[lostinitall]

What does it mean when your doctors simply shrug it off when you share with them you are addicted to your pain meds and then increase your dosage? Anyone else dealing with or dealt with this senario?

[Altered Moment]

What pain meds are you taking? Doctors can be totally ignorant sometimes. Opiates are dangerous little pills. If you want off find a doc that will work with you and explore other ways to manage pain.

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[lostinitall]

I am on:

Morphine 30 ER 3 times a day
Lortab 10/325 3 times a day (was on Percocet 3 times a day until she increased my Morphine to 3 times a day)
Lyrica 300mg twice a day
Zolpidem (Ambiem) 10mg for sleep

Paroxetine 40mg x 2 every other day (was daily until started on Cymbalta)
Duloxetine HCL DR 30mg x 2 am
Propranalol 10mg up to 4 a day for anexity

[Altered Moment]

Do you want off the morphine and hydrocodone? I am sure that is a very scary proposition.

The rest of it seems fine.

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[eskielover]

What makes you think you are addicted? Not everyone who takes prescription pain medication gets addicted to it even on high doses.

It's not unless you will go to any means to get the medication & want more & more of the medication for the buzz or the feel that you get from it....it's NOT ADDICTION.

Everyone who takes prescription pain medication (opiates) becomes DEPENDENT....but DEPENDENT is NOT the same thing as ADDICTED. Everyone who takes opiates WILL go through withdrawal when lowering the dose of the medication....just like people go through withdrawal going off some psych drugs....it's just the bodies reaction to having the medication out of the body.

I have been on pain medication since 2003 & have been on a very high dose as it was the only thing that allowed me to function normally & control the continuous migraine pain that I had since 1995. I took the med as prescribed & being that they were patches, allowed them to stay on so that I could get the maximum use out of the 2 patches I was using. The have gotten stupid about prescribing pain medication for those of us who it helped & now refuse to prescribe what is considered a high dose even though it's the only thing that helps. I have been blessed because I have a new pain specialist who is working on a procedure that is actually helping the migraine & allowing me to slowly lower the dose of the medication.......he is the most awesome pain specialist I have ever known. I am glad to be able to lower the dose for if I had any major surgery, they wouldn't be able to add any pain medication & it would make having a surgery difficult.....so it's a good thing to lower it...but I was never addicted. I functioned as normally as anyone who wasn't on a medication like that. I never got a high or any kind of feeling from taking the medication other than pain relief....pain specialist said that when a drug is actually working on something & is doing it's job right, a person doesn't get that kind of "FEELING" from a drug.

The reality of the drug however is that WITHDRAWAL is a part of lowering the dose or stopping it.....so they are very carefully lowering it slowly & may find the level I'm on right now to be the working dose....but we will see if it can be lowered more after I go through my oral surgery. They know that surgery may very well trigger massive migraines so they are being careful.

There are times when I accidentally leave the patch on too long & forget to change it...I start to get this whirring sound in my head.....I know that I have let it go too long & withdrawal is starting to happen as the dose is going lower in my body.....also have that problem during the summer in the heat when the medication of the patch gets absorbed more quickly....it's gone sooner & I again get that whirring sound in my head.....but that has to do with being dependent on the drug & not addicted to is.

Many people don't know the terminology or understand how those medications work....after so many years & dealing with so many pain specialists.....I grew to have a good understanding & knowledge. It works the same with pills as it does with patches.....only with pills, the system has more ups & downs as a wave being that the pills have to be taken more often.

[Travelinglady]

Did you ask for him to increase the dosage? I wouldn't call you "addicted" either. I take Tramadol, Cymbalta, and Norco for pain. I take the same doses every day and have been for several years.

Is your pain bad enough that you really need such high-powered meds? I think we should try to take as little as we can to control our pain. But, that said, we do need to take enough to make our lives tolerable. I get depressed when my pain gets too bad.

[Altered Moment]

That is true there is a big difference between dependence and addiction. Heroin is legal in England because I believe they did studies on it and at the right dose for relieving pain people don't get addicted. That doesn't mean there wouldn't be withdrawal though.

I am an addict by nature (recovering) so it is easier to look at it from that angle. There is a chance I would take more than prescribed and then look for more.

I take klonopin which is an addictive drug but I take it as prescribed and no more and I don't feel an urge to take more. I am not addicted to it but my body is becoming dependent on it. I need to cut my dose in half and see what happens.

[Mygrandjourney]

You could always ask for a referral to a specialist in either chronic pain management or addiction medicine.

[lostinitall]

Hello My! The problem is I am seeing a pain management Dr.

I guess that after seeing all your responses, I am "dependent" on instead of "addicted to". I have never thought of it that way. After all that is why I am here to learn. I follow the script and do not take extra, normally I have trouble remembering to take what I am supposed to take, which I feel is also an affect of the morphine and lortab.

I have considered getting of of them but then I do not feel I could handle the pain.

Thank you all for your replies!

[eskielover]

Talk to your pain specialist about patches. I am on the duragesic patch which the narcotic is fentynal. The patches are changed every 3 days & you don't have the waves of pain that come from taking the pills & I don't have any break through pain which for me was awesome because before I got onto the high dose of the patches, the pain was a continuous 10....I couldn't function but just lay in bed in a dark room.

There is supposedly a new patch that has come out. Not sure the medication that it is but it's for pain & is changed every 7 days (even better than every 3).....only time I do have problems is in the summer when I get really hot....it makes the patch absorb quicker & then it runs out exactly on day 3....most of the time I can get at least 4 days out of the 3 day patch.....sure beats taking pills

[lostinitall]

I will definitely have to check this out, thank you so much for the input!