In this I will assume that everyone knows the difference between 12 hour extended release OXYCONTIN...and fast acting release OXYCODONE.


I am a paraplegic with bad back pain. I used to be on Fentanyl 75 AND three 30mg Oxycodone (fast acting) for breakthru pain. I go so sick of using the pain patches and wanted off and was advised that I was on too much pain meds that it was making my pain worse. So I titrated off the Fentanyl. I was terrified I'd go thru withdrawl. Well my Dr who was amazing gave me Clonazepam, Clonidine and he helped me get off the patches every two weeks, we'd drop. From 75 to a 50 and a 12, then a 50, then a 25 and a 12 and so on. It was painless and no withdrawl.

He then put me on 30mg Oxycontin (extended 12 hr release) twice a day and three 15 mg Oxycodone fast acting for breakthru pain. Was on that for almost 3 years.

THEN...my Dr moved. Enter a Russian Dr from a renown Cleveland Clinic who moved to our small clinic. For those of you who don't know, Cleveland Clinic is one of the most renown clinics in America and was cited in the Presidents speech.

So. He tells me how new reports have just come out saying narcotics are poisoning your body. He said there are reports saying it lowers your immune system and the next step, in his opinion is that it will be linked to causing tumors.

So. I decide to get off these and try other methods for pain relief.

So here is his titration plan. Now remember, I am on two 30 mg Oxycontin ER every 12 hours, which from what I thought and I'm 99% sure it's a 12 hour release medicine although I've read it varies but I've always been able to make it 12 hours or more. And the three 15mg of fast acting normal oxycodone for breakthru pain for 3 YEARS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So he tells me that he will titrate me down and it will be PAINLESS....same words my first Dr told me about Fentanyl and I didn't believe him but it was true.

So I think we come to an understanding and the nurse comes in and he gives me an RX for THREE 30mg Oxycontin ER Per day for one week, then TWO 30mg ER Oxycontin per day for the 2nd week, then finally ONE 30 mg ER Oxycontin per day for 1 week. Also gives me Clonidine and Lyrica.

I immediately tell the nurse this is crazy. First its a 12 hr med 3 times a day, then drops to what I was on originally MINUS the meds for breakthru, then One 30mg ER 12 hour med per day. I say this isn't what I thought we talked about.

So the nurse goes out and talkes to the DR and the nurse comes back in with...get this. Three 10mg Oxycontin ER per day for one week, then two 10 mg Oxycontin for 1 week and then one 10 mg Oxycontin for 1 week.
What about going to 20mg. I mean I could have just took the ridiculous amount and TRIED to titrate myself but how do you titrate without going down from 30mg to then 20mg then 15mg and so on.

I tell the nurse this is going to be a nightmare.

So of course day one I am in severe withdrawl. Skin burning to were I don't care and take extra. First day I take five 10 mg Oxycontin and I call. The say it should work. I say it's not. So I say screw it and take two 10mg 3 times a day....which even as I'm doing it I'm thinking this is stupid...it's a 12 hour med, why am I taking it three times a day, but the withdrawl was unbearable. I then stretch it over the week to two 10mg Oxycontin every 10 hrs which was the best I could do. To me it makes NO SENSE WHAT SOEVER TO TAKE A 12 HR MED 3 TIMES A DAY.

So I tell them, look I can't physically, painwise and almost more so withdrawl wise do this. I tell them I had to take two 10 mgs 3 times a day and that was hard. So they get the pharmacist involved...which I don't understand...isn't a pain Dr supposed to understand the idea of titration and withdrawl?

But I am at least thinking ok...now I will be ok. So the impression I got was they would figure it out and do it right. So they then give me AGAIN three 15mg Oxycontin...per day for a week. Ok....I'm thinking then 10mg Oxycontin for 1 week...then 5mg Oxycontin for a week. Which I was gonna try to go the full 12 hrs or as close to it as I could get. Well since I told them I was taking 20mg Oxycontin 3 times a day for 2 weeks by this time...they give me 15mg Oxycontin three times a day for a week, then two 15mg Oxcontin per day for a week then the final week...you guessed it...one 15mg Oxycontin for a week.

