trapped2008

I'll try to keep this short and with as little whining as possible. Let me start by saying that I KNOW that my bottom may look like luxury to some. I know I am lucky to have a family who will take me in and a job when everyone is hurting for money....I'm off track.

I addicted to pain pills..mostly loratabs. That's what I thought anyway until I couldn't get ahold of them recently (for about two months)and started upping my prescribed Ativan(that I've been off and on...mostly on since around 14yrs. I'm 32 now) to make it around the opiate withdrawal symptoms that i'd started to feel from no pain pills.(oh and I'm on zoloft & welbutrin and have been on some antidepresant since 12 or so).

I BELIEVE that I've only been abusing the pain pills for about a year now. I took them at parties once in a blue moon in college then was diagnossed with Trigiminial Nueralgia a disease that is extremelly painful but not constantly...so they were around. Over time I started taking them when I felt sad and in the last year it's been daily no matter how I felt.

I've been lurking and researching for a while, so the "sub route" looks right to me since I can't tell enough people to make it cold turkey...plus I'm scared. Scared of my depression of what will happen in my head if I feel worse than I do now.

Still can't "find anything" and running low on my ativan. I am feeling withdrawals from both now, I think.

2 questions(for now..ha):
is anyone taking their antidepresants with pain pills or did you?

can i even be considered for the sub programs if i take antidepressants and ativan regularly?

OK. Hit me.

windysan

Bvajalo knows all about the sub programs. Let him cool down from politics and I'm sure he'll be in here to give you the skinny.

windysan

He prolly ain't looked in here or he woulda said something by now. I didn't do sub or bupe. I went to a psych ward, kicked, then did a 28 day rehab. The physical stuff is over pretty quick especially if your doing Lortabs. Medical detox is the way to go. They don't let you suffer too bad. Sub is a whole nuther story and I don't know much about it.

trapped2008

Thanks so much, Windy. I was actually looking forward to his post...and a little scared of it. (ha...I've been watching his responses. I know he'll be right on and VERY direct.)

I was looking into medical detox in my area and there is a pretty
reputable(sp?) place nearby...that's mainly my question. What will be done about detoxing from the opiates and(if) maintaing the other meds...?

I guess it depends on the program...that's what it seems, since some stay on their benzo's & anti-d's and some don't.

I've screwed up so bad..I am so ashamed of myself and scared.

windysan

Well, don't count on them letting you take the benzos in there. Most detox/rehab place will let you take anti-depressants but the frown on benzos. No use being ashamed, man. Just do something about it. The longer you put it off the harder it's gonna be. 15 years is a LONG time to be on a drug that is supposed to be for short term use(Ativan). Ativan cold turkey is DANGEROUS too. What's your daily intake of the Lortabs and the Ativan?

windysan

Hey man, I gotta head out and work for the gubmint but I dropped bvajalo a line and told him to get up with you about the sub. Take some deep breaths cuz the world ain't over yet. You'll get better. You gotta want it real bad though. Keep posting.

trapped2008

Yeah, Windy, I'm realizing that my doc kept me on those for most my life and I just accepted blindly. Of course I was a kid when they started me on them... I had no idea that they were so dangerous or to be used for short term. I know I'm not the only person whose been medicated in this way...no doc ever even questioned it.

I take 1mg ativan 4x's a day, zoloft & welbutrin...don't have the dosage in front of me and they just changed it not long ago, so I can't remember what it is right now.

As for the "tabs"...it varies. I'd say the average might be 6 to 10 10's a day, but recently I've only had one or two a day (most days) to keep from withdrawing until I can get into a program of some sort.

I emailed that facility I was talking about and haven't heard back yet.

windysan

If you're down to a couple of lortabs a day then I don't see why you'd want to start on sub. The withdrawals won't be that bad. The Ativan you'll need to be very careful with though. You can just cold turkey those things. Some people are hardcore anti-benzo and they would tell you to quit them. I ain't a doctor so I ain't gonna tell you that. Some people I know who've taken them for years just need to take them or they go nuts. You're on a smorgasbord of chemicals and you need to get a doctor to help you quit the ones the doctor feels you need to quit. I don't get into the pain/opiates discussions because I don't have pain issues and I don't know what I'm talking about when it comes to pain. I do know that opiates "created pain" for me if that makes any sense. If I were you I wouldn't be too afraid of kicking that dose of Lortabs. You'll need some time off work(a week is best) and you'll need to stay hydrated with gatorade or whatever. Lomitil for the trots and ibuprofen for the aches. There's a pile of information on this site about what to do when kicking. Bvaj will prolly tell you to forget the sub when on the lortab dose that you're on. I'm for just getting the dopesickness over and done with. But that's just me and I ain't the sharpest tool in the shed. You should definitely talk to a doctor with addiction experience about everything. Be very careful with the ativan and the antidepressants.....that stuff can get real weird if you shock your system. Keep posting and don't be bummed about it. You're in good company.

ccgirl2

Hey, I don't know about sub programs, but Windy's right; they're probably not going to let you take benzos. Anti depressants, I'm not sure, but I would think if you have a medical condtion that requires them.... btw opiates totally negate the benefits of anti depressants. Trust me. I know.

