June 22, 2006 - 12:26am
Do to spine injury in 1967 I have been taking pain meds(codiene/morphine ect) and because of long term use I'm haveing to increase the dosages on both my codiene and morphine. Does anyone know if there are any medications that can clean the opiates out of my system thus making it possable for me to get the same benefit from lower mgs?
I know that there are some drugs that are given to drug addicts to help them through withdrawals and was wondering if they might apply to this problem.
June 22, 2006 - 7:42pm
#2
uummmm....
Phisher, The only problem is is that he is taking the pills dueto pain. If you ran him through detox, it wouldn't solve his pain problem, the reason he's on opiates to begin with. Now, befoire I start my 2 cents, please understand I am NOT medically trained, nor should this costitute medical advice in ANY way! Now, the way I see it is that the pain level is constant (the same intensity), the only problem is that you need to keep taking higher and higher levels of opiates to lower your pain levels as your body becomes,for loss of the correct word, adapted to the level of drugs currently used. So, you'd either need to change to a totally different pill or lower your pain level. (less meds needed to counteract less pain). I read somewhere (I'll try to look it up) where a local anesthetic is apply close to the nerve causing pain, which for short term will shut down the pain, but has the after effect of causing the pain experienced to be significantly lower than before the proceedure. Whether this will work for you is up to you and your doctor. The other way would be for a completely different class of drugs that your body hasn't built a tolerance for and then add something that will help with the opiate withdrawal. Maybe methadone would work for treating both. Just out of curiosity, have you asked your doctor about this? Maybe he knows something.
See Local anesthethic Periphrial Nerve injection
June 23, 2006 - 6:29am
#3
"Phisher, The only problem
"Phisher, The only problem is is that he is taking the pills dueto pain. If you ran him through detox, it wouldn't solve his pain problem, the reason he's on opiates to begin with."
rawoody, i am well aware why he is taking the meds. it is very common for chronic pain patients to undergo "drug holidays" were they detox from their current pain meds to either switch to another opiod or to attempt to lower their tolerance and start over at lower doses again (though often patients regain their tolerance very quickly so in essence this doesnt work). i understand that he would still have pain that required treating.
the original poster asked, "Does anyone know if there are any medications that can clean the opiates out of my system thus making it possable for me to get the same benefit from lower mgs?" and my answere addressed that question.
maybe you just didnt understand what i was saying.
(edited by TeamPharmer)
there are a couple of rx drugs now that used to treat opiod dependencey that allow a patient to safely taper off w/out nearly as bad w/drawals, and i believe at least one of them contains no opiates at all (i think).
also their are at least two states now that have a rapid detox system where they place you under anesthisia and rapidly push the drugs through your body so that someone is only left w/ the mental component of dependency.
as for the slow methods, if i am understanding the question correctly, the opiods only stay in the body for approx 72hrs, due to short half lifes, anyway so they should be gone quickly if you decided to stop their use