My Opiod addiction part 2
I lived a while without any painkillers and was in pain most days. My back and neck particularly. My family doc, who prescribed the oxides and fentanyl patch told me that a new synthetic opiate was available that was not all that addictive. They were a great relief for a while. I think I was taking the 300mg slow release version. They were wonderful . . . For awhile . I then took tylenol 2 s, which are available over the counter in Canada. And slowly upped them as pain persisted. I realized I was right back where I started. My docs attitude was you are 84 get riot the pain any way you can to enjoy your last days. So what if we have to increase the dose.
I returned to my pain specialist I sent my part 1 story to. My debilitating pain was chronic daily headaches, especially. The theory as it goe is the audio album classic headaches of my teens and 20s increased in frequency and reduced severity . If my functional pain was a 7, I worked normally, constantly aware of pain. At a 9/10 I had to lay down in bed and wait out the severity . The 9/10s became 4 or 5 times a week. He diagnosed me as having transformed migraines and MOH or Medicine Overuse Headaches. The plan he offered was to get off all pain meds and hope I reverted back to classic migraines which he claimed occurred normally except with patients with a long history of transformed migraines. That’s me. He supervised my withdrawal veeeeery slowly, a reduction only every 3 or 4 weeks. I got off the codeine in the Tylenol and the tramadol. It was awful . Some detox easily and others not so. I am the latter. Every ache in my body exploded. I tried vaping mj and tried kratom with no effect from either. I researched the web and identified two drugs used for my condition, Topomax and amytrypilene. When I my doc for one to try he explained that if there was improvement we wouldn’t know whether it was MOH or other cause. I said, try me. I started with topomax because he would’t prescribe amytriptylene, his preference until my heart specialist okayed it. But he was away for a month. So I took topomax and got very ill from it. When my heart guy came home he okayed amytriptylene. I titrated 10 mg a week up to 80 mg a day. Somewhere along that process my headaches disappeared for the first time in 60 years. My back and neck pain were much reduced. Bit bit bit the headaches returned, though. But nowhere near where they were before. He suggested I try weaning off amytriptylene as there is an dementia connection. Out of 100 seniors. 10 will get dementia , out of 100 on amytriptylene. 13 will get dimentia. I tried weaning but pain came back again. I’m a work in progress I was hoping to revert back to a classic severe migraine because they are so much more treatable today . No such luck. But I am in a much better place with pain than for years