Oxycontin is really worth it? NO

[sparkie218]

Not much of a question here rather a little taste of the reality of strong opiates such as Oxycontin and Fentanayl. I have suffered with bad Ankolsing Spondolitis for the past 18 years. I usually controlled it with anti-inflams and thats abou it, still lot's of pain though. Recentely my doctor gave me oxycontiin 20mg twice a day wow my back pain virtually dissapperaed. After time it does not work so well and the dose went up I was as high as 320-400mg per day thats equivilent to 80 percacet! My reumatologist finally came up with this new drug called Enbrel but cost $1600 per month. My benifits finally agreed to cover it. Now I needed to get of the oxy. Well I was successful but it took about 3 months. My docs approace was different he put me on a 100mcg Fentanal patch 5 times then down to 75 mcg 5 times then 50mcg, and finally 20 mcg patches 5-10 times. He gave me supodol (10mg)oxy for breakthrough pain and they helped alot. One week ago I took my last patch off and had 3 supodolls and thats it. I now went through 4 nights of absolutely no sleep, leg spazams and all sorts of cold turkey withdrawl symptoms. I got some good slleeping pills and some other stuff fof the leg spazams but the worst is over I just flushed every oxy and fent patch I had down the toilet. I just want people to be aware that oxy and fentananyl are soo addictive they don't call oxy "hill billy heroin" for nothing and it is like coming off heroin no matter who tells you different you can only make it a little easier by weening down but sooner or later you will have to go cold turkey and you may get lucky and only see the door to hell and not actually get thrown right in it. My doc never told me of the reprocusions of quitting it he figured I would stay on it for life since I qualify by having chronic pain 24/7 . His response when I said I wanted of would be most likely a  detox center since he figured only abou %10 of people can do it on there own the addiction is so strong. Any it is possible just remember once you go cold turkey you pain will lift away somewhere around day 4 and youll have made it. Have family cook for you and take lotz of hot baths they help. Good luck .

[ExpectingaRedhead]

My husband was injured in Iraq and has been taking oxycontin for the past 8 months. He is trying to wean himself off of it, but it is very hard. Yesterday he took one 20 mg pill at 5 AM and when he got home at 8 PM he seemed really uneasy. I kept asking him if he was okay and he would say yes and then I realized he must be having withdrawl symptoms. I didn't realize how addictive and strong this medication is. I will have to talk about it with him tonight. Thanks for posting this even though I got to it so late!

[AnonDH56]

I agree with most all you said but I dont recognize two of the drugs you mention. Only problem I have is what makes you think the pain will be gone after you are off all the opiates? I know their effect lessens and you need more and more. I was up to so much I had little pain most of the time but still at times it was just like I hadnt taken a thing and I was so tired I got most nothing accomplished for months. I am down from 75ug/hr Duragesic every two days plus two Actiq 800ug per day plus 2-10mg vicodin generic at night, from all that down to just the 2-10mg vicodin a day. I think I can end up with only 24 hours of horrible withdrawal symptoms if I titrate that until I am down to 5 mg of vicodin a day then quit. I am finding though my pain is all coming back but at least I can think. If I hadnt lost my insuracne, the injections worked for severall months at a time. Some docs wont give them to you but once or twice a year. Pain management pharmacology has a long long way to go. BTW I have FBS, failed back syndrome, mostly due to having a surgeon actually operate on the wrong disc in my back then having to have a second emergency surgery within two months later. Drugs like Neourontin wouldl help me but I cant tolerate them, they put me to sleep even when I give them time to adjust plus they weird me out like SSRI's do. Good luck.
DH