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My Opioid Addiction
MY OPIOID ADDICTION
My body is my major negative asset. I am riddled with pain. At a 5, 6 or 7 out of 10 on my pain scale, I still function normally, just living through it. At a 10, I suffer in bed. As a youth I had occasional, classic aural/nausea migraines. They became more frequent and less severe, till they morphed into chronic daily headaches. Knee pain resulted in a knee replacement. But arthritis continues to attack my lower back and neck. My piriformis muscles too, add to the relentless pain.
I probably saw a hundred medical practitioners from both traditional medicine,-pain or neurology specialists, to alternative treatment, from acupuncture to cupping. Nothing worked except drugs... especially when oxycodone was introduced to the medical market.
My doctor was very enthusiastic. There was a medical mantra they all bought into that was clearly promoted by the drug company.
They believed that there was a difference between those who used oxycodone for recreational use who could be addicted, but if used for pain and no high was experienced, you could not become addicted, you were only ‘dependent’. I never experienced any high on opioids.
Somehow it was assumed that ‘dependent’ was a mild issue that could be easily rectified if necessary. You could just quit anytime. I started with Percocets a few times a day. It soon was not enough. My doc prescribed Oxycontin. It was soon not enough.
A friend had a fentanyl patch. My doc said he only prescribed a patch for terminal cancer patients. He upped the Oxycontin dose... again... and again. I continued to complain of pain. Finally he added a fentanyl patch. I began taking 160 mg of combined Oxycontin and Percocets, plus the patch.
I was a drug addict. I remember driving up the Don Valley Parkway in Toronto, in bumper to bumper, stop and go, rush hour traffic, in a drug stupor. I fell asleep at a pause and was only awakened by car horns urging me to move on. It was time to stop.
A pain specialist advised moving into a residential rehab facility. I opted for the do-it-yourself option. I researched the process and decided to do it on my own. It took me 6 months to get off the opioids.
I asked my wife what it was like when I was getting off the drug. “You lost your mind. You kept saying to everyone you saw the Buddha on the road. You wandered up and down the beach at the cottage buttonholing people and talking nonsense and breaking down crying.”
My cottage neighbour, a doctor, who observed me in this state, called it ‘ebullient emotion’, typical when patients have strokes or when in shock. I burst into bouts of convulsive weeping without any reason. I did that frequently during my detox.
I reduced my dose by 5mg a week. It was agony. After a couple of months the detox twisted my mind. I was nearly mad. Even when I was down to 5mg per day it was excruciating. I wanted to give up and get a strong dose, but I persisted.
I remember talking to Laurie, a pharmacist at Shoppers Drug Mart in Penetanguishene and asked her if there was anything I could take to get me over the agony on my last 5mg.
She asked how much I had reduced from. “160mg and a fentanyl patch,” I replied.
“On your own?’ she asked, incredulously.
“Yes,” I said.
“That’s unheard of,” she said. Her face signalled shock.
Every time I hear one of many current statistical opioid stories on TV, I am reminded of my addiction and detox. For example: * There were 2833 opioid related deaths in Ontario last year. * In the USA, there were more than 70,200 overdose deaths in just 2017. More than 130 people died every day from opioid- related drug overdoses.
On TV as I wrote this, someone declared, “One hundred people die from gun violence in the USA every day”. 130 from opioids! 100 from gun violence! Are these not preventable?
I have been free of opioids for a few years now. The pain persists but I am better off than where I was. My wife had nightmares about my drugged period. “I thought we were going to lose you.” I am still here.
By the way, I really did see the Buddha on the road.
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Greeting all
It doesn't affect me that way. When I was taking Lyrica, I had to push a Pill, where no pill has any business going. :-0. Came off the Lyrica and I could go again. It's the little things. Lol
Reside in CA.
Do you have a “pain doctor” or just dealing with your GP? Do you know of any reason why a doctor or other provider wouldn’t prescribe opioids or similar for you? There used to be a limit on who could prescribe Buprenorphine but that ended now.
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1 ReactionTry these out… https://www.apa.org/news/podcasts/speaking-of-psychology/medical-marijuana?campaign_id=18&emc=edit_hh_20230310&instance_id=87268&nl=well®i_id=53838627&segment_id=127334&te=1&user_id=ed2ec21f5167c221d769f2eabd0383c5,
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7204604/,
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2 ReactionsWow thanks
You have articulated the conundrum beautifully.
In the 1990s my friend Mike became a needle friend, before 2001 hit he gave himself a hot dose. He refused to try and stop" it's my life" He was a good guy, great family, he is missed. You have to do everything to fight this killer. Drugs, alcohol, smoking, vaping are a long time plague, the destruction is worldwide. Seems no cure exists. You have to fight or you're dead anyways. Good luck and blessings
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4 ReactionsToo bad you didn't get to stop and sit with Buddha 🙂 From the bottom of my heart, I admire your courage and honesty in sharing your story with us. We need more of those encouraging stories.
Struggling with chronic pain and the medications is like a catch-22. I've had chronic pain stemming from Lyme disease and genetics for as long as I can remember, literally. Initially, I was on barbiturates for migraines, next it was Soma, Codeine, Oxy, Morphine, etc. I was fortunate that I never had to struggle with the addiction that those medications are known for. It's a strong possibility that if they had worked, my story would be much different.
