Doctors are abusing this program as much as I abused drugs

Author: theonethedude

Posted: Sat May 25, 2013 1:07 am

To be completely honest. blunt, and frank, I got myself into this situation of being a drug addict. I’m willing to wager that most people on this forum can say the same, aside from those who got hooked because of long-term pain management. No one forced me to get addicted to Opiodes, I made that mistake all by myself, and unfortunately, I now have to pay the consequences of that. I can either go on an expensive drug-maintenance program, get regular addiction therapy, or stop on my own.

I chose the more luxurious route, but that wasn’t my only option so I can’t complain about the prices. This is a weird and possibly inaccurate and ridiculous analogy, but it’s kind of like buying a car. I have to get to work and back, get to the store and back, ect. I can either walk, ride bike, or buy a car. Going on Suboxone is kind of like buying a car in that respect, and unfortunatly some people are going to be selling the same exact care for very different prices, you can either bite the bullet and buy a car at a more expensive price for the sake of convenience, you can shop around for a cheaper car, or you can just say fuck it and walk to your destination, but either way that destination has to be reached.

Some doctors take it too far and charge outrageous prices just because they can, and you can compare this to an average drug dealer who will do the same. It’s very unfortunate. Luckily mine doesn’t do that, her prices I would consider fair and she is knowledgeable about Suboxone and addiction.

That being said, I can’t say I blame the doctors all that much. You don’t HAVE to go on Suboxone. You can just go on regular addiction therapy and it would be miles cheaper. Suboxone is really a luxury. Luckily based on my current income and the doctors I have access to I can afford it, at least for now. It’s too bad a lot of doctors will take advantage of drug addicts, but such is life, and it’s never going to change, it just is what it is. As far as not accepting insurance goes, I can’t blame them at all. Dealing with insurance just as a patient is a fucking nightmare, and I can’t imagine how much of a pain it is on the other end.

To compare Suboxone maintenance to diabetes or cancer, I’m sorry, but that’s wildly inaccurate and insane logic. A diabetes patient can’t simply say "Okay, I’m just going to tough out the next month or so and eventually my diabetes will be gone and I won’t have to deal with this shit anymore." It sucks if you can’t find a local affordable doc, but it is what it is. You don’t NEED Suboxone to overcome drug addiction, you just don’t, it’s a luxury.

The point I guess I’m trying to make, is that Suboxone, at least in my mind, is a luxury, and I’m lucky it’s even an option in the first place. And also, all healthcare really is expensive. Even with insurance just to go to a regular doctor visit is $200 and that’s after my insurance which isn’t bad insurance. If you don’t have insurance and you need to go to the dentist, good luck with that because they won’t do a damn thing at all until you put some cash down for them and it’s not cheap.

Edit: This post is kind of jumbled up because I edited it and re-worded a lot of it after the fact.

Also, I just read the post a couple posts up from this one, saying how Suboxone should basically be free/cost reduced to everyone who wants it. That’s just not possible. Who’s going to pay for it? Just because you’re not paying for it doesn’t mean it isn’t being paid for. Let me guess, a tax subsidy? No thanks, I pay enough taxes as it is and if I ever overcome my drug addiction, frankly, I don’t want to be paying for everyone else’s through my taxes. And if not vicariously, the only other reasonable and realistic outcome is that everyone who pays for it is just going to be reamed even harder and have to pay prices that would make the current ones look like a 50% off sale.

PS: I’m not condoning price gouging or saying it’s right, but it is what it is. Being ripped off is basically just a part of the current American lifestyle.

Painkiller abuse reaching epidemic proportions

Author: MovieMaker1

Posted: Sat May 25, 2013 1:10 am

Great story and posts Jon.
This is what keeps me coming back to this forum.
This is what I look for and love about this place.
So.
Glad all is well and you’ve seen some of the rewards of staying clean/living somewhat normally.
Hope things just continue to get better for you.

Keep doing what you’re doing!

Nothing else can really be said… Let life come to you.

Good luck!

MM

Suboxone destroyed my life

Author: pitbullmomma34

Posted: Sat May 25, 2013 6:31 am

This makes the sixth year that I have been dealing with this in addiction form or recovery. My husband told me last night the main reason that he works is to make sure that I get my medication and that I wasn’t sick all the time. Im not sure if I just got lucky with having an awesome man, he brings tears to my eyes almost everytime just because of how he has stood beside me through everything in our lives.
To me, regardless of what you go through in life if she had wanted to stand beside you she WOULD STILL be there. I know some people don’t have the patience, and you cant blame for that BUT its hard to just say that its the medications fault. You took it for that period of time, you didn’t have to do so. You "could" have given it up, but its a choice that is hard to make for whatever reason. Some think that its too hard to do, and I feel the same. I told him last night that I would like to be off around New Years. I don’t want to go through tapering during the holidays, but I will also say that withdrawals are hard and you should have been informed of this before you decided to come off. Maybe you just didn’t come off a low enough dose, some people don’t have any problem, some have a major problem coming off of it.
My husband and I have came up with a way to do this and we hope that it might work. I will taper off and come off completely, but when I get sick I will take just a crumb and hopefully that might curb some of it. I know back years ago when I was taking it off the street, I would buy a pill and take it over a weeks time and it never bothered me. So maybe this might work, it might not but my system did it before, we are hoping it works again.
The sickness from Suboxone is horrid, I know believe me I have been through it. I think the depression is the worst part, but nothing to me is worse than searching for pills and spending your last 20 bucks on however many Lortabs you can score.
I went through two weeks of hell after jumping down from 16mg, swore that I was dying and I will never jump from that amount again.
But the expensive doctor appointments are getting to be too much and I could really do a lot with 300 a month. Hubby says that it doesn’t matter the cost, but I cant think that way because I have always a coupon clipper, penny saver and it kills me to hand them that money order every month.

