a day. I usually took 30mg of diazepam with 40mg of temazepam together at night regardless the use of clonazepam.

I think that the fact that I have lots of benzodiazepines and prescriptions for those is helping me as I have no cravings to take those. I mean that I know that if I got in bad trouble I could always slow or even stop my tapering. I am in charge of this and my doctor still thinks that I am not able to do this or why else would she be prescribing me more all the time even knowing my taper!

I have had big troubles with Pregabalin and Tramadol as I cant taper those. Those two meds causes me weird symptoms when I try to taper. Its kind of funny when you see here in Bluelight people saying things like don’t take opioids if you had troubles with pregabalin. Well I can tell you that I have had no problems stopping Oxy, Fentanyl or benzos but we are all different.
 
Last update to this thread. One problem less to go. I have been tapering benzos for the last 7 months. I am finally done. This is just my third day without those. I tapered to 1,25mg of diazepam and it was much easier then I could ever have been hoped for.

I have some symptoms but nothing bad. I am so happy right now. I had lots of troubles when my dose was still over 20m/day. Actually below 20mg/day I took the whole dose at night time and it seemed to be easier for me that way. Thank you all and keep up the good work!
 
I would really love to talk to you. Please send me an email. I have been researching ibogaine for some time, but am not sure where a good source would be to make a purchase like that, also I am not good with dosing info. [email protected]@gmail.com
 
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