Jbnugget - -

I must agree with my fellow DBers, I was quickly engaged by your writing and although it looked a tad bit long (you should see some of my posts, they are so long that they make your post look merely like a short quote!)it never read like it was really long. I guess that is what seperates the good writers from, um, well...ME!

However, I just wanted to ask one question, and please do not take this the wrong way as I just was curious after reading your post, and my question is: What do you take the pain meds for? I am not trying to sound like I am preaching, because I am not, for goodness sakes I have been preached at by my husband, my parents, and a few doctors so I know I have no room to speak, but.....(Ya, I bet someone was just waiting for the BUT to show up here, um anyway...) O.K. BUT, I can not help but feel concerned about you when you mention that the reason you ever started taking opiates was because you were having some emotional problems in which you self medicated, and because you used an illegal triplicate, you were caught. But did you ever stop self-medicating with the opiates?

I hope that you have gotten some therapy for the emotional problems and that you have not just continued to use the opiates for self-medication because I can honestly say that although my back pain was and still is INSANELY PAINFUL, I not only felt less pain upon taking the pain meds, but I also numbed some of the emotional pain I was going through.

It became a bit obvious to my husband and my parents that I was falling asleep while sitting up and talking with somewhat slurred words and that I had been taking to many of my prescribed pills (prescribed by my family doctor, my surgeon and online) and that something had to give.

Well something did give and that was me. One night after one more of my husbands "talks" I decided to just dump every last pill down the toilet. I cried and cried and then I got pretty sick. Initially I was proud that I had done it, but that faded very quickly. My poor husband had no idea how much stuff I had really been taking (and mixing, soma, xanax, MSContin, Vicodn, and several, several others) so he did not know I would experience such withdrawls, but he soon found out how bad it would be.

Luckily I sought medical treatment on day 3 of my withdrawls, even though I had no idea how I would be able to get up and even move. I had soaked through 3 sets of sheets from sweating so bad and even though it was warm outside I had to have the heat on almost up to 90 degrees. Not to mention the electric blanket and the heaters all around me. It was a nightmare, but when I finally went to the doctor, I received methadone and clonidine and I felt better within 4 hours of taking it. Seriously, it was a miracle.

I have gone from all of those meds, to nothing, to methadone, then duragesic patches, and now, oxycontin and oxycodone. I have not taken any more than has been prescribed and I have actually been going down in dose each week. This is inspiring because along with Physical Therapy, I have high hopes that I will not have to be on this stuff the rest of my life.

So I do get concerned when I read a post like yours. I just hope that you are no longer self-medicating with opiates and that the meds you get online are for other reasons.

Please forgive me if I have intruded, as I truly did not mean to. I know there may be a reason why you have been around for a long time without posting a whole lot and that could be because you were afraid of messages like mine. But I just wanted you to know that there are so many people on this board that have gone through experiences like mine, and they helped me SO much when I needed them the most. So if you ever need to chat, drop me a PM.

Good luck