Judith, i was reading about long term oxycodone use on a message board. one poster said if he forgot a dose, he did not feel cravings, but most of the people said they built up tolerances to oxycodone. some people were commenting on how they deal with this, like they will cut back on their dose a couple of days just to do like a reset, making the medication more effective.
i started taking neurontin (gabapentin) for hot flashes at night (just to help me sleep through them). i am taking a very small dose (100 mg), and i donāt need to take it nightly, just when my hormones act up. i am very aware of building up tolerances to these meds and then the difficulty of stopping them and getting bad withdrawal symptoms.
how do you deal with issues of tolerance and withdrawal?
Percocet has acetomenephen (Tylenol) in it, which you cannot take withe the sensor/cgm. However, Percodan, does not. Percodan has aspirin in it instead, and therefore CAN be taken with the sensor/cgm.
Good questions, my friend. I remember your post about what you are taking to help with hot flashes and Iāve been meaning to get back to you on that subject as mine are still awfulā¦
I do believe in things like building up tolerances, and certainly about withdrawal. After my knee replacement surgery, I was on some very serious pain blockers and even though I eased off them according to protocols, the disorientation and other symptoms were awful.
But I do go off the oxy from time to timeāfor as long as a month or 6 weeks. Nobody told me to do this. It just felt right. So that may help. I donāt know how much folks take. I take 5 mg 3x/day, which I believe is a small dose. And I have experimented frequently with timing the dose in relation to activities and their intensity. I also donāt take it if I am sick with a cold and just reading in my favorite chair all dayāno reason too.
As someone said earlierāI have no sense of getting highāonly a little time when I can ignore the painā¦All this may contribute to no great build up of tolerance. I havenāt noticed any yet, but time will tell! Thanks for the info and the good questionā¦Blessings, as everā¦
The quick answer to the oxy/ CGM conundrum is to request an RX for Oxyprofen, with ibuprofen instead of acetaminophen. I donāt think it affects the Medtronic sensors but the Dexcom issue is with the acetaminophen, not the narcotic element of the medication.
Thereās more than one reason pain management docs do testing of their patients, they also want to make sure they are taking the meds rather than selling them or trading them for various other under-the-counter pharmaceuticals.
I disagree with @Sarah66ās assertion that prescription narcotics have no role in chronic pain but I also agree with @v_prediabeticās question about āBernsteinā, not necessarily the place for a debate about that, but a hint that perhaps besides pain management, BG control might play a role in managing neuropathy for PWD. Maybe not @Judith_in_Portlandās post-dancing syndrome, if thatās what it is?
Re medical marijuana, Iāve read some mainstream press type of articles (Dr. Sanjay Gupta in a Time magazine cover story; National Geographic had an interesting articleā¦) that seemed reasonably legitimate that indicate that clinics can arrange to ātuneā the cheeba so it is less buzzy and more oriented towards those element that provide pain relief. Iāve also read that medical marijuana is very useful for fighting neuropathy so Iād consider that if I were afflicted with neuropathy but so far, reasonably tight control has perhaps helped me prevent neuropathy so I have no need for weed.
ARā@acidrock23 ā¦Oddly, my Dumb Left Foot went dumb after a nasty spider bite to which I had a systemic reaction including a very high fever and severe vomiting and loss of control of bodily functions. It was only as that settled a bit that we inspected my heel more closely and noticed a white area at the center of the swelling that indicated nerve damage. The end result, however, is the same as diabetic neuropathy, if I am understanding the symptoms as described by some of our membersā¦
You know what going low carb helped with for meāsome of the fibromyalgia symptoms! Donāt you love it? Not the pain so much, but all the other things that donāt get talked about as muchāthe cognitive difficulties of a fibrofog, the shakeys that mimic a hypo, but arenāt. So many things. Iāve always believed that even moderate adjustments in carb intake can help many thingsā¦
Excellent tip on the marijuana. If I decide to give it a try, I will definitely inquire about it! Thanksā¦and Blessings, as everā¦Always so nice to hear from youā¦
A family member fell several years ago, and fell twice more because he didnt know how damaged his knee was. The doctor prescribed higher doses of pain meds than the pharmacist had seen in any patient except those who were dying. My relative cannot break free now from the effects of those doses. The doctor ignored me when I told her it was too much for him, and she was my doctor too so no real privacy act issues. Not pointing fingers at you (I have fibromyalgia too) but he cannot shake this and is unable to get off the suboxone meds they gave him to detox. They told him he may never ever be off the suboxone. The meds cost a fortune and fall under specialty drugs, with the highest copay.We have to see the doctor every single month for the RX. The personality changes with this med too. No one in the system stopped long enough to try to help, The mess created is, short of a miracle, going to last forever. Btw, he did try to go off last year. He was unable to work, unable to cope. This year he had surgery, and was nearly killed because the surgeons dont know how to dispense pain meds, and work it out with the suboxone. The pharmaceutical company acted like they knew he wouldnt be able to get off the med. Their response was that he would most likely fail at trying to get off of it. And this, the replacement for a pain med? Please be careful. This was a normal, primary care doctor who dispenses the large doses of pain killer. And she wasnt around to see the mess she created, because she moved out of state. Iām sure there are many ignorant doctors out there. Again not directed at you, but as former co-leader of a fibro support group, I have seen too many messed up people who dont understand what they are in forā¦
