[Phaeton]

I quit taking morphine with my marijuana extract (30 mg morphine divided into four doses and 100 mg THC (60% times 165 mg) divided into eight doses) because the effect I needed became larger the the dose I was willing to tolerate.
The regimen started in 2006 and remained at 15 mg per day until 2017 when it doubled. Six months at the higher rate and I quit, the distraction of the discomfort is preferable to the side effects of morphine, lack of coordination and coherent thought the main two.

Eleven (11) years of continuous morphine use stopped 14 days ago. I admit feeling crappy for days. The difference in disease or accidental sickness/pain and addict sickness is you know for a fact nothing can be done with a sprained ankle or a stomach ache but feel the pain/sickness of withdrawal is fixable.
I had to quit, no choice. I broke my wrist once too. no choice but to bear it until it healed, same same with quitting, no choice so it was borne. If I had not needed to quit, I would not have.
Nothing to be done about that.

PS: I upped the extract to 85% and use 170 mg THC daily (200 mg times 85%). I have to admit it is not the same, but I can walk and occasionally eat. And for the times I find the fetal position the most comfortable, the THC allows distance, if not relief.

All that said, two friends in the pain clinic went full addict and this addiction was the direct cause of death for one and the other gets opiate on the street now.
Marijuana does NOT work as a substitute for opiates except in isolated cases. The most it will do is reduce rebound pain from inflamed nerves and thereby reduce tolerance and dosage.

[Badfishy1]

14 days is an awesome start m8. Keep up the hard work. It pays off!

[mushroombrew]

I had double disc replacement last Nov. So I get it. If you are having numbness you need an MRI.

Seems like you are part of the Heroin epidemic. Over prescription of opiates for years followed by an extreme tightening.

Lots of people in your position.

I would look into fixing that neck.

I took oxy post surgery. kept a little book and noted times and quantities taken. It gets a little blurry around 100mg/day. I tapered fast and will never take another one.

I live in severe pain. Cannabis helps somewhat. Kratom keeps me functioning. Botanical alkaloids....

[therevverend]

By itself I haven't found cannabis to be all that effective for severe pain. I'm not talking about regular pain or dull aching pain. Cannabis works all right for these.
It can make the nasty all out pain that makes it impossible to be comfortable worse. Because cannabis is a sensory enhancer. Sex, eating, exercising, sports, watching tv all become more intense with cannabis. It can increase sensitivity to extreme pain. Cannabis also reacts to positive and negative moods. Hard to stay positive when your life is never ending pain.
When combined with an opiate cannabis can works wonders. It takes far less opiates to reach the pain's threshold. The scariest thing about opiates is how fast the tolerance builds up. Which exponentially increases the addiction. Cannabis makes it so tolerance doesn't build up nearly as quickly.
It is complete bullshit that cannabis isn't allowed to patients prescribed opiates. My mother has severe pain, has to take opiates every day to function. Lives in Washington, a legal recreational and medical state. She isn't allowed to take cannabis because if her doctors tested her and found out she'd be cut off.
Because of the moral panic over the opiate epidemic she's gotten her prescription cut back to the point where she has to live through days when she can't do anything. Wouldn't be a problem if she had access to CBD and THC. It's bullshit.
With the opiate epidemic the public reacts in two ways. Either ignores it or goes into a panic. Making it almost impossible for the people who need opiates to get them. Along with the pharmaceutical companies charging higher and higher prices. Which drives people to the black market where many times street heroin is actually cheaper per dose. Which vastly increases the number of heroin addicts. Which causes more overdoses. Which is then used to create more of a panic over the opiate epidemic. Which causes the DEA, treatment programs, local police, and all the other government agencies involved to increase funding and restrict opiate access more.
It's a cycle that profits the government, the pharmaceutical companies pushing the opiates, and the cartels supplying the black market. It leaves the people who are suffering and vulnerable at their mercy.
Kratom is worth a try. It's helped a lot of people. I don't think it's strong enough to help the people with the worst pain, I found it rather mild. But it's worth a shot and drugs effect everyone differently.
The biggest danger with Kratom is the government's attempts to ban it. The DEA almost succeeded recently but enough people complained to delay the ban. The pharmaceutical companies and doctors hate anything that people can use to self medicate without the middle men. Their lobby is so powerful I'm guessing it's only a matter of time before it gets criminalized. The government would rather have something with almost no risk of addiction, no risk of overdose, in plentiful supply, made illegal so people will have to turn to far more deadly, addictive, expensive, harmful alternatives.