Opioids for Chronic Non-Cancer pain. A paradigm shift?

Author: pitbullmomma34

Posted: Sat May 25, 2013 6:45 am

My first doctor didn’t care one bit to prescribe any of the SRI’s, I tried a few of them but after some side effects (embarrassing and non embarrassing) that I didn’t care to go through, I left those alone. Prozac give me horrible gas, to the point that I would fart with every step. Zoloft wasn’t bad but it took my dreams away and when I would forget to take it, they came back with a vengeance. Celexa made my fingers jerk like they had electric currents going through them, didn’t have any nightmares at all but the finger jerking was driving me insane. I think those types of drugs should be burned and never used again, they have too many whacky side effects.
Whatever happened to treating depression with a kick in the pants? I know it doesn’t work for some, but the doctors just want people hooked on whatever they can make you think will help you out. I take nothing for depression now, I feel fine. I think I was just going through a rough patch. Some people do fine on them and that is wonderful. I just think that they are too crazy with the side effects for me to ever fool with them again. I wanted something to help me sleep and she give me Trazodone. That is the worst shit that I have ever had in my life, my face felt like it was on fire and the Suboxone makes me sweat enough. So I constantly had to walk around with a cold wash cloth or I felt like I was going to just burst into flames. I figured this stuff is either too strong or not working right, I went with Tylenol PM. Now I have no problem sleeping, I can take a 1mg piece of Suboxone and I am out for a few hours.
If I came out of surgery and they wouldn’t give me something for post op pain, I would tear someone’s head off. After my gall bladder surgery, I rose up out of the bed and squalled for something. They came with two 10mg Percocet’s and a Diet Sprite (yuck I know). I cant imagine if they came out and told me to deal with it. I know that the Suboxone makes your tolerance to those medications crazy high and it takes more, but I think the risk of not feeling like my insides were coming out would be worth it.

How do i start?

Author: TeeJay

Posted: Sat May 25, 2013 7:47 am

Hey Oiler.

How long you need to stop using for before induction depends a lot on how much you were using. I’m not from your part of the world, so I’m unfamiliar with how pure your supply was, or even how much a bundle weighs. Just to be cautious, I’d give yourself 24 hours before dosing. Some people can manage 12-18 hours, but the reality is the longer you wait the better. Ideally if you can wait 6-7 days, you won’t even need to resort to sub!

Something that you can do to make it easier is do a test dose. This can help you gauge whether you’re ready to induce or not. ie hang out for as long as possible, then take just a tiny bit of one of those 8mg tabs. Try and only take about 1mg. Then listen to your body – has it made your withdrawal symptoms better or worse? If it relieves your withdrawal, it’s a sign that you’re ready. If it makes your withdrawal feel worse and you start to feel jittery, then hold off a few hours before you take more. Symptoms of precipitated withdrawal are similar to withdrawal, but it also has a real speedy jittery feel to it.

The idea of a test dose is to ease yourself onto Sub rather than take a whole lot and possibly end up paying for it.

As for the rapid detox idea … Been there done that a few times. 20 x 8mg Subs will be heaps more than what you’ll likely need. You only need enough Sub to last you a few days. Use the Sub only to relieve your H withdrawal symptoms. Don’t look at it as a replacement drug. View it as an aid to relieve withdrawals. If you take the Sub for more than a few days, you’ll begin to become dependent on Suboxone, so only take for as long as you need to relieve the H withdrawal.

All said and done, home detoxes don’t work UNLESS you’re ready to put in the work to stay clean. I’d definitely look at getting some kind of help to give you a leg-up into recovery. Rehab, counselling, meetings, getting a new phone number etc. You can’t just take Sub for a lil while and expect everything to be okay.

Also, there’s no way to do detox pain-free. Detox isn’t fun. Sub can make it a bit easier, but it won’t make you feel like you’re stoned. If it does, you’re taking too much.

The music chain thread

Author: BeautifulDisaster

Posted: Sat May 25, 2013 8:44 am

Congrats on your new car rule, you must be having a blast with that stereo system!! I remember my last car an 03′ Nissan Sentra the SER Spec V one, i got it in 2008 so it was used but it was new to me. I felt so badass in my little economy sports car. it had an awesome factory stereo as well, until my bf decide he wanted to play with shit and put a sub woofer in my trunk.

Johnny Cash
-burning ring if fire

The Doors
-light my fire

we were supposed to get married next week…

Author: Amy14921978

Posted: Sat May 25, 2013 9:02 am

Goodmorning all! I was just reading to catch up on this thread and I think Honeybun gave you some really good insight. Very Happy

TJ, are you a guy? LOL Wink …. I am just curious bc you said "he ran to drugs before the big day". I am pretty sure she said he has been into pills for a few years now, and although I am sure you meant nothing bad, it stung even me reading that. Maybe its just the girl in me. No one wants to think their man turned to drugs because he was afraid of committing to them in marriage. LOL. Maybe it is true, but I suspect he may have had this problem well before the impending marriage. I do agree with TJ that perhaps it may be a good idea to postpone things, if only so that you can gain some of the trust back that you lost when discovering your bf’s addiction. Because- really- you wanna be 110% SURE about your partner when you say those vows!

Cant urinate on Suboxone-Sever

Author: TimBesus

Posted: Thu May 23, 2013 9:51 am

You are definitely not alone here. I have the same issue though as I’ve been getting used to my dose it has lessened. My advice is to sit down, it really seems to help me, though if you are a woman I suppose you already are lol. I also have immense trouble reaching ejaculations. Then, when not on Suboxone I have premature ejaculations (I assume because I go from no sensitivity to normal.)