Oxycodone Withdraw

Couldn 't find anyone who was taking the amount of oxy's that I take. I get them from my physiatrist (look again that means therapy and rehab of the body). My Dr has received awards such as Compassionate Dr Recognition and even a Patient's Choice Award. I have RSD or CRPS for newer diagnosed. I have been seeing this Dr. for 8 years. My RSD began after four surgeries including a titanium cage in my back in a period of time of less than 2 years. I went to PT, massage, and pool. It made the fire burning in my right leg worse. I became so inflamed that I could only wear skirts and the largest man's sock for coverages on my feet. I couldn't find anything that didn't set off the excruciating pain in my legs. I slept in a bed with the sheets held off of me. All the test MRI's, Cat Scans, temperature and nerve testing showed major nerve damage near the spine and advance bone loss. Finally a person came to my Dr's door with a personalized vest that had 12 electrical stimuli placed at pressure points. I wore it for 45 minutes twice a day. Once a month they would take the chip it had in it that collected data download in the computer so the Dr could see how long I required it and if the stimuli needed to be changed. Fantastic, no pills, I am not spending countless hours in the Dr 's office, and no problems with addiction or withdrawl. You are probably thinking well great for you that worked! Not so fast, my insurance company would not pay for it. Not after countless Dr's letters and visable improvement of my leg inflammation! It was too expensive. It cost about $700 a month. Way too expensive!

But guess what they would pay for both oxy's, antidepressants, Klonopin, Norflex, Soma and ambien! My total should I have to pay for the pills is close to $2,300. Let's just stick with the oxy's. It seems I have an extremely high tolerance. I was taking 3 of the 80's and 4 of the 30's for a total of 360 mgs daily. I managed to never require an increase in my dosage. Then the fine state of TN, during an election year started a war on OxyContin. I don't go to a "pill mill". My Dr in the entire clinic has only prescribed oxy's to 3 patients. Now the three of us come in and have our pills counted, sign contract with Dr., Reasons for being denied oxy's, random urine testing for a positive result to prove we are not selling. Testing is done by a person 1 year out of school, working for the state, at the lab they choose and all at the patients expense. There is also the mental health test every month i.e. Do you feel like killing yourself? No, only when I spend 45 minutes giving the state my life story and drinking copious amounts of water because no urine test, you are not leaving. Shades of CSI, if need be they will do a swab of your mouth, but the cost of testing is hundreds of dollars more. Beginning about six months ago, paper pushers in cubicals who have never set eyes on me have decided they are going to wean me off my pills to fall within the new guidelines. My Dr who went through four more years of schooling so they might help and rehab persons with chronic pain and has been seeing patients without a single complaint filed against them for 26 years has zero say so on my dosage but the state requires (not legally exactly, but they are confident the bill on the evils and OD's from oxy's will pass) that I need to be taking under 100mg daily and that is the limit by law they will allow. Well when the bill passes and around here they are acting like it already has! Now the pharmacy I have been going to for 8 years " doesn't want all the red tape" and are fearful "they will be robbed". They haven't been robbed or had an attempted robbery since they opened. I am forced to hunt down pharmacies on a monthly bases that are willing to take the risk of filling my Rx 's. Every pill count has been perfect , every drug test positive, and every t crossed and I dotted. This new bill is designed to get us all in order to find the one's that abuse these pills. It is like throwing a net in the ocean for tuna and catching all matter of seafood and saying "but we got the some tuna!".

As long as there are mind altering drug such as alcohol, oxy's, or tranquilizers we will have abuse. I may sound uncaring but that is not true. I feel terrible for addicts that suffer from such a horrible disease they can not handle everyday life, persons in deplorable conditions that just want to feel " euphoric" to escape even for a little while and the young people who find the pills in the medicine cabinet or get them at school and decide that if one makes me feel this good, what will two do, how about adding alcohol, (I would of said smoking or snorting it in the past for the 80's but in March 2010 they released a new 80 oxy which is difficult to remove the outside covering) that end up as OD's. But some of us are in severe, chronic pain and are responsible people. Why are we being punished. I belong to a pain group and RSD group, online we have moved the suicide phone numbers to the front pages because the idea of living the rest of your life in pain in a world no larger than your bedroom is hardly a life at all when you know there is something out there that will help! Enough ranting but I do want you to know we started writing our reps, congress, ACAP, and going to other states to attend meetings about stopping the oxy abuse, all to no avail. All they hear is drug problems, street selling, and OD's, nothing else. We do have a new statistic in our town, the oxy abusers have moved on to herion which they can buy " for the price of a happy meal". Now the withdrawl part. When I was not allowed my vest referenced above, I had a long talk about being on oxy's. The Dr. was already aware I had a high tolerance for opioids from the hospital records which showed I was on a large amount of morphine after every operation. By the third surgery my file had been documented as a fast metabolizer of opioids and found to be alert and awake with "amounts that could put another pt into a coma". I was assured that as long as I did everything required of me I would be able to continue on my oxy's with no problem and should I wish to discontinue them I would be slowly tapered off to avoid many of the withdrawl symptoms. That was then, this is now. Because of my high dose of the medications and mandates being put in place, they are taking me down in mgs at a much quicker rate than my Dr would ever advise.

If I write down I continuously yawn, eyes streaming tears and I must stretch every muscle in my body constantly, it doesn't sound like much, but it is misery. I average about 3 hours of sleep. They have taken away, in one month half of my breakthrough pain pills, the 30mgs. I use them for breakthrough, to extend my 12 hour pills that last 6 1/2 hour now and to cover the hour it takes for the 80's to work. I don't have that option now. The flames from my nerve damage feel like I am living in hell. I cry, cry, cry and scream into my pillow. Did you know you could break a blood vessel in your eye just from crying? I didn't but I'm living with it now. I have night terrors when I finally get to sleep ( I weaned myself off if ambien and Soma). I am hot, I am cold. I have developed a very short fuse. Food taste strange. I spend hours in my hospital type bed with a rolling table trying to calculate how I can cover 24 hours of my life and not be sick and in pain. My spouse knows zero about drugs, won't take an aspirin. I have ask that a review of the normal and expected withdrawl symptoms be done, but we are going to "face them as they come". I want other family and friends to stay away. I don't bother getting dressed any more unless it is a Dr. Appt day. I count the days to my next appt. fearful of what they will be taking away from me this time, fearful that my current pharmacy will not fill the prescriptions. I believe I am an addict. All be it from medication approved by my physician. My short term memory does not exist. I have been told I can go into the hospital to withdrawl, but after reviewing my records and the current medicines I am taking, let's just say they did not approve of what they saw and freely admitted they are not exactly sure how they would handle my situation. That is comforting. They were pleased I never drink. I did not cause this problem, but I am the one suffering along with my Dr who feels like they are working with their hands tied behind their back. Any suggestions? Has anyone else been taken off oxy's at a very rapid rate like this? Or decided to go cold turkey from a very large amount? You did said be detailed as possible. P.S. I made the choice myself to quit driving after being prescribed the oxy's.

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Perhaps nobody wants to read something as long and detailed as what I wrote above or I have placed it in the wrong area ? I live in Tennessee and they are passing a bill that will only allow my pain specialist go allow up to. 90 mg of oxycodone a day. The bills is suppose to pass this month. I take 320 mgs of oxycodone a day. I am being tapered from 20-40mg a day being taken away. I feel "restless body",hot and cold, I yawn until it hurts and my eyes are just streaming tears. Depression is major. Any advice to ease withdrawl pains ? Should I go to a hospital and be weaned off ? Anything ?

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