You are not alone...
I have dealt with my pain for about fifteen years now. A car accident when I was 18, with a drunk driver running a stop sign, fractured a few vertabrae (L4-L5-S1) requiring initial spinal fusion with later distectomy, p.t., cortisone injections, accupuncture, etc. I was on pain meRAB for about eight years straight. They were the only thing that worked. An easy, quick solution that made me feel normal again. Like I could function as a normal person... I so did not want to FEEL disabled. I wanted to play with my kiRAB and... just be able to function in daily life.
I empathise with your situation as it is my own. Doctor after doctor not wanting to deal with you. The shame from not being able to control yourself and the feeling like you are ruining everybody elses life around you. Knowing you have a problem, but being scared to say anything to the docs, lest they cut you off altogether. I know it is scary and you feel lost. It has been a long journey for me: years of opiate use, E.R. visits, withdrawals that feel like every good feeling has been sucked from your body and all that is left is pain, gloom, and darkness. The feelings of guilt and being trapped with the choice of either continuing down this path or being in pain forever was overwhelming. It is a battle. Honestly, I contemplated suicide.
I finally bit the bullet and told my doctors that I could not control my pain med use and they stopped me cold turkey too. The withdrawals were so bad that I had to be hospitalized to detox. I noticed that some of my pain was definitely opiate induced pain syndrome as well. It wasn't that my pain was non-existent... Just the constant use of pain meRAB seemed to increase my sensitivity to the pain when I didn't have the meRAB. I would hurt all over and I wasn't injured all over. It took months for that constant feeling of withdrawal and extreme pain sensitivity to fade away. I won't lie, it sucked. But it seemed to me that the longer my body went without the meRAB, my memory of what it felt like to be on the meRAB waned, and with it the withdrawals. I went a few years w/o pain meRAB and struggled with daily pain, though not nearly as bad as the withdrawal symptoms I faced w/ pain med use. Eventually, I started having neurological symptoms (leg weakness, couldn't feel my legs at times) and required distectomy. This gave me relief for a couple years, but it never really went away.
So here is where I stand now, and I think you can definitely relate: I have daily pain, but I can't take meRAB correctly. I have been addicted to them before, and I don't feel bad about calling myself an addict. The medicine creates a physical and psychological addiction over time. It is not your fault, it is the nature of the medicine. We are in a crappy predicament- daily non-stop pain and the only source of relief (pain meRAB) comes with its own source of problems. I am sorry for talking so much about my situation. I only do, so that you will know I understand your situation deeply.
Let me tell you what worked for me. First, I had to get off the daily pain meRAB. These opiate medicines replace your body's natural production of pain relieving chemicals and hormones. That's why you feel so crappy and not just in normal pain when you are off the meRAB. Your body has stopped producing these chemicals, because sustained opiate use has filled those neuroreceptors in your brain for so long your body has learned to not to produce its own. Like I said earlier, it is going to suck. Just know there is a light at the end of the tunnel. That horrible feeling will go away. You have to reset your brain.
My doctor has set me up on a med plan where I take pain meRAB one week on- one week off. No excuses, no leniency. It is a give and take. I am pain free half the time, but not on the meRAB consistently enough to have withdrawals. I do have the extra sensitivity to pain the first day off, but it tapers off quickly. I call my week on pain meRAB my " vacation from pain" and tell myself on my week off that the pain I am experiencing in no way comes close to that horrible feeling of withdrawal from being on the meRAB consistantly. It is the only way I can control my use.
I feel for you and I hope the story of my journey gives you some hope. I hope that you recognize that you are not alone. I used to sit by myself and cry unconsolably. I would tell my wife that I was broken inside and I didn't know how to fix it. I felt so alone in my world of pain and struggle. I had no control, no hope, only despair. Now I have pain half the time, and that really isn't so bad.