My adopted brother was shot in the back in 2007, he lived, but it was a long road to recovery. He died several times on the OR table, when he was released from the hospital they said he'd never walk again. His determination was inspiring! He got to where he could walk a mile on crutches because he had full use of one of his legs. But his determination wasn't enough to control his pain, and neither were the opioids. He overdosed a few years ago.
I have a picture of B (my adopted brother), DMX, and myself. B passed away before DMX, and my son said, "Mom, you realize you're the only one in this picture that is still alive." Every time I see that picture I am humbled and aware that being able to feel my pain is a blessing because I am alive.
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2 ReactionsYour question requires a longer answer than I can give it tonight. I'll do
my best to remember to respond tomorrow. Short answer - I got tired of the
hassles of keeping ms contin refilled and switched to buprenorphine, which
did little to nothing, and now I'm titrating on Topamax, and the jury is
still out. If it helps, it doesn't last long. I learning to tolerate
chronic level 5-6 pain with 6-8 when I lie down or sit in my recliner,
stand still for more than a minute or walk more than 15.
Jim
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3 ReactionsI have been reading through these posts and thank you guys for telling your experiences, because I previously wasn’t aware of how pain meds have such significant influences.
I have been hurt by a traffic incident some years ago, and experience some pain, and have had a fair bit of surgery, however I have only had pain meds in the post op acute phase. I still have boxes of endone and Targin sitting in the back of my cupboard, unopened and years out of date, forgotten about, for some years till I fleetingly remember them and think I should take them to the pharmacist to dispose of them..then promptly forget about them again.
I still have pain (waking up already screaming with how intense it is if I’ve moved the wrong way in my sleep, around 4/7 nights, and taking some hours till it abates enough to fall asleep again), however I have diaphragm palsy so anything that remotely affects breathing means easily suffocation, so I think this kind of stops me even wanting to take pain relief (breathing trumps pain management, somewhere in my brain, it seems). I sleep using a ventilator, to keep me alive overnight.
I guess the worst pain is when it feels like my feet are on the electrified rail of a train line, electrifying from toes to spine, and I cannot move them - it takes my ability to speak away, initially. Then it just f***n hurts for a good hour or so at around 8/10.
I remember coming off the pain meds while in hospital, after the surgeries, and feeling teary and upset (very unlike me otherwise), but I knew intuitively it was a side effect. Sometimes (unless it was major surgery where they’ve chopped into my spine or put tons of hardware into my pelvis) I would just say don’t bother starting the pain meds - just let me go without them (that was for knee surgeries like OATS, my wrist tenosynovectomy and both hip capsule repairs post traumatic dislocation and resultant rupture, for eg). I do have vivid memory of pain - I think my brain is permanently changed from some of the intensities of pain I’ve experienced - however I wondered if having lots of pain as a baby and child has kind of conditioned me to ‘better’ (for want of a better word) deal with intense pain? To be born, I had to have both collarbones broken and both shoulders forcibly dislocated as an emergency home breach (feet first) birth. As a toddler I was run over by a motorcycle (over my torso) then a few years after that I was crushed by a horse falling on me (had some injuries to my body with some fractures). Then my hand was crushed by a falling tree in a storm (trying to help someone), and I refused to lose my finger when they wanted to amputate (I got gangrene but I refused to have it chopped off). Then from around 16 on I had a few bones broken/face & jaw fractures and wounds needing hospital treatment (when you can’t stop the bleeding by yourself), before the car hit me at speed when I was late 20’s (my torso bent a traffic light pole before flinging into oncoming traffic). So it’s kind of been a theme to have one pain or another, fairly consistently over time. I wondered if anyone had any thoughts about this kind of thing when it comes to pain management (or lack thereof of external pain management)? I’ve had former friends tell me that I’m like a puppy that you see take a tumble, maybe yelp, but get up and keep plodding along like nothing happened. My younger brother also has experienced lots of pain from a very young age, and when our home was on fire when we came home one day, we were the only two to enter the building to get our pets out (I was around 12, him 9) without fear of burns. He has never taken much pain relief after major surgery (after a major traumatic injury) either.
I sustained an injury when I was 15 where my arm was kind of annoyingly sore for a good few months, and around 20 years later I had an X-ray for another purpose that included my arm, and the doc said you’ve had a pretty bad fracture to your arm that seemed like it wasn’t treated with the usual plates and screws. I said I didn’t realise - it was just sore but not that sore so I didn’t bother attending ER, just walked home and slept it off for a few days before heading back to school, not really moving my arm much because it hurt, and eventually it healed but it’s not quite straight since then. It’s a little gnarled to the touch, but otherwise fine.
Just an illustration of what I don’t really understand about pain, managing/coping with pain, and how pain works in different people.
I will say that some of the injuries I have had have occurred under some intense circumstances, so priority one was to remove self/others from continued risk, so I’m guessing that may also play into it, in some way? Im not sure.
Would be really interested in reading thoughts about whether pain experiences as a young person may impact/influence pain control/handling/management later on in life 🙂
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