Magdalena wrote:
> As a lot of you know, I've been dealing with a pretty serious illness,
> cancer to be specific. When I first was diagnosed, I was enrolled in
a
> clinical trial, which made my many kicks from heroin and 'done seem
> like a walk in the park. I had no idea anything could be worse than
> cold turkeying a 20 bag a day habit or just stopping going to the
> clinic cold. But, believe me, being a guinea pig for chemotherapy
> makes kicking dope a cakewalk. Even though I had opiates prescribed
for
> me that I would have given anything for in my younger days, I was
> sicker than I imagined a person could be. The entire time I was
> participating in this trial, I kept telling myself it was worth it,
> because I would get well and this nightmare would be over. But it
> didn't work. I guess that's why these things are called trials; they
> might work, they might not. So, I had to start all over again, with
> surgery and conventional chemotherapy for my form of cancer this time.
> And guess what? It's working!!! I am just about finished with this
> round of chemotherapy and my oncologist tells me I'm going into
> remission. So, it looks like all these months of putting my life on
> hold, giving up eating and losing all my hair was worth it.
>
> I've spent a lot of time in bed these past months. My life became
> reduced to trying to stay ahead of the pain, leaving the house only to
> go for my treatments or to go into the hospital, vegging out in front
> of the tv, because I couldn't even concentrate enough to read a book
> and reading usenet occasionally. Believe me, there were many days when
> even attempting to log onto the internet was too much for me. But,
> this is all in the past now. I have a couple of more treatments to do
> and then I have to relearn how to function in the real world again,
> something I'm really looking forward to doing.
>
> This brings me to another problem I see on the horizon. As you all
can
> imagine, I've had every kind of opiate I might have ever thought about
> doing literally thrown at me since my diagnosis. At my appointment
> with the oncologist this week, he brought up the fact that since my
> pain levels are dropping, I need to think about stopping some of the
> opiates I'm doing. Just so you know what I'm referring to, I
currently
> take approximately 200 mg of methadone a day, supplemented with
> dilaudid IV, approx 60 mg a day and Actiq 1600 mcg suckers. I
normally
> use about 4 or 5 suckers a day. I even have this nifty little ****t
> that given me instant IV access without any of that messy hunting for
> my long non-existant veins. So, now that I don't have that god awful
> pain anymore, I'm going to have to suck it up and wean off, or at
least
> significantly wean down, on these. I don't trust doctors to know how
> to best wean someone off opiates; that was a lesson I learned at the
> clinic when I went on 'done years ago. I figure ADH has the best
> knowledge base for stopping opiates with as little pain as possible.
> So, what do you guys suggest? I'd like to have something to present
> the doctor with when he brings this up again, as I know he will after
> my chemo is done and I'm officially in remission. Any suggestions
> gratefully appreciated. Beleive me, I'd like to do this as easily as
> possible. I still have nightmares from stopping 'done years ago.
> Magdalena
Clonidine, hydroxyzine & Valium or Mogodon by the clock YMMV but I have
done a 12-12-12-10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-2-2-1 clonidine tablet taper and up
to 200 mg of hydroxyzine and conservative benzo doses.
Carisoprodol or meprobamate at night.
Scopolamine for vomiting, something for diarrhoea (opiate or not) and
naproxen with paracetamol at the same time as needed.
Lots of ice cream or other cold foods.
--
Agent 69
alt.drugs.hydromorphone
"...some say true comedy is the work of genius. I disagree, the
funniest **** I ever saw was all the work of halfwits."
-- Si, in alt.drugs.hard, 5. May 2005
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