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If you suffer from neck or back pain and have to take pain medication, then you need to take the time to read this. I want to tell you about just one of the many experiences with back pain and the pain medications that I have heard from patients,over the years. I hope that this story is able to give someone else an idea of what to expect when going through this. Neck and back pain can be very excruciating, so a lot of people turn to medication to help ease their pain. Many patients, before coming to my office have, unfortunately, become addicted, and addiction to pain medications is a possibility for anyone.

For over a decade Mike had struggled with back pain, and he was continually trying to find a pain medication that worked long-term for him. He had been to doctors and specialists, many times. In the end, it was always the same. They would prescribe pain medications to take. Some provided great relief for him, at first. The pain medications did knock him out, so he did get sleep and, at first, his pain was manageable. Sometimes he could not think when he took the pain meds during the day, and sometimes, he would not need the medicine. and he only took it as he needed it. After a few years of this, his body become used to many pain medications. So the doctor stepped up the dosage, several times.

At some point during all of this, my patient became addicted to the pain medication, and he suffered through two types of addictions. I want to tell you about both of them. The first addiction started when he would hurt more than usual, so he would take just one extra pill to help with the pain. That one extra pill made him feel wonderful. The pain was gone, and he had more energy than he usually did. He was really happy, happier than usual. Then over time, he started taking two pills more, instead of one, because he wasn’t getting the same feeling as before. His family stopped coming around as much, as they didn’t want to be anywhere near him when he was taking this much pain medicine. My patient then realized that he had a big problem. Although, he never really went through withdrawals with this level of addiction when he didn’t take the pain medicine for a day or two.

According to my patient, the second addiction showed up when his doctor took him off of pain pills and put him on a pain patch to control the back pain. He had started this medication just over a year ago. He finally agreed to try it and soon realized that it helped tremendously with lowering his pain. He wore the pain patch every day and changed the patch every three days. The pain was just about gone. He loved the idea of not having to worry about taking too much of the medication, because it was time-released. He felt more comfortable with the patch as he had not been very responsible about taking the pain pills correctly. After being on the pain patch for a few months, he ran out before he was able to pick up his medication. It was a weekend, and he just assumed it would be fine to wait, just like all the times before with the pain pills. He did not realize that you can be addicted without knowing it.

He ended up in the emergency room that night in full withdrawal. Mike was cold, hot, shivering, sweating, vomiting, and his whole body hurt. It was scary and painful. The doctors gave him his medicine, and after a while he was fine. He just assumed that because he was not abusing the medication any more that he was not addicted. But he had become addicted without realizing it. It had scared him so badly that he wanted to just stop the medication all together. Just be done with it. But he still had to deal with back pain.

I am not trying to scare anyone. Yet, I just want to make sure that you understand the extent of an addiction. When Mike got to the hospital, they gave him a pain patch to put on, and after a few hours when it got into his system, he was fine. The point is he had never suffered anything like it before,and he always thought that you could not be addicted without knowing it. He had no idea that his body had become dependent on pain medication. It would have been nice to know this from the beginning. Mike had actually thought about the possibility of becoming addicted,but the back pain he felt without pain medication was severe, and the medicine helped him function. He would rather have something that he could do for back pain other than the need for medications, and to avoid the likelihood of becoming dependent.

Mike has wondered numerous times, was it worth it? I don’t know if I’m the one to answer that for everyone, but for Mike – he thought it was. He had suffered through the pain without the medication, and the pain is crippling. He could not function doing even everyday tasks. He would like to be on a pain medication that is not addictive, but the pain medication was only masking his symptoms of back pain and not treating the underlying problem.
Just keep in mind that it is a serious chance you take when dealing with pain medications. Neck and back pain can seriously alter your lifestyle. There are alternatives for treatment of chronic and severe back pain that do not include pain medications and invasive procedures such as surgery. Take time to invesigate the options, because you can take your medication exactly how it is prescribed and still become addicted. Mike did not know this in the beginning, and thank goodness he discovered a successful option that did not include pain pills.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 15th, 2009 at 2:18 am and is filed under Health. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.