Morphine Withdrawal Prior to Back Surgery

Hello everyone. I'm new here and after reading some posts, I hope this is the right place. Please allow me to introduce myself. I'm a 55 y/o female with chronic back pain, 5 herniated discs all in the lumbar region and Osteoarthritis in both hips and my back. I've been begging my GP to send me to a Specialist for at least a decade. She kept saying it wasn't bad enough and gave me Percosette.

While receiving a bone density scan, the Technician for reasons unknown, took my left leg and shoved it from falling to the left, and the pushed it right until my big toe touched the table. I screamed in pain. That was the first week of last October. I hobbled to my car and wound up in Emerg the next day. I woke up and did a face plant, used my dresser to pull myself up, but couldn't move my legs without the worst pain I've ever experienced.

The hospital upped me to 2 x M-Elson 15 mg and 2 x Statex 10 mg for breakthrough pain. The Dr. in hospital that saw my MRI in Emerg was outraged that my GP didn't send me to a specialist. He said I needed one 10 years ago. I wound up in Emerg again a few days ago. They did a CT scan and almost kept me for a surgery. They said my scan was drastically worse than the previous. My GP didn't even request an X-ray after the injury. I see a Neurosurgeon tomorrow for the first time. Thankfully Emerg. set it up quickly.

I know I'm addicted and I'm terrified. I shattered my right hand a few years ago and was on Oxycontin and so many other meds I can't remember. I quit them all cold turkey and lost my mind!! I'm single and live alone, most of my friends have moved to cities more affordable, so I'm on my own and just can't go through that again. The anxiety/depression/and suicidal thoughts were just too much to bare. I'm attempting to taper as low as possible so that when I get the surgery, I won't need a stronger dose of morphine. Any thoughts....am I doing the right thing? Any comments would be appreciated. Thank you all and I'm sorry for such a long post.

Hello Straydog. M-Eslon is a long acting morphine available in Canada and Statex is a fast action morphine formula.
Hello Relieved 1.You may not find the M-eslon as hard to taper down from compared to the Oxycontin you had with your hand injury.I hope your surgery is successful and that pain meds are no longer needed for you.
In my case, surgery 15 years ago was not successful and I now require 460 mgs. of M-eslon and 40 mgs. of Oxycodone per day just to be able to stand and shuffle around on my crutches.I'll pray for a much better outcome for you.Stay strong and keep fighting your injury and pain.......Rod

Chronic pain patients don't need to taper before surgery. You are used to a baseline level of opioids and if it were me, I would stay on them plus you would need to be tapered under the guidance/direction of a PM doc. Are you outside of the US? I'm not sure of the anesthesia culture there but ask the surgeon and the anesthesiologist for a chronic pain consult so that the pain service is managing your post-op pain. I suggested asking both only so you don't slip through the cracks and so they are both aware. That is how it's handled where I work.