Dubwon

Hello everyone,

I am brand new to the site and am hoping someone will be able to help me set up a schedule to taper off of Oxycontin. Where to begin? Well I am a tall and thin male who in my earlier years was quite active in athletics. I used to eat, sleep, breath and basically live basketball in high school. That is when I first remember experiencing any sort of significant back pain. I would run till I was ready to drop, sweat like nobody's business and then if any cool air hit my back, my lumbar paraspinal muscles would go into spasm.

Back then I was used to being in pain everyday from training and thought nothing of it. As the years went by, I changed to triathlon and the pain continued off and on. When I finished university I finished with sports pretty much altogether but the pain continued off and on. Severe cases had me unable to put on socks and shoes and it was here where I reached out for medical "help." My doctor gave me Vicoden, muscle relaxers and anti-inflammatories. I would have flair-ups once or twice a year, which increased to two or three times and then once every couple of months.

This went on for years. I thought it was just normal. Then about a year and a half ago (?) the pain just never went away. I moved up from Vicoden to Oxycontin 20 mg, 40 and then even 80 mg tablets with that doctor. Before I knew what was even happening, I was taking 240 mgs per day and had tried every treatment under the sun. Chiropractic, Physiotherapy, massage therapy, accupuncture, acupressure, traction, as well as combinations and bits and pieces of each to try to find something that worked for me.

In the interest of keeping this short lets just say I put in a great deal of time and spent a small fortune at this, all the while becoming severely physically and psychologically addicted to my pain medications. I tried to stop taking them and got gravely ill. Three days into cold turkey I was taken into an emergency room and immediately hooked up to an IV. I had cold sweats, a bad fever I couldn't remember the last time I had eaten or hydrated. I had diarrhea and a migraine that had tears streaming down my cheeks at the slightest sound or bright light.

The doctor asked me what dosage I had been taking and for how long and he said he didn't want to mess around or take any chances, he put me on a morphine drip and said people who just suddenly stop after being on such high doses for so long have been known to have seizures. He recommended I taper down and get off of Oxy ASAP.

At that point I thought I only had a herniated disk with nerve root indentation, bulging of another disk and compressed disks. Later I was to be diagnosed with fibromyalgia and here I am today still on the same dosage and wanting desperately to get this horrible monkey off of my back. It has ruined my life. My family, my career, jobs, friends, my health all that is near and dear to me has fallen to the wayside because of this horrid drug (or my lack of compatibility with it/control over it.)

Whichever way you choose to look at it, I need to get off of the stuff and now!!! I will need a lot of support and a schedule to accomplish my goal. I am an expatriate living abroad with not much for a support group around me. If you have made it this far, thanks for sticking it out with me. Talk soon I hope.

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