Day 1 without pain meds (norco, darvocet) , day 21 w/out soma

[martikadragoon]

I see my dr. for legit severe back pain and we're pretty sure I have nerve damage,

today is day 1 without pain meds and I'm going almost week until the dr. refills them. I don't think I have a problem w/the pain meds and I need to take them for back pain even if it's only 1/2 dose.  I took my last dose early yesterday evening of darvocet because my dr. gave me some darvocet to take instead of the Norco so that I could lower my dose w/out any real issues. It's for me to take instead of Norco if I'm not hurting too bad then. I'm using this week to see what my pain levels get to, and from there I'll slowly start with 1/2 a norco or 1 norco just to see how it works for my pain. I figure after a week my pain tolerance should go up and my med tolerance should go down a bit.

It's been 24 hrs and I'm not having any w/d that I can tell. no bowel issues or anything. I've been on pain meds for the greater part of 18 months (had to be seen by high risk dr's and pain mgmt during my pregnancy) so I'm kindof suprised that i'm not having w/d. The last few days I HAD been spacing out the darvocet where I would only have 1/2 the amt per day that I was prescribed.  

It's also day 21 off soma which I DID have an issue with. After that first few days of insomnia my sleep has become better and I just need a little unisom to help me get to sleep, I tend to stay asleep more and am able to wake up and tend to my 3mo old and then go back to sleep.

[martikadragoon]

I'm one of those that almost died. I took soma and ambien together not knowing of the possible reaction and stopped breathing.

I asked for something lighter because I'd like to eventually get off the norco but with the darvocet my back still aches enough to require a couple doses of norco a day.  I'm doing excercise more often now along with other good things like taking vitamins. I know darvocet is mild compared to norco, oxy's etc. I've had plenty of times where not taking norco for a day or two would cause bad bowel problems for me but when I switched from the norco to the darvocet for this last week (it was more of a "trial" thing for the darvocet) I had no bowel issues, and I'm thinking that because I stayed on the darvocet and just lowered my frequency of taking it before not taking it at all that's why I haven't had any bowel issues.

Normally my back pain will get alot worse for a day or two and then kinda even out where the pain level was the same all the time. I have to say that for the amt of pain Ive got today (and suspect some is "rebound" pain when it comes to the norco)  I'm suprised.
my pain levels are at about a 6 today... manageable but just past tolerable.  so we'll see if it stays about that or gets worse by tomorrow.

[micheleTX]

hi martika!  great!!  Im so glad you are off Soma.  I have seen some horrible things with those pills, too many people I know have come close to dying from them.  Scary stuff.
You need to do whatever you have to do for your back pain,  The times I w/d a little bit when we would run out of pills - I would just get a bit achy and unable to sleep.  Never had a bowel problem till we really quit them for good.  Darvocet is such a mild opiate, I never had wd's from that and that was the first pain med. I took for a couple years.
Good luck in whatever you do.  Im rooting for you, keep posting! :)  Take it easy.