Anyone on Subutex for Chronic Pain?
Question by 007butterfly: Anyone on Subutex for chronic pain?
Best answer:
Answer by Feral Primate
Yes, I’ve been on it for at least a year, perhaps 18 months, for chronic pain associated with cervical spinal arthritis/spinal stenosis/ spondylosis/ “post-laminectomy syndrome” (though there was never any laminectomy, only a fusion). I’d been kept on heavy-duty narcotics like up to 100 mg methadone in addition to 24 mg dilaudid daily, after 3 failed fusion surgeries, and honestly, the “drugged” feeling and side effects on things like short-term memory retention were almost worse than being in severe pain all the time. It was a delicate balance between the opioid side effects and the experience of undertreated chronic pain, and on those other drugs, my life was nearly always unmanageable and often unlivable. I first came upon buprenorphine as the low-dose form, Temgesic, when I ordered some for a self-styled “rapid detox” to wean myself off all those heavy narcotics. (This is what they use in “official” detox centers often. I don’t recommend anyone to try this at home like I did, as it’s very hard on the body and one really needs medical personel overseeing it. But I couldn’t afford the $ 5,000 at the time and as I’d had some medical training, I undertook it, successfully.) I was quite impressed by the buprenorphine and when I found (after the “detox”) that I could not function totally without pain medication for my chronic pain, my doctors prescribed heavy-duty (mu-agonist) narcotics once again. It took about 2 years to convince them to agree to prescribe Subutex to me (as most doctors were unaware of it and/or held a bias against using it, at that time), and since then, the side effects on my mind, memory and consciousness (not to mention my personality) are less than half what they were while I was using methadone, dilaudid or oxycodone for pain relief. Life is actually do-able once again. Not sure if this addressed your inquiry.
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