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OMG it's been so long but I need good advice!!

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Posted 1/3/2014 2:52 PM (GMT 0)
Hello all!! It's me Shaw31. It's been so long since I have been here talking with you good people. In a way it's a good thing because things have been good for me. Pain has been managed and I have not needed an injection in 7 months. I have hit a topic that most Chronic pain patients deal with. I am now thinking is it time to decrease meds and eventually get off of pain pills altogether and move to a patch delivery system or try and see if I can just decrease all pain medication.

I am on 30 mg morphine cr 3xday and vicoprofen 3xday. I have been on this for about 2 years now. I feel this works fine. Lately I have been thinking I need to decrease and get off the meds. I go through this once or twice a year. I feel that I am tired of taking pills all the time and I am wondering if I exist to take pills. I never take more than I should and don't feel I am addicted. I am however dependent and sometimes don't like it. Here's where I need your advice. Should I try maybe a patch or is that going down the wrong path? Would the patch increase the meds dramatically? Should I decrease the meds and see how my pain is? Should I just stop (with dr. Help)?

I go through these feelings a few times a year. I really don't want to "Live" on pain pills. When should one start to ask are these harming me? I have been on pain medication (under doctor supervision) for 10 years. How much is my body being harmed? Also, if I do decrease and stop taking, will my brain start producing natural pain relievers again or have I been on these meds so long that it will not happen?

Thanks to all of you and any feedback would be great.
Posted 1/3/2014 3:31 PM (GMT 0)
hi there shaw. that's awesome that your feeling better and enough that your looking to get off your meds. think we'd all like that. can i ask what your pain was from. i recently had a pain pump inplanted
with the idea of cutting back on some of my meds if not all in time. at least thats the idea. i kick that same idea around in my head every so often about getting off my meds. ofcouse now that might not be a good idea. definitly get your doctors help if ya want to wein off the meds. one of my pain meds was the fenthnyl patch back a few years and me personally didn't get much relief from it.
good luck to ya and keep in touch....
Posted 1/3/2014 3:32 PM (GMT 0)
Hi Shaw and welcome back! Glad to see things have been going good for you which brings me to the question? Are you sure you want to mess with things working well?

On the other hand I'm probably one of the most understanding where you are people here at the moment! Lol

A few months back after 13 yrs of being on methadone I felt it had done all it could do for me and that that point in time was causing me more issues then actually helping.

I had drastically cut my dose back in early summer but couldn't seem to get any lower on my own. Still I wanted to change meds and I wanted a better understanding of where I stood pain wise before trying something new.

I also knew it was going to be a most difficult journey as methadone is a hard med to rid the system of. I talked openly and honestly with my PM and expressed my desire and concerns as well as my fears. Believe you me he was onboard happily agreeing to work with me to accomplish my goals.

He put me on a 5mcg Butrans patch along with clonidine to help with the w/ds as well. Ordered lomotil for diarrhea, Zofril for nausea and restoril for sleep. And so I began.

It's not a walk in the park but with all the meds onboard it wasn't a nightmare either! After a month and 2 weeks I stayed on the Butrans and dropped everything else and felt for the first time in over a decade that life's not so bad after all. The methadone was literally robbing me of well me and anything I enjoyed.

After 2 months on Butrans I went to 15 mgs of morphine twice a day! That's it! No b/t, using my aqua therapy, cream, and heat when I need to.

Had I not went down and then off the methadone first and went straight for a conversion to morphine without resetting everything I would have had to have 60-100 mgs of morphine to comfortably cover the loss of methadone!!

I did the right thing at the right time for me Shaw any only you can know if this is right for you to do.

We're here as always to help and you can follow my journey by using the forum search option and see how awesome this forum and how instrumental they were in helping me get past it all.

Good luck in whatever choice you make.
Posted 1/3/2014 6:05 PM (GMT 0)
Shaw,

It's a decision you will need to make whether you want to stay doing what you are doing....... or if it's worth risking messing w/ your meds.

I would not recommend just switching over to a patch. IMO, that's harder to get off of, if that's ultimately your decision.

I would (with your doctor's help) try to taper down off the morphine and see if you can get down and perhaps "reset" some of your pain tolerance.