Thank you, @Laura_Sā¦ I appreciate your concerns. They are important. Please read my previous posts in this thread. I am aware of the dangers and I have not sought to increase the small dosage that I take. My doctor is one of the good ones. She wouldnāt let me, anywayā¦I am very sorry for the troubles that your family member has. It can indeed be a very terrible thing and the abuses of ignorant doctors makes it all even worse. As has been said, treating chronic pain is very complex and has not been taken seriously as a field of study until relatively recentlyā¦Blessingsā¦
I agree, and I think they need to look at all sides of the person before dispensing things. In our case, it was excessive and it started at the highest dose. The person was able to handle the highest dose right off the bat. There should be supervision, and counsel and extreme caution used. Not in our case, sadly, and the clinic dispensing Suboxone doesnt really know what they are doing either. sigh.
If ever āSighā was the perfect response, this is it. Once it is ādoneā it is so hard to undo. That is true for many instances where hope and need meet up with ignorance of repercussions. We expect our docs to know better. More often than we want to think, they just donātāor the docs that Do know better are too far away or otherwise unavailableā¦Self-advocacy was something I didnāt fully understand until I had to deal with fibromyalgia and then diabetesā¦Sigh, indeedā¦Take careā¦
have you researched methodone? itās been around a long time and so is cheaper, but i have not researched this topic fully. also, is your relative being treated by the best experts in your area, such as at a hospital associated with a university?
was there any history of addiction in your family, even something like smoking a lot or overeating to the point of morbid obesity? i ask this not to be insulting, but because i have read there is a higher chance of addiction to opiates in pain meds if there is a family history of addiction. if that is not so in your case, that means doctors have even fewer guidelines to go on when prescribing these meds. the common sense guideline of starting at a low dose and titrating up doesnāt seem to have been followed in your relativeās case. when my husband had to take oxycodone after many different surgeries (back/tennis elbow/shoulder), he actively tolerated high levels of pain in order not to have to take a lot of that med. the guy who was telling us about the med said ātake it-donāt go thru the painā. but we are very cautious (some would say paranoid) about many things, so we didnāt listen to him. his sugeries were in the years when doctors were heavily prescribing opiates for everything and they were being told by pharma reps that these meds were not addicting. now the opiate epidemic is well-known. again, if you are interested in learning more about the history of this epidemic, read the book dreamland. your relativeās doctor really was subpar if he/she hadnāt heard about this epidemic and the caution that has to go with prescribing opiates. were these drugs prescribed to your relative recently or several years ago when doctors hadnāt heard about the dangers?
my daughter needed percoset (oxycodone/acetaminophen combo) after her ACL/meniscus tear knee surgery. we have some addiction history in both sides of our family (her father used to be a heavy drinker/smoker, but stopped both when he became a father and my maternal grandfather was an alcoholic), but my daughter had no craving for percoset and got off it fast. i am so thankful because sometimes you absolutely need heavy painkillers. i donāt know what non-opiate she could have taken in the place of percoset. what are some good non-opiate pain killers that people here know of?
everyone also needs to be careful about overloading their system with acetaminophen, which is in so many meds. i think 4000 mg of acetaminophen is the maximum daily dose. acetaminophen can kill you if you take too much. my mom was telling me this years ago before it was widely known because she was a nurse who sometimes was posted in the ER. she had people dying from liver shut down after overdosing on acetaminophen. she never had a death from overdosing on aspirin. so when my kids were small, the pediatricians would always put me down for giving my children baby aspirin, but i didnāt care. the dangers of aspirin use in children are associated with reyes syndrome, which i have read is usually found in the ashkenzai (european jewish) population, which is not our familyās background. also, me and my 3 siblings had taken aspirin as children and had no adverse reactions. i trusted my momās experience and my research over the advice of doctors.
The last time I did a major face-plant off my bike, 2x teeth busted in 1/2, both lips slashed by the teeth on the way out, stitches in my chin, I found Naproxen to be more effective than Vicodin for the sort of stiffness and soreness that were kind of all over the place at the time.
