Pain doc taking meds away said no more for gi patients

So after taking these for 6 years at 4 a day the doc is taking them away. I'm anxious but kinda relieved at the same time. He is cutting 1 10 mg every 2 weeks does this seem like a good taper? Will I have withdrawal?

I take 4 10/325 norco a day.

My GI said the same thing as @straydog's - the GI should never be the one to prescribe pain meds. It should be done with pain management specialists. I think that the taper is a good one, but you may want to cut your pill in half each week, so that instead of going down every two weeks, go down by 1/2 every week. It might help ease withdrawals a bit. But either way, you're in for a rough time. You've been on those for a LONG time. I'd ask for a referral to pain management if you find that you're really struggling.

I am going to pm. It's not my gi that gave these. I'm gonna do .5 mg every 5 days

Oh sorry. I made a bit of an assumption there :/ I think hydrocodone is milder than oxy, but not 100% sure. I was taking 40mg oxy 4x a day. Can't remember exactly how I did it, but given how I suffered, I wouldn't recommend it anyway - I probably went too fast.

Edit: Way, way too fast apparently. is .5mg half of 1mg or 10mg?

Hi Barbz - you are on a fairly lie dose, so that's a plus. I have weaned off much larger doses of oxy, but only after a few months use. I think if you wean slow enough it should be fairly painless. 10mg every 2 weeks seems reasonable. The last 5-10 mg will be the worst I bet. It may be hard to sleep for a while, but maybe you can get a small script for a sleeping pill or xanax to use for a couple weeks when you're completely or almost weaned.

Did your doctor say why he was cutting you off? Are you worried about the pain? I am taking pain meds daily right now, but was only planning on taking them for one month. My biggest fear though is not having them available when I REALLY need them, especially with how strict things have become with the heroin epidemic. I personally haven't had trouble when in a bad flare, but hear more and more about others not being able to obtain legit pain meds. Having a chronic illness with significant pain associated at times, this scares me.

I hope this taper goes well for you and you feel even better in the end!!

Barbz, with the war on prescription narcotics by the government millions of folks have been cut off. We can thank the CDC, DEA & NIH for this dilemma for chronic pain people. Believe me drs are listening because of the prescription monitoring program in place drs are under a microscope. They know what every dr rx's to a patient & they have it on record who the patient is & what they take & how much a month. There is a good chance your dr may have been flagged based on your dx. Believe me I am waiting on the other shoe to drop on me even though my pain meds are not because of crohns. I recently had to do scans to warrant the need for pain meds.

I do not for a moment believe this will get any better. It will eventually get to the point narcotics will only be rx's to end of life patients. People with various cancers have been reduced to less adequate pain relief. How sick is that.

The CDC has has the pharmaceutical companies by the throat. Some pain meds are no longer being made & they are producing fewer quantities.

Myrne, you must live in a state that is more liberal than most. Many states a couple of years ago refuse to give narcotics to a chronic pain patient. Patient try to going out of state for meds & they may or may not be able to get medication. The current prescribing guidelines are aimed at GP's rxing pain meds longer than 7 days for acute pain. They do not want GP's rxing meds to a chronic pain patient. These are gudelines, not rules, but the drs are so afraid of being flagged they are going by the CDC's recommended guidelines. Also, several states have made their own changes & guidelines & have implemented them.

PM dr are told to get their chronic pain patients on a long acting medication instead of short acting. They seem to think this will stop the abuse & diversion problems. But, they also have a cap of how many milligrams per day. Complete morons making these decisions. But, in all fairness this did not just happen, this has been going on for several years. Some drs attempted to ignore them & they ended up being flagged & either stopped rxing or changed their rxing practice to conform to keep from losing their license. That is the major fear, losing their license.

I would not want to be a young pain patient for sure. I am 64 yrs old & glad of it for this very reason.

I am in Tx & they will not give narcotics to anyone that shows up in ER complaining of pain. If the patient is rx'd anything it is low dose Tramadol, lol. I am serious when I say this. Several years ago I fell & broke my arm, I was offered zero.

I can tell you what students are being taught, no narcotics for patients. Unless a person is admitted for in-patient care with severe pain they will not be given narcotics. Go to the CDC's website & enlighten yourself.

It doesn't help anyone here, I know, but the situation isn't much better in the UK. When my epidural came out the 2nd night after I'd had my first surgery (open colectomy with ileostomy), all they would offer me for pain relief at first was paracetamol. It took several hours before I could get anyone to give me morphine and, needless to say, I was in agony the entire time.

Doctors are incredibly reluctant to prescribe painkillers stronger than paracetamol (literally useless), sleeping pills or tranquilisers. I'm lucky that a) my pain isn't too severe at the moment and b) my dad gives me codeine that he doesn't use. But eventually that source will stop and god knows what will happen after that.

The drugs "war" is absolute insanity. It's insane on every level you can think of.

Myrne - After my second surgery (which was also open abdominal surgery), I elected for a morphine pump instead of an epidural - the epidural had worked like a charm last time, but there was no way I was willing to risk the needle coming out again. Anyway I was taken off the morphine pump by the 2nd or 3rd day (I forget which, but it wasn't very long) and moved onto Tramadol. That really wasn't quite strong enough to control the pain, especially overnight, when the last dose of the day was at 10pm and the next dose wasn't until 7-8am. Sometimes the pain nurses were late however, and I was in freaking agony by the time by the time they got to me.

That whole hospital stay was a nightmare in fact (I developed an ileus, which I wouldn't wish upon my worst enemy).

Don't get me started on that either. I might get modded.... =/

It just bothers me because I have severe aggressive crohns and without even talking to me about this he just starts cutting me from 4 to 3 and that was fine and my next month he cut to 2 and I just asked him why and he said gi patients are not aloud no more opioid pain meds. I said well what the hell are gi patients supposed to do? But this pain doc also has started treating hormones and weight loss. He got me the mmj card and no longer doing that for patients. But this is what get me I have done everything he has told me to do with therapy for arthritis and all and he is cutting me off but my sister sees him and says her hip hurts and she gets meds but she is also letting them give her hormone shots. I don't let them give me testosterone shots. I'm gonna be 50 years old and female

How do you like stelara? It worked at first for me then Linda stopped. I also noticed I get tremors from it along with bad fatigue

Barbz, take Imodium for the diarrhea but keep drinking plenty of fluids to stay hydrated. This will help slow it down.

Take care.