DOES THIS MAKE SENSE TO ANYONE ON THIS BOARD?
PLEASE HELP ME. I KNOW THERE IS NO WAY THIS WILL WORK. SINCE I HAVE COMPLAINED AND COMPLAINED THEY NOW WANT ME TO SEE AN ADDICTION SPECIALIST AND I AM LIKE .....GIVE ME AT LEAST A CHANCE TO GET OFF THESE IN A SANE AN PRACTICAL WAY THAT MAKES SENSE.

ANYONE EVER HERE OF TITRATING SOMEONE LIKE THIS? I AM JUST STARTING MY FIRST DAY OF 15 MG 3 TIMES A DAY...AGAIN THIS MAKES NO SENSE TO ME AND ITS JUST GONNA MAKE IT HARDER TO GO TO 2 TIMES A DAY IN A WEEK.

AND WE ARE TALKING OXYCONTIN EXTENDED RELEASE ON ALL THESE ABOVE ACCEPT WHERE I SAID OXYCODONE.


PLEASE GIVE ME SOME INSIGHT

THANKS

I am not pro-opioid. I am anti-pain.

I have no objection to anyone getting/tapering off their pain medications for any reason if that is their choice. I commend and support any such efforts, but I do ask, what if the pain is or becomes intolerable as a result? I don't need an answer, but I think anyone contemplating discontinuing an effective pain therapy should think it through carefully and answer it for themselves.

That said, I think this new doctor just wants to get you "off his books" so to speak.

So what anyone here thinks about a reasonable taper schedule doesn't really matter. It's this new doctor who is going to have to be convinced and agree, and it seems clear that (considering the pharmacist and addiction specialist) he either doesn't know, or would rather have you someone else's responsibility.

Opinions on reasonable tapering schedules for oxycontin can be readily found.

oxycontin taper schedule

What is your current dosage (as of today) and what would you consider a reasonable definite (no "3 or 4"s - establish definite amounts) tapering schedule that you would be willing to agree and commit to?

My suggestion (and feel free to ignore it) is to write up a definite schedule as described above, take it to your doctor and agree to sign it and be bound by it. If it's reasonable, he should have no objections. If he does, then I think you'll know the score.

Doc

Also try the forum search tool in my siggy - as this topic could be posted about across many of our forums.

Thanks to both of you, especially Dr Smith.

My Dr has written me off because of the phone calls that I made after he took me from 30mg Oxycontin ER twice a day and 15mg oxycodone three times a day, down to 10mg Oxyontin. Because I told the med assistant who called all my complaints about him...ie, he says one thing in the room and then when the nurse comes back in it's different. And because I was freaking out on the phone because my every nerve in my body was on fire, I wasn't sane sounding. I was just begging for him to see me again. Then the nurse said "well if he gives you another appt we will make sure someone is in there so there is no 'he said, she said'". Oh and I also told her how he asked me to fill out the survey they send to me after each visit. His main job seems to be to funnel people to Cleveland Clinic, which is what he tried to do. Another bone of contention I complained about him to the med asst is he tells me its a 2 week out patient program so I'd have to get a hotel, which I can't afford, along with the actual portion that medicare doesn't pay. Then the nurse walks in and tells me it's 3 and a half weeks long.

So in essense, I was inadvertantly calling him a liar or really just someone who doesn't know what he's talking about.

So he then said I needed to go to detox? *admin edit* I can barely get out of bed?

Bottomline is this Dr who I am not naming here but I think if I decide not to kill myself, I will make a website telling everything about him as I can build websites. I will try my best to make his life hell as he has made mine...of course I won't cause physical pain, hopefully just people who look him up online will not want him as a Dr.

