[serenityqueen]

Yea, pain sucks bad right now, dont know what to do about it because nothing works like opiates. BUT Im not going back to that, so I guess pain it is....

I have to disagree with that statement.

I'm not sure what your pain is a result of, but for me, the combination of drugs that my Dr. uses to TREAT my diseases actually do work better than the opiates I was addicted to.

I have Lupus, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Osteoarthritis, and recently diagnosed degenerative disc disese. When I was using, any Rx my Dr. gave me that wasn't a narcotic went right in the trash . . . I never even had the script filled. I had myself convinced that if it wasn't gonna get my high. . . it wasn't going to do anything for my pain. And as long as I had that thought in my head, anything other than opiates else wasn't going to do anything to ease my pain.

After I got into Recovery, my Dr's began to prescribe many different meds that actually treat the diseases rather than just mask the pain. Of course every disease has a different treatment, but I take Naprosyn twice a day, everyday and after a few weeks and much to my surprise it actually had began to get the inflamation down which causes the pain. Good ol Naprosyn, which I used to call glorified Motin actually does work! I also take a med that is generally used for treatment in Cancer patients but because it slows down cell reproduction, it works in some patients with Lupus and RA. I also take one med that was originally prescribed only for Malaria patients, yeph, you read this right, Malaria. But it works well for some Lupus patients. Unfortunately I have to take steroids as well. When the Dr.'s try to wean me off of it, I have too much infammation in some of my vital organs so I'll have to stay on it until a new medicine is invented. And there are other meds that I take that all play a part in my pain being manageable.

I truly believe that some of us addicts are big babies. We don't like pain. We are used to numbing our pain and when we can't, we're not real happy. The other day, like Barb, I was in so much pain that I actually told my best friend that if I had any pain pills, I think I may have taken one. But I had to remember, I am an addict whose DOC is opiates. For this addict, taking an opiate pain pill is much like playing Russian Roulette . . . with a loaded gun. It would surely take me right back out. But I learned a very valuable lesson by this, I didn't use any opiates, I got out my friend the heating pad, nuked some rice socks (see thread on Pain Mgt. forum) turned on a really boring movie on tv and laid down on my bed. I woke up a few hours later, feeling a little bit better. . . and very, very grateful that I didn't have any pain pills here. I got through it . . . it didn't kill me. . . nor have I ever heard of someone actually dying from pain.

By no means am I saying that some addicts/alcoholics can take opiates as prescribed and not go back out. Am I envious of them? Sure I am! I wish I could be one of them, but I'm not. Acceptance once again has proven to be valuable to me.

God Bless,
Judy