suboxonetalkzone

Hello Everyone ! So glad to have found this forum after recent and expected problems with the MS Contin that I am scripted for, for relief of Diabetic Neuropathy / foot pain, bilateral.
A brief, I hope, Hx: My first encounter with addiction was with alcohol which I started using heavily in the middle of High School.
In 1973, after 18 years of alcoholic drinking my pancreas ruptured, the medicos saved my life, barely, and I became a Type 1 Diabetic. I was a 'total' diabetic because the damage to the organ had destroyed my ability to produce insulin - or should I say that 4 further years of drinking destroyed that function ( addicted to the juice I did not connect these events with alcohol, and 'swear' that no medical person ever brought it to my attention until some years later. I did stop drinking thru AA in 1979, and thankfully have never had to drink since then. )
Anyway - 3 more operations, the pancreas completely calcified closed, and since 1991 I have been on 5 cans of Ensure Plus per day, and artificial digestive enzymes.
That liquids-only diet contributed to poor sugar control, not to disregard advancing age (I am 67) which led to the onset of the severe foot pain in 2006. My GP started me on morphine (MS Contin) at 30 mg/twice daily, then 2 years ago 45 mg/twice per day.
Now the problems start: A year ago I asked for an increase to 60mg /twice daily as the pain was breaking through regularly.
My Doc, God bless her, went totally ballistic ! I think there was professional concern, and also fear of being "called up on the carpet" by the Regulatory people. What happened next was that she started me simultaneously on Lyrica - but she blew the prescribing and had me overdosing within weeks, and before I could even begin reducing the MS Contin. Summer and she was unavailable - so I buttoned down for a miserable withdrawal from both: my head was so frigged that I could not see any alternative: I really feared that I was dying from the combo of 2 painkillers, along with my anti-depressant and diazepam. I got lucky.
Somewhere along about a week later I had a moment of clarity, sufficient to call an ambulance, and after being addmitted to the Psych Ward - I lose 3 days, then remember the next week of modified WD: the morphine having been restored, and the Lyrica and some of the Diazepam being boiled off.
OK: Today ... since last December the feeling has been returning to my feet - not pain yet - but increasing awareness of everything below my ankles. These days I can mis-walk and cause pain, and spasms of the muscles are nasty too. This situation comes from what my Doc asked me to do last October " Try and Hang Tough ... " - like, I had any alternative ? I expect, and fear that any day now the pain will return with it's former ferocity, so am seeing her this Fri the 13th (Yeah, I know !) to beg for an increase again.
Lyrica (Pregabalin) is not covered by the Government Drug Plan and is beyond my financial reach. (She had started me on it using Doctors' Samples - which come in too high a starting dose anyway.)
Here I need advice: Does anyone have experience with Morphine /MS Contin to be able to tell me whether 45mg or 60mg, twice a day, is really a 'High' dose ~ or is she just panicking from unfamiliarity with it, and her textbook learning about addiction and tolerance ? I workedfor several years in the local Hospital's Detox Unit - and my memory tells me that we were usually dealing with much heavier doses than that - of all the opiate dependancies which presented. If she still refuses to raise the Morphine and then wants me to come off of it - well I will be asking for the Buprenorphine (just approved here in Canada 2 years ago). I have read a lot of the subdoc's stuff and have followed these blogs too - it seems to be what I will need, and I really wonder if it will work as a pain blocker too. Any and all comments or advice are welcomed at this time, as my head has not been what it used to be for awhile and that is probably the morphine.
Thank you, and Bless you all.
Bigjohnb, Kingston, Ontario, Canada.

Wow what a story. I have pancreatic problems, but not even close to what yours are like. I know that pain though. I have chronic pancreatitis, 'idiopathic' because I never really drank.

I have no idea why she panicked on you, because it certainly seems to me that your pain is legitimate. Your guess is probably right in that she has no idea about the drug but has some set number that makes her panic. Pain doctors are known to be that way. It doesn't sound like you dramatically increased your medication in a short amount of time, probably even less than when the tolerance hit the limit and you had constant pain.

I have had Buprenorphine myself, and to be honest, it completely took the pain away! And the runs, because you are on enzymes like myself so you are familiar with that more than likely (well, maybe not having morphine).

Unfortunately as you may have read from Dr. Junig's various blogs, that buprenorphine has a ceiling, which is around 30mg methadone/90? mg of morphine in analgesic effect. For me, I never reached even 60mg/day of oxycodone when in pain management, or anything greater in equivalence, so the 8mg of suboxone I took each day actually had GREATER analgesic effect than what I was used to before.