You can do that by changing your mid-day dose to 20mg. Then changing another dose to 20mg and then going to 20mg 3x a day. Next step down - would be 10mg at mid-day, and so forth. I've done that exact taper down - and it does work. But it takes time......... and it's not exactly "easy".

So......... if your desire is to get off meds and see where you are -- that's what I would do.

If your ultimate desire is to get off pain meds, switching to the patch is the wrong decision in my opinion... much harder to taper down from and get off of.

Let us know if you have other questions. --Tina
Posted 1/3/2014 8:49 PM (GMT 0)
Hi Shaw, yes it has been a long time since we have heard from you. Good to hear that you have been getting good pain control. I think the last time we heard from you it was about needing info on some meds to try so something worked for you.

I am with Tina, going to a patch would not be my choice. Fentanyl is what is used & it is a very strong drug. Granted it comes in a variety of dosages. Also, if I remember right you live in Florida & if you are out in the heat much the patch can dump too much medication causing WD's by day 3 because there is not enough meds in it to last a full 72 hours. You can get too much medication when the body temperature is increased, such as using a hot tub/jacuzzi, hot shower or being outside in the heat.

If you are wanting to try to decrease the meds you are on now, just try to wean down your dose very slowly, cut out a BT medication by one pill a day & see how you do. See how the pain levels are by slowly decreasing the BT meds.

I understand your concerns of the long term effects of the use of medications, we all think about this more than once. No one can really tell us how these drugs will effect us because we are all so different. Sure wish it was that easy, lol. Anyway, good luck with whatever you decide and Happy New Year to you. Take care.....Susie
Posted 1/4/2014 12:08 AM (GMT 0)
Hi Shaw yes you have been gone for quite a while, Welcome Back!! You know I also wanted to get off my pain medications because of my move to Kentucky, Unfortunately I was not able to get completely off of them but did manage to go from 40mg every eight hours to ten mg every eight hours. But by doing that I have allot more pain issues, and I use more of my break through pain meds. I am currently scheduled to go Tuesday to the UK pain clinic to see about getting a implanted pain pump. I am hoping that this will be a better alternative to taking oral pain meds, I also understand that I can get my baclofen via the pain pump too, instead of taking the 30mg every eight hours like I currently do. Anyway with the help of my PM and a very very gradual lowering of my pain medications, I did not experience any major problems with withdrawal symptoms. Just the fact that the pain its self made it impossible for me to come off of them completely.

No one likes to be dependent on medications to live their life in a normal manner, I know I sure don't! But if you just look at them (pain meds) like you do any other medication ( BP meds, diabetic med, heart medication, or even thyroid medications, and even antispasmodics) these are all medications that people take to live a some what normal life, and are dependent on to do so! So really, are pain meds any different????? You take them to control your pain so you can live a semi normal life. Just as you do all those other medications to control High BP, or diabetes or heart problems or hyper or hypothyroidism, and muscle spasms! So what is the difference??? Yes Sometimes I just wish I could get off of all of them too. But I know that is not really going to happen! Sooooooo......

Anyway talk with Your PM and see what you can work out, whether it be a complete change in your medications or weaning down to a lower dose. Just don't try doing anything alone, talk with your pain management doctor, work something out together!.

Good Luck to you!

White Beard
Posted 1/4/2014 4:41 AM (GMT 0)
Shaw

Wish you the very best !!

Thinking about this very thing today.. from other posts seems many of us do.
Posted 1/4/2014 4:03 PM (GMT 0)
Thank you to all for your advice. I will talk to my PM doc next week and pick his brain. I would really love a patch type delivery system but not fentanyl . Have any of you heard good or bad things about the 4x month butrans patch?? Thanks!
Posted 1/4/2014 4:32 PM (GMT 0)
Hi Shaw! Long time no see!

I used Butrans but only for a week. I was severely allergic to it. But I know we have folks that have used it successfully! I know Vickie used it a while back but I don't think it was great for her pain issues, unfortunately. :-(
Posted 1/4/2014 4:39 PM (GMT 0)
Shaw, Vickie was on Butrans to get off of Methadone, she told me it did nothing for her pain, but that may have been because of the dose she was on. Hopefully she will see this, but also read her post to you above.

Susie
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