Scared

Four years spent mostly in bed watching my children grow up. Medications changed because of the regulations and more injuries happened as I was losing strength. Severe depression. Then a few months ago I was placed on the lowest dose of fentynal. I'm now able to take care of my children stand and walk for a couple of hours. I was able to sleep on my side. I haven't done that in two years. Now I'm taking about half of my anxiety and sleep meds. I feel like a person again. I'm walking working and grooming rescued horses. I have joy in my life. I look forward to tomorrow instead of praying to make it through the night. Do I hurt yeah but it's good. It's that sore you feel when you over do it a little. Now I here them saying that all opiates of every kind should be limited max 3 days they are all bad and the only outcome of longer use is life threatening abuse. There is no doubt that I'm getting stronger everyday. My need for other meds is going down. I hope I can keep this quality of life. It would be really devastated to lose this progress. I'm a mother of two and I care for my mom who is in a wheelchair and has dementia. The other day I took the girls for a little shopping 2 hours. What a blessing you don't know what you have till it's gone. Please God let us live enough to serve.

Cherish these days. Make the good memories while you can. And I pray it lasts a good, long while for you!

Hi Jen and glad to see you doing better. I wish I could say no worries but the addicts and abusers have unfortunately set the precedence for what has brought us to this point. Mainstream media has ensured that the bad hype gets aired and the voices of CPers are quieted. Your story could be that of many so tell it every chance you get. Try to maintain the lowest possible dose to achieve the maximum benefit,try to find other modalities while you feel well that will also bring about benefits,hydrotherapy,walking,low impact exercising,nutritional habits that benefit and promote healing,heat/ice,gels and creams,anything else you can find that bring about relief even a little bit so that when you treat your pain your treating the remaining pain after managing the the bulk with nonopiate means. That will allow you to remain on the lower doses,don't rely solely on the meds but use it as a last resort rather than a first defense.

Try not to worry about the media hype over the meds too much and concentrate on learning to live with CP.