Questions about tapering off Oxycodone and Morphine.

Hello all,

This is my first post, I have been a fan of this site for a couple years now and have read many, many, posts. Most of which have been informative and helpful. However, I am now in need of some advice and thus I am creating this thread.

A little background:

First off, a little background. I am currently 29 years old and had suffered from chronic pain on the right side of my head anywhere from the top of my head down to the top of my neck (under my jaw). I had to go about 3 years and through about 5 doctors total before I found one that believed me. Once I started seeing that doctor and he ordered the right tests, referred me to the right neurologist and neurosurgeon, I finally got a conclusive (as much as you can get with my condition, there is no test that can be done to confirm) diagnosis. Even tho it wasn't 100% conclusive at least I had a couple different doctors (specialists in the field) all agreeing on what they thought I had. Turns out I had Trigeminal Neuralgia and Glosso (I won't even bother with the whole word) Neuralgia. Which is a very painful type of facial pain, one of the most painful conditions known to man, nicknamed the suicide disease. I was pretty sure I had TN and GN a few years prior since my father had it as well. I recently had a Microvascular Decompression surgery done which ended the pain almost completely from the time I woke up from surgery. Things have been going well since the surgery and the pain from the surgery is starting to fade as well. You can Google "Trigeminal Neuralgia" to find out more about this painful disorder, it is a rare and quite frequently misdiagnosed/underdiagnosed. There are even some videos of the Microvascular Decompression or MVD procedure that I had done, just do a search on YouTube.com for "Microvascular Decompression" and you'll find a couple different ones.

Now to the point/questions:

On to my question and reason for making this post. My doc had me on 10/325 Percocets, 6 times a day, and 30mg MSContin, 3 times a day, this was for about 8 months or so. When I was in the hospital I was moved up to 45mg of morphine 3 times a day and 4 - 5mg OxyIRs, every 3 hours. When I went home I continued to need that amount for about 2 or 3 days then I was able to go down to the same level I was at before the surgery without much pain breaking through. I have been on the morphine and 2 - 5mg OxyIRs every 4 hours for a couple weeks now as I have to wait to see my PCP. I found out when I got home from the hospital and called my clinic for a refill on my meds that my PCP had completed his residency and no longer worked at the clinic. I was unable to find out what was going on for about 3 days when my doc called me to let me know what was up. He filled me in on what was going on and referred me to a different doctor at the clinic. I was able to get more meds from the surgeon and we agreed to stay at the amount I was used to taking before the surgery until I could get into see this new doctor and he could work on weening me off the meds.

I've been taking 2 - 5mg OxyIR's and 3 - 30mg MSContin's a day since then and have my appointment with the new doc on the 24th, next Wednesday. What I am wondering is what I should expect the doctor to want to do about tapering me down to get off the meds and how should I handle telling him I need to continue at this dose for at least another week or two because the pain is still quite untolerable yet. I don't want to seem like an addict and don't want to possibly ruin it with this doctor because I am pretty sure I will be back in the same boat with the left side as I am having the same symptoms on the left as I did on the right several years ago. I definitely want to get off the meds and I am quite frankly getting pretty sick of them, but I also want to be comfortable until I am recovered. I've been on opioid type pain medicine for well over a year now, starting with Vicodin, and have never exhibited signs of addiction or abuse, never asked for a script early and never had a dirty drug screen. My doctor never asked me for a drug test but I told him that I would give him one right now or anytime he wants, no problem. I do not do any kind of drugs, nor do I even drink alcohol.

Also, I was on the Percs (oxycodone/tylenol) 10/325's before the surgery and am now taking the 5mg OxyIR's from when I was in the hospital to now, I have found that 2 - 5mg OxyIR's are more effective for me then 1 - 10mg Perc. I would like to stay on the OxyIR's, regardless of the shortage issues, and would like some advice on how I should ask my new doctor to keep me on those until I am tapered off and completely stop taking anything.

Well, that is all, thank you all for listening/reading my somewhat long post. Also, I would like to thank everyone in advance for any and all advice that I can get especially before Wednesday, June 24th, 2009 .

GK

Ex-Trigeminal Neuralgia & Glossopharyngeal Neuralgia Sufferer

Pain-free (Excluding post surgery pain) since Thursday afternoon, May 21st, 2009

P.S. For all of you out there that are still in pain but don't have a diagnosis or reason, let alone a possible cure, please - don't give up hope!