Comments on: Minor Is Relative

By: mharris127

mharris127 — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 05:07:26 +0000

Mike, thanks for the sentiment. However, if necessary you can learn to live with surprising things, and I can live with the medicine side effects a lot better than the severe back pain I would have otherwise. Most people that I have told about this that know me say that they couldn’t tell that I was on such strong medication. To talk to me most of the time I just don’t seem like I am high or impaired in any way. I have been told by doctors that a person adjusts to the “high”, nausea and motor impairing symptoms of opiates in these dosages (and I am on as much or more than many heroin addicts) and will seem normal but still get the pain relieving effect of the opiates. I just had to titrate the meds with the assistance of my MD to an acceptable level of pain relief without feeling the “twenty too many” feeling. I titrated to my current dosage over a year’s time, as the pain came back the dose was increased until I reached a plateau where the side effects were relatively minimal while still getting pain relief.

BTW, (IIRC) 40mg of oxycodone every three hours alone is roughly equal to a third of my methadone dose (there are computer programs to compute these things), so you were on some pretty strong stuff when combined with morphine.

As for that $500K surgery, aren’t you glad you married that friend of yours and got on her insurance? You would have had to file bankruptcy otherwise. This way, your reputation is untarnished and you get to live your life to its fullest (and make lots of dirty movies).

By: MikeSouth

MikeSouth — Sun, 24 Oct 2010 07:37:14 +0000

Youd be right on all counts brudda.

According to my neurosurgeon Id only just now be getting off the neurontin….but I HATED that shit the massive doses I had to take were having side effects that were only a bit more tolerable than the nerve pain so instead of 2 to 3 years like he said I was off them in 2 months…

As for the pain meds ya I still have a scrip for oxycodone and another for hydrocodone but I rarely need either one I usually use none of the oxys and maybe 2 or 4 hydrocodone in a month, I do walk with a bit of a limp, and I have limited ankle flexibility but I’m extraordinarily lucky and I had what everyone says is the best neurosurgeon in Atlanta.

Now you on the other hand …man…I couldn’t imagine having to live with methadone but I do know when you have pain like that ya gotta do what ya gotta do. I was on40mg of oxys every 3 hrs plus the morphine for 8 days then it was just the oxys. I actually asked to have that changed to hydrocodone and I slowly decreased my dosage on my own just in case I had developed any dependence…I hadn’t but my understanding is when you really do need them for pain dependence isnt so much an issue and I was tolerating pain in order to lessen the dosage. When my friend Neal Boortz had knee replacement surgery he called me and asked me how I got off of the oxys and I told him, he called and thanked me a few weeks later saying that worked well for him as well.

I feel for anyone has to deal with that on an ongoing basis…I mean I have pain every minute of every day but it isnt bad enough that I can’t manage it the only time I really need the meds are if i really work hard at something…like offshore fishing for a couple of straight days…I could never make it out on day three or probably even to sleep without the meds so its good to have em when I need em and the doc told me at the rate I use them he will renew the scrips every year for as long as I want because they are actually better health wise than using ibuprofin.

So,,,long story short, considering how serious my tumor was, its location and the 8 hrs of microsurgery to remove it…I am extraordinarily lucky I can walk at all. I’m also extraordinarily lucky in a lot of other ways that some day I will explain. My surgery cost over half a million dollars and it’s all paid off…

By: mharris127

mharris127 — Sun, 24 Oct 2010 07:02:39 +0000

I know that I am late to the party, but I had the same deviated septum surgery in 2004 along with a uvulopalatoplasty (removal of uvula from back of throat and pinning of excess tissue to bone) to take care of a really severe case of sleep apnea. The throat work hurt much worse than the nose but the nose was just as annoying with the gauze I had to tape under my nose to catch the blood for three days. Annoying overall for about ten days, it finally healed and I am glad I can now sleep without gasping for breath every 30 minutes! The pain was tolerable, but probably because I take strong pain meds for my back injury every day anyway (you actually can function quite well on Methadone, Dilaudid, Percocet or whatever the doc prescribes if it is titrated properly and after your body adjusts to it, the Methadone takes care of most of the pain from my back). I actually had to take less of the additional pain med (Norco IIRC, two pills at a time) the doc gave me then I was supposed to because that on top of my regular meds left me feeling like I had twenty too many at the bar (although in no pain whatsoever)! With your spinal surgery, I am actually surprised that you walk and function as well as you do and your reaction to two Percocet alone leads me to believe that you do not take opioid pain meds on a regular basis (which is very surprising considering your spinal problems).

By: markh59

markh59 — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 11:08:17 +0000

Pain sucks. Eventually it will wear down even the toughest of us. Hang in there!