I Was Wondering if Someone Is on Pain Management for a Long Period of Time and Who Isn’t a Drug Addict.?
Question by : I was wondering if someone is on pain management for a long period of time and who isn’t a drug addict.?
I have been on an off pain management for years. I’m 45 years old now. Now I see a reputable pain management doctor (that’s not a pill pusher) and he also has a chiropractor on the premises. I have quite a few medical issues going on now. I have Fibromyalgia, osteoporosis in my spine, crohn’s disease, arthritis in my neck with a pinched in my shoulder that causes me to have headaches on a daily basis and a bulging disc in my lumber spine along with sciatica in my right hip and leg.
I do go at least once a month to have what they call a branch blocker (which only gives like 2 days of relief) And radio-frequency once a month as well (which gives me about 3 weeks of relief). I am currently prescribed perocet and a low dose of oxycontin. (I am very well aware of how evil oxycontin can be because it causes physically addiction very quickly) And because of this reason and having been on it in the past, I am very cautious and self aware when taking it as it is prescribed 3x a day. However I don’t take that much. I Try to just take the Percocet and just take the oxycontin like once every other day. And when I absolutely have to I take it twice a day I’m in more pain than usual. At once I was taking it as the written dosage until I realized my body was craving more and I was getting nauseous from my body wanting more. This was unacceptable and I had my doctor help wean me down at my request and as I stated earlier way less than prescribed. (small note I have an SSI case open)
So here’s my thing… I have this friend who keeps telling me I’m a drug addict. And as I am aware that there can be as physical addiction (as I stated earlier) I am certainly not psychologically addicted to my meds. And If I could go off of them (that would be awesome) I would do it safely and wean off of them. This person is completely obsessed (to the point of reading everything online about the pain meds I’m taking ~ now he thinks he has a PHD (And just for the record this is a person who never even completed high school or got a GED) ~ and even going as far as finding every newspaper article about narcotics and pharmaceutical companies, even threatening to have my Pain doctor investigated to have his medical license taken away) and he says I’m not the person that I am now. (He’s only known me for 6 years) I’ve had a conversation with my doctor about the difference between a drug addict that keeps wanting more and more, they are the types that have the psychological addiction as well as the physical addiction ( and eventually become heroin addicts) My doctor agrees that I’m am not a drug addict and the most self aware patient that he has.) Unfortunately this guy friend is helping me financially right now until my SSI case is won so I can’t just completely cut him out of my life, because believe you me I would in the blink of an eye!!!!! He’s completely stressing me out which is really bad for my crohn’s disease. He is completely anit-medication to the point he won’t even take Tylenol. I just don’t know what to do anymore not to mention he has my kid thinking I’m a drug addict. POINT… Drugs addicts don’t wean themselves down off of narcotics!!! And this mostly illiterate friend thinks he has the right to accuse me of that because he had ONE friend that was addicted to narcotics and found a doctor to treat him differently and ween him off the drugs but now my friend thinks that exercise and nutrition is the solution to my problems. I’m not saying that wouldn’t be a help but these things cost money even with insurance. And right now he can barely meet my basic needs. I would like to get the public’s input on this matter.
Best answer:
Answer by Ray
You can be drug and pain free in a few weeks by alternative medicine. Most of your problems can be cured by taking shark cartilage capsules (all that are joint and tendon related including the sciatica, bulging disc, pinched nerves, arthritis). I buy this at most health food stores. The Chron’s disease and fibromyalgia would be greatly helped and all pain relieved by taking coffee retention enemas. These are so effective in pain reduction that they were used in post operative setting during WW I when morphine supplies were in short supply. It is also a great way to improve your immune system which, if healthy, can defeat cancer in your body. Search the internet for directions.
Answer by EFR
Oh my gosh, Hali, I’m so sorry to hear you have to deal with this loser in your life, on top of everything else. It makes me sick enough knowing that we have to share the world with people like that, God forbid actually having to rely on them for anything.
I’m a woman in my mid-twenties, and I’ve been managing my Crohn’s pain with opiates for nearly 10 years. I don’t take any pleasure in it, in fact, I hate taking them, but not nearly as much as I hate being crippled by abdominal pain. I also get fistulas and kidney stones, and if I didn’t take pain medicine, I would hardly be able to get out of bed. I would be totally dependent on my parents, I wouldn’t have been able to go to college or get a job, or be relied upon as a responsible adult in any capacity. Pain killers make me nauseous and they make me tired, but they’ve given me my life back in a very real way, and I’m so grateful for that.
You’re not addicted to pain killers, and neither am I. As you know, physical dependence on opiates – like physical dependence on prednisone – is a necessary evil, and can be dramatically outbalanced by the positive effects of treatment. Your efforts to wean yourself off of higher doses show that you’re vigilant and cautious, an ideal pain patient, who won’t allow her intake to get out of hand. And physical dependence can be modulated easily enough with minimal discomfort, by carefully and precisely cutting back or tapering. As long as you’re not psychologically ‘attached’, you should have no problem with this.
Which brings me to my next point: we are not psychologically addicted. I was talking to my primary care doctor recently, about how I didn’t understand how drug abusers ‘got high’ off of opiates. When I take them, they help my pain and maybe make me drowsy or a little lightheaded at most, but I’ve never felt good, or ‘euphoric’ taking them. He told me about an article he’d read recently in a medical journal about how opiates affect people’s brains. Apparently, when one is in pain, the drug affects the stimulated pain receptors and helps turn them off. When one isn’t in pain, the drug has no active pain receptors to target, and it causes an entirely different effect, and that’s when people ‘get high’. So basically, when you take painkillers as directed, you don’t truly run the risk of psychological addiction, because you’re never experiencing the euphoric effect, only the pain killing effect. People with moderate to severe chronic pain are in the lowest category for substance abuse for this reason.
I had a boyfriend once who was from a poor area with a lot of drug problems. He didn’t do any drugs, but a few of his friends from high school had gotten into pills and had serious problems, and he never stopped blaming the pills. It was a real problem when we were together, and he made me feel ashamed, like I was doing something wrong or demonstrating weakness of character every time I treated my pain. But I was not like his friends, and he couldn’t stop projecting their failures onto me. I have a legitimate disease, and I need the painkillers to manage it. I don’t like feeling funny; I don’t drink alcohol, and I certainly don’t take more pain pills than I need. It was not my fault that he had been largely healthy his whole life and couldn’t empathize, couldn’t begin to imagine what it was like to go to sleep in pain and wake up in pain. He ended up breaking up with me because I had a really bad flare up and didn’t call him for a week, while I lay on the floor moaning. And I’m much better off without that sort of judgment in my life.
Your ‘friend’ is an idiot, and a problem, and he’s compromising your home life, threatening your doctor and I wish you could cut him out of your life for good. Is there any chance you can find financial help elsewhere, so you don’t need to rely on him? You’re a grown adult, you are in control of your own life and you can make your own decisions about what’s right for you and your health, and if he had any respect for you he would accept that. Even if it’s not what he thinks he would do. You haven’t done anything immoral, unethical or illegal like his friend, so it’s all a matter of choice. Maybe instead of obsessing over opiates, he should look into the effects of Crohn’s on the body…oh wait, that would suggest he actually cared about what was happening to you, and not just using your bodily autonomy as the site of his moralizing, sanctimonious, self-righteous crusade.
I really, really hope you get your SSI soon and ditch this jerk. And I hope he gets struck down with some horrible disease, and then has to practice what he preaches!
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