Morphine decrease withdrawals

[jodycca]

My spouse is decreasing his morphine intake from 60mg to 30mg's. What types of side effects/withdrawals should he expect to experience. His physician was not forthcoming with this information. He uses morphine for chronic back.

[JadedSweetheart]

I took MSContin for neck/shoulder/arm pain for a while but switched to another med, didn't decrease.  When switching meds I have had some minor withdrawl feelings, though.
Definetly check out the SA forum and maybe the archived posts here to get an idea of what the symptoms would be.  They are very knowlegable about WDs of all kinds there.

One thing to consider is that he may not feel any strong symptoms or he may feel them terribly.  Everyone is different when it comes to conditions, pain, and medication.  I stopped taking a benzodiazepine when I found out I was pregnant and didn't think anything about it.  I later found out some people have withdrawls with those.  
Cutting his dose in half may be difficult though and one of the most important things to have is the support of loved ones while going through it.  

[happyhbmom]

Chronic back pain can be due to many things, not lumped into a single cause.  The glial cell theory is one I've never heard before, though.  

The substance abuse board is a better place to ask about withdrawals and how to help get through them, I have heard.  Good luck to your husband.  I hope he is weaning off because his chronic pain is reduced!  I take 90mg/day of MS-contin for chronic pain and am hoping to be weaning off after surgery soon :)

[caregiver222]

Morphine is inappropriate for chronic back pain. The pain is generally due to glial cell inflamation which does not respond to morphine.

I have been on prescription morphine for level-ten pain for a severe injury and my withdrawal involved a craving and all sorts of aches and pains. Rather than feeling "high" I needed the morphine to feel "normal". There were lots of muscular aches.  But it wasn't too bad.

It's doable.