Back Pain Meds Addiction Story
Posted on October 16, 2009
Filed Under Neck Pain | Leave a Comment
Do you suffer from neck or back pain? Do you take pain medication to ease your pain? If you do, then you should read this story. I want to share my professional experience on this subject with all of you out there suffering through this problem. I have a patient who had been on pain medication for over ten years, prior to seeing me. A lot of people can not deal with the pain on their own, or their pain is severe, so they turn to their doctors for pain medications. The end result, in many cases, is addiction.
My patient had been through numerous doctors and specialists over the last ten years. Every one of them had always given my patient pain medication. He just wanted the pain to stop and to get some sleep. The medicine did that for him. For the first five years or so, he would just take the pain medication as needed. It would only be a few times a week. The last five years, he started taking more medication because his pain had intensified because he was treating his symptoms and not the cause of his condition. After doing this for some time, his body adjusted and grew used to the pain medicine. So it took more and more medication to help control the pain.
At some point during all of this, my patient became addicted to the pain medication, and he suffered through two types of addictions. I want to tell you about both of them. The first addiction started when he would hurt more than usual, so he would take just one extra pill to help with the pain. That one extra pill made him feel wonderful. The pain was gone, and he had more energy than he usually did. He was really happy, happier than usual. Then over time, he started taking two pills more, instead of one, because he wasn’t getting the same feeling as before. His family stopped coming around as much, as they didn’t want to be anywhere near him when he was taking this much pain medicine. My patient then realized that he had a big problem. Although, he never really went through withdrawals with this level of addiction when he didn’t take the pain medicine for a day or two.
The second addiction he experienced was worse, and he was not so lucky. Last year, his Pain Specialist prescribed for him a pain patch. He would wear it for three days and then apply a new patch. This way the medication is always in his system. He gave the patch a chance, and it worked well. He did not have to worry about taking too much medication, like he did when he was taking pain pills because the patch was time-released. Therefore,he only got the amount of pain medication the doctor wanted him to have. At first, his pain just seemed to disappear with the pain patch. He loved it, until one day, after a few months of being on this pain patch, he was not able to get his patch the day his old one ran out. Later that night, he went through full-blown withdrawals. He did not even know he was addicted, because he was not abusing the medicine the way he had with the pain pills. Apparently his body had become addicted to this pain medicine.
Suffering through a withdrawal was awful, and according to my patient he was shaking, shivering, and vomiting, he hurt in places he didn’t know could hurt. It was miserable, and he was terrified. Nothing made it stop. He wasn’t able to drive himself to the hospital. His wife had to take him to the emergency room. The doctors put a pain patch on him, and after it got into his system, he was fine. After that incident, he made sure to never run out of his medication again. He wanted to just stop wearing the pain patch and taking pain medicine, at that point, but he still had the problem of back pain to think about.
Please don’t think I’m trying to scare you. However, I want you to understand how this addiction can affect you. You may not know you are addicted, until it is too late. Do not assume that because you are taking the medication as prescribed that you will not become addicted.
Mike has wondered numerous times, was it worth it? I don’t know if I’m the one to answer that for everyone, but for Mike – he thought it was. He had suffered through the pain without the medication, and the pain is crippling. He could not function doing even everyday tasks. He would like to be on a pain medication that is not addictive, but the pain medication was only masking his symptoms of back pain and not treating the underlying problem.
Just keep in mind that it is a serious chance you take when dealing with pain medications. Neck and back pain can seriously alter your lifestyle. There are alternatives for treatment of chronic and severe back pain that do not include pain medications and invasive procedures such as surgery. Take time to invesigate the options, because you can take your medication exactly how it is prescribed and still become addicted. Mike did not know this in the beginning, and thank goodness he discovered a successful option that did not include pain pills.
Looking to avoid pain medication for back and neck pain. Then click on Dr. Richard E. Busch’s site about treating the cause of back pain without surgery/pain meds.
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