[moose eater]

AB-SO-FUCKING-LUTELY!!!

I keep the pain pills and muscle relaxers i have, using them -very- sparingly, (as written earlier) about 1 or 2 every 2-3 months, and almost never in sequence, unless we've been out in the bush, and I've pushed my body to the point of having to take pills just to lay down and rest.

The biggest fear (and it -is- a real fear) is that the pain will one day return with the uncontrollable, unexplainable intensity it hit me with two or three years ago, and this quasi-puritan witch-hunt for all things opiated will be a road-block to anyone even talking with me about getting more.

I told my most recent physician, (who asked me why I traveled the distance I did), that he's not a corporate entity in the same way other larger organizations are, his prices are lower than theirs, he gives cash discounts, and that when or if the debilitating, ain't-sleeping-for-a-10-day-period, ass-kicking, God-someone-please-kill-me, type of pain returns, I want to -know- I'm talking to someone who sees our doctor-patient relationship as paramount, that the thugs with badges aren't paying either one of us, and knows that DEA compliance officers never completed any serious medical training, let alone a residency. I told him I want to know that the Hippocratic Oath is more than nice wall-papering in the room where he hangs his degrees and professional licenses.

When I worked mental health, the only folks who had to do pill counts, UAs, etc., were paroled felons. Now, at least where I am, damned near anyone who enters a clinic and says they're in pain, may as well be ready to be treated as though they've committed a crime, are guilty without a trial, and beg in humility if they're to get their needs met.

Fuck 'em, for the most part. I've opted to not seek medical care unless I can pay cash, it won't negatievly affect my family's well-being (financially), and the Doc sees -me- as his primary concern (as in, the DEA doesn't have a straw-man presence in the exam room with us).

Short of all that,. I figure none of us are getting out of here alive, and I'd rather leave my estate to my wife and youngest boy, than to buy another aircraft or boat for a Harvard yuppie who forgot why they became a Doc in the first place.

Originally Posted by therevverend

By itself I haven't found cannabis to be all that effective for severe pain. I'm not talking about regular pain or dull aching pain. Cannabis works all right for these.
It can make the nasty all out pain that makes it impossible to be comfortable worse. Because cannabis is a sensory enhancer. Sex, eating, exercising, sports, watching tv all become more intense with cannabis. It can increase sensitivity to extreme pain. Cannabis also reacts to positive and negative moods. Hard to stay positive when your life is never ending pain.
When combined with an opiate cannabis can works wonders. It takes far less opiates to reach the pain's threshold. The scariest thing about opiates is how fast the tolerance builds up. Which exponentially increases the addiction. Cannabis makes it so tolerance doesn't build up nearly as quickly.
It is complete bullshit that cannabis isn't allowed to patients prescribed opiates. My mother has severe pain, has to take opiates every day to function. Lives in Washington, a legal recreational and medical state. She isn't allowed to take cannabis because if her doctors tested her and found out she'd be cut off.
Because of the moral panic over the opiate epidemic she's gotten her prescription cut back to the point where she has to live through days when she can't do anything. Wouldn't be a problem if she had access to CBD and THC. It's bullshit.
With the opiate epidemic the public reacts in two ways. Either ignores it or goes into a panic. Making it almost impossible for the people who need opiates to get them. Along with the pharmaceutical companies charging higher and higher prices. Which drives people to the black market where many times street heroin is actually cheaper per dose. Which vastly increases the number of heroin addicts. Which causes more overdoses. Which is then used to create more of a panic over the opiate epidemic. Which causes the DEA, treatment programs, local police, and all the other government agencies involved to increase funding and restrict opiate access more.
It's a cycle that profits the government, the pharmaceutical companies pushing the opiates, and the cartels supplying the black market. It leaves the people who are suffering and vulnerable at their mercy.
Kratom is worth a try. It's helped a lot of people. I don't think it's strong enough to help the people with the worst pain, I found it rather mild. But it's worth a shot and drugs effect everyone differently.
The biggest danger with Kratom is the government's attempts to ban it. The DEA almost succeeded recently but enough people complained to delay the ban. The pharmaceutical companies and doctors hate anything that people can use to self medicate without the middle men. Their lobby is so powerful I'm guessing it's only a matter of time before it gets criminalized. The government would rather have something with almost no risk of addiction, no risk of overdose, in plentiful supply, made illegal so people will have to turn to far more deadly, addictive, expensive, harmful alternatives.