Another strange thing about suboxone (at least for me), was I developed a tolerance very slowly, especially to the analgesic properties. I was pleasantly suprised on how well it did relieve my pain. Another good thing is the long half life, you can dose 1x a day or even 1x every 2 days.

Is there a downside? Yeah. Like any other opiate, it has a withdrawal, but to be honest, its not nearly as bad as others. I stopped at 8mg/day and I had about 2-3 weeks of withdrawal, but I could still function. Just more annoying than anything. About 3 days were pretty bad.

Don't let what people say on the 'net scare you about the drug, it really does have some interesting properties and it was pretty effective for pain at least in me. The transition to Suboxone was a little rough, mainly had some nausea and headaches at first, but once I started to get more tolerant to it, it was really good.

bigjohnb wrote::?
Hello Everyone ! So glad to have found this forum after recent and expected problems with the MS Contin that I am scripted for, for relief of Diabetic Neuropathy / foot pain, bilateral.
A brief, I hope, Hx: My first encounter with addiction was with alcohol which I started using heavily in the middle of High School.
In 1973, after 18 years of alcoholic drinking my pancreas ruptured, the medicos saved my life, barely, and I became a Type 1 Diabetic. I was a 'total' diabetic because the damage to the organ had destroyed my ability to produce insulin - or should I say that 4 further years of drinking destroyed that function ( addicted to the juice I did not connect these events with alcohol, and 'swear' that no medical person ever brought it to my attention until some years later. I did stop drinking thru AA in 1979, and thankfully have never had to drink since then. )
Anyway - 3 more operations, the pancreas completely calcified closed, and since 1991 I have been on 5 cans of Ensure Plus per day, and artificial digestive enzymes.
That liquids-only diet contributed to poor sugar control, not to disregard advancing age (I am 67) which led to the onset of the severe foot pain in 2006. My GP started me on morphine (MS Contin) at 30 mg/twice daily, then 2 years ago 45 mg/twice per day.
Now the problems start: A year ago I asked for an increase to 60mg /twice daily as the pain was breaking through regularly.
My Doc, God bless her, went totally ballistic ! I think there was professional concern, and also fear of being "called up on the carpet" by the Regulatory people. What happened next was that she started me simultaneously on Lyrica - but she blew the prescribing and had me overdosing within weeks, and before I could even begin reducing the MS Contin. Summer and she was unavailable - so I buttoned down for a miserable withdrawal from both: my head was so frigged that I could not see any alternative: I really feared that I was dying from the combo of 2 painkillers, along with my anti-depressant and diazepam. I got lucky.
Somewhere along about a week later I had a moment of clarity, sufficient to call an ambulance, and after being addmitted to the Psych Ward - I lose 3 days, then remember the next week of modified WD: the morphine having been restored, and the Lyrica and some of the Diazepam being boiled off.
OK: Today ... since last December the feeling has been returning to my feet - not pain yet - but increasing awareness of everything below my ankles. These days I can mis-walk and cause pain, and spasms of the muscles are nasty too. This situation comes from what my Doc asked me to do last October " Try and Hang Tough ... " - like, I had any alternative ? I expect, and fear that any day now the pain will return with it's former ferocity, so am seeing her this Fri the 13th (Yeah, I know !) to beg for an increase again.
Lyrica (Pregabalin) is not covered by the Government Drug Plan and is beyond my financial reach. (She had started me on it using Doctors' Samples - which come in too high a starting dose anyway.)
Here I need advice: Does anyone have experience with Morphine /MS Contin to be able to tell me whether 45mg or 60mg, twice a day, is really a 'High' dose ~ or is she just panicking from unfamiliarity with it, and her textbook learning about addiction and tolerance ? I workedfor several years in the local Hospital's Detox Unit - and my memory tells me that we were usually dealing with much heavier doses than that - of all the opiate dependancies which presented. If she still refuses to raise the Morphine and then wants me to come off of it - well I will be asking for the Buprenorphine (just approved here in Canada 2 years ago). I have read a lot of the subdoc's stuff and have followed these blogs too - it seems to be what I will need, and I really wonder if it will work as a pain blocker too. Any and all comments or advice are welcomed at this time, as my head has not been what it used to be for awhile and that is probably the morphine.
Thank you, and Bless you all.
Bigjohnb, Kingston, Ontario, Canada.