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← Return to Living and thriving after 15 years of crippling opioid addiction
Newsfeed PostNewsfeed Post in blog Adult Pain Medicine
Living and thriving after 15 years of crippling opioid addiction Oct 14 12:22pm | By W. Michael Hooten, M.D. (@wmichaelhootenmd)Comment receiving replies
Are you taking opioids for a specific reason or just addicted? I’ve been using Percocet 5/325 for over 15 gears for pain due to an injury. I wasn’t addicted but dependent, for which I now have chronic pain syndrome due to the injury. I have been able to cut my Percocet use completely by using high dose CBD and low dose THC. My main pain control is with buprenorphine patches that I replace every 7 days. Buprenorphine is used in the pill, buccal film or long acting injection. The doses are different for chronic pain control and opiate addiction. You can try my method, find a treatment center or your PCP who can begin you on this medication.
The other thing I wish to point out that “addiction” has very bad associations with that are no longer appropriate and I suggest you try “opiate use disorder”. The definition of addiction is to seek more and more of a drug and in increasing doses sometimes. But using these opiates for pain is not addiction.
Replies to "Are you taking opioids for a specific reason or just addicted? I’ve been using Percocet 5/325..."
If you could stop percocet with the use of CBD and THC,why do you need buprenorphine? I got very low blood pressure using CBD and delta 8. I stopped both too guickly and got serious panic attacks causing me to call 911. I am now not taking CBD or THC. If I stop Percocet what to do about pain? I am trying mindfulness and physical therapy. I am onterested in buprenorphine.
So true. Dependent is the maintenance of treatment as prescribed. Seems like people are tossed into the “addicted” bucket so quickly - and unfairly.
@jenatsky
I really wish people would stop saying addicted to pain pills. They are necessary they are not an addiction by any means. It is easy to stop when they stop prescribing them to you. You have no option but to quit. I was at the point I wanted to start to buy heroin. But I never did. I still think about it today.
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I have a dependence due to failed fusion surgery and over 30 epidurals blocks etc. I am glad to hear about the patches you described. I have seen pain specialists but they don't seem to go beyond epidural s.