*admin edit* I am so sick of being in a wheelchair and dealing with the day to day stuff I have to do just to live. I am a weight around my families neck and beyond the pain I am miserable. *admin edit*

I have a friend, very close friend who is also in a wheelchair. In fact we got hurt at the same time and both broke our backs. We shared a room in physical rehab when we where 17yrs old, it was an amazing coincindense and I wouldn't have made it thru the whole exp without him. He has the same general issues as me, yet he went to medical school and is a Dr with a wife and 3 kids. He was a tremendous athlete at the time he got hurt just as I was a mediocre one, but both of us would have played college ball. But this guy just was never phased by the limitations. And trust me I have friends in wc's and they have full lives some way worse than I, physically. But I personally just wasn't cut out for this life. I've trodged thru life from hobby to hobby. Adaptive skiing to wc basketball, to getting married to an angel and then destroying that. I was "born again" and really felt it. I've tried everything that I can that this life has to offer. I've tried to take my mind off the things I can't do and focus on the things I can. I've tried to realize how lucky I am, which I am. I have had great jobs and some great friends. Been with beautiful women, the whole nine. I've been successful at most things I've tried...not necessarily monetarily but the things that take my mind off this daily prison on wheels I live in. I have even met some of my idols in life. (subsequently, one of my idols who I met...a singer...drank himself to death.) Quite honestly, I am ready to be done with this life. It has nothing more for me. I know one of the side effects of getting off narcotics is depression. But I was depressed before that. And I know that's a side effect of being on them too.

If I had a nickel for every person, especially when I was younger, who would come up to me and say, "wow....it so amazing watching you put your wheelchair in the car...it takes like 10 seconds...amazing. Then we chat and they tell me "you deserve so much credit for just going on and doing so well." Used to get that all the time when I'd ski moguls in a mono ski to shoot 3 pointers on a basketball court to just grocery shopping...and they'd finish by saying "if that happened to me, I'd probably kill myself...I wouldn't be able to take it". Well you know...I used to think that before my accident too when I saw others in wc's and it turns out I was right. I have been able to distract myself from the daily grind that someone in a wc goes thru for over 25 years and I can't do it anymore. And sadly, and selfishly...I would rather die and now and leave my life ins policy and yes it covers suicide after 2 years of having it...to my loved ones. If there is a hell....I'll go. If there's nothing, then great. If there's a God who understands...even better.

You know the old saying "it's better to have loved and lost, than to never have loved at all." I couldn't disagree more. I have friends who were born unable to walk and do the other million things that I can't do anymore. And one day I was talking to one of them and I said "I feel so bad that you never got to run etc etc etc etc." And his reply to me...."that's funny because I feel sorry for you. You know what it was like to do those things but now you can't. This is all I've ever known, so I don't know what I am missing." HE WAS SO RIGHT. Oh and he is happy as hell in life.

Sorry to ramble...and please don't waste your time trying to tell me why I shouldn't and all the other stuff I myself would say to someone who I read a post like this from. I know all those answers. I'm just tired of living this life I never wanted.

Anyway, I don't even know why I bothered to write all this here, probably because I have nowhere else to say it. Again, thanks for the info, it was helpful.

I won't be coming back to the forum, unless I win the lottery, in the next week. If I win, I'd probably stick around until I ran out of things to distract myself with again.

Peace

PS. And if you want to warn your kids, or you yourself are young...tell them to BE *admin edit* CAREFUL. All these kids doing stunts and all the stuff they do in the Jackass movies (which I love to watch btw) It is just SO NOT WORTH doing anything that you could break your back or neck. I'm not saying live in a bubble. I'm just saying don't take silly risks that one false move and you lose almost everything....and sometimes almost everything....is everything.

You are not being weaned off the drug properly. I don't know what your doctor is thinking at this point. I agree with Doc Smith, it sound like your doctor wants to be finished with you. You need to seek another pain specialist, and come off this medication in a more gental way.
I took morphine for 12 years, and I wanted off my medication as well. I was dropped 15gms, a month for 6 months. It was awful at times just with that. Someone needs to be on top of your situation, so you don't have to suffer needlessly. Clonopin was given to me as well to help with the side effects. Can you talk to this doctor of yours? It just sounds crazy to me on the approach he is using. I am sorry for your discomfort, I do know what you are experinecing. Ginnie

Want to be free,

Even if you don't come back to see this, I hope that you will be able to feel the prayers coming your way. My prayers that you will once again be able to find happiness and hope.......and a way out of the darkness.