Lady_Blue

Hey trapped....I'm in the same boat w/ ya....been abusing norco (hydro's 10/325) for YEARS too....ALSO take anti-depressants....AND benzo's. All Dr. prescribed. I DON'T need the pain pills....but I do suffer from depression & anxiety. I have not abused the benzo's, until my LAST RX.....when I too was in a dither from kickin' the opiates. I agree, I would NOT take the subs using such a low dose of tabs. I've ate as many as 26 norco a day....(I KNOW. DUMBA$$) but...that's what years worth of tolerance will get you....Here's an article that I found and thought was VERY interesting. Nobody needs to be gettin' on my case about it. Its JUST a theory, and I am thinking it's probably correct. I am simply sharing. As of now; for the millionth time, I am 4 days clean from opiates. (Norco) Windy's right. Take some Immodium. Your nose & eyes may be runnin' too. I personally took some benedryl for it I told on myself to my Dr. (shrink) a LONG time ago. He TRIED to take me off .5 mg xanax 4 times a day...cold turkey when I admitted to my drug problem. I immediately protested.....letting HIM KNOW that I KNEW how potentially dangerous it IS/WAS to go cold turkey off benzo's. SO...he cut me down to .25 mg 3 times a day......that's where I am now. I know what's ahead of me. I'm hoping to kick for good this time. Take good care sweets.....

Calming the Anxious Brain
Could opioids help with anxiety disorders?
By Maia Szalavitz for MSN Health & Fitness

Maia Szalavitz is a journalist and author who covers the intersection between mind, brain and behavior. She's a regular contributor to Brain & Body.
Could people with anxiety disorders be suffering because they’re not producing enough endogenous opioids—the brain chemicals best known as natural painkillers?
Animal research has long suggested that if you prevent these neurotransmitters from acting, rats fail to become accustomed to initially frightening stimuli. Now, a new study published in the Journal of Neuroscience shows that the same thing happens in humans.
This could help explain why people with anxiety disorders and those who suffer childhood trauma have elevated rates of addiction to opioid drugs like heroin and Vicodin—and even suggests that such medications could potentially have a role in anxiety disorder treatment.
Here’s how it works: Ordinarily, if you pair a tone with an electric shock, a rat learns to fear the tone and expect the shock. Over time, while the experience never exactly becomes pleasant, the rat eventually realizes that nothing dire is really going to happen and chills out.
If you give a drug that prevents the brain’s opioids from working, however, the rat never mellows. In fact, his fear escalates and he becomes increasingly terrorized with each experience of the shock and tone.
This is exactly what happens in people with phobias: Every time they see a snake or a spider or have to deal with crowds or heights, their fear spikes, rather than calming the way it does for unaffected people.
Scanning the brain
The new research involved 30 men, studied in a brain scanner. They were shown pictures of triangles or pentagons—in half of the trials, the sight of one of the shapes was followed by a painful (but not dangerous) blast of heat to the forearm. The other shape was always “safe”—no pain occurred when it was shown.
Half of the men were given the opioid-blocking drug naloxone, the same drug used to treat overdose; the other half got placebo.
Both in terms of brain response and behavior, the men given the naloxone were more like the phobic rats: Although the other men got used to the heat, those on naloxone found it more aversive over time, not less so.
This could be seen in the amygdala—a brain area that processes fear—which continued to light up in the naloxone group after it had calmed amongst the others.
What this suggests is that brain opioids modulate our response to fear—they make formerly frightening situations tolerable, and they tell us everything’s going to be OK.
Consequently, it’s unsurprising that people whose lives have been marked by high levels of fear and threat, like child abuse victims or people with anxiety disorders, would be attracted to drugs that reproduce this effect—problems develop when a compulsive pattern of use occurs in which negative consequences outweigh benefits. People who have anxiety disorders are four to six times as likely to suffer from addiction as those who do not—and child abuse notoriously multiplies addiction risk.
Our opioid complex
Before the advent of modern antidepressant and anxiety medications, opioids were actually used to treat anxiety and depression with some effectiveness. Now, however, fears about addiction have created a legal framework that makes such use wildly controversial.
This tends to prevent researchers from even studying the question, despite research finding that opioids can be used to treat chronic pain without causing addiction in the vast majority of cases and despite the successful use of maintenance treatments for addicts.
The new study’s lead author, Falk Eippert, a Ph.D. candidate at the Department of Systems Neuroscience at University Medical Center in Hamburg, Germany, notes that Andrea Kozak and colleagues at Northwestern University in Chicago have proposed studying opioids for use during “exposure therapy,” which is the most effective treatment for phobias.
Unfortunately, because exposure therapy involves repeated encounters with the object of one’s terror, many patients cannot tolerate it. Consequently, something that could improve people’s ability to withstand exposure could be extremely useful in therapy.
Kozak has studied the use of the opioid-blocking drug naltrexone (which, like naloxone, has the opposite effect of opioids and can reverse overdose) during exposure treatment.
As you might predict from Eippert’s results, this backfired. Patients given naltrexone were less able to stand exposure treatment and their fear actually got worse over time.
So would giving opioids help? Eippert says that a potential problem is the phenomenon known as “state-dependent learning.” What this means is that “subjects might learn to reduce their fear under therapy with opioids, but might not be able to use this strategy when drug-free.”
This phenomenon has been documented with other drugs: For example, if you study for a test when you are high, you’ll be more likely to recall the material if you take the test high, as well. Your brain recalls the material better in context—if that context happens to be stoned, your recall of it will be better when you are also stoned. (Note: This is not meant as any sort of test-taking advice!)
If opioids reduced fear only during the exposure sessions and this didn’t generalize to real life, that wouldn’t be of much use.
But until someone does the research, we won’t know.
Lady_Blue