My Fight Against Addiction To Back And Neck Pain Medicine

If you are on pain medication due to neck or back pain, I would like to tell you a story about one of my patients. My patient’s experience with pain and pain medication has been a rough road. I hope that this story will give someone out there an idea of what you should look for when dealing with this issue. Mike (name is changed to protect patient privacy) had suffered with back pain for over ten years. He had been on more pain medications than I had ever seen in a patient’s medical history. Some helped and some did not. Some are more likely to cause addiction than others. But I would like to tell you of this patient’s experience and hope that you come away more informed than before you read this.

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.

The second addiction he experienced was worse, and he was not so lucky. Last year, his Pain Specialist prescribed for him a pain patch. He would wear it for three days and then apply a new patch. This way the medication is always in his system. He gave the patch a chance, and it worked well. He did not have to worry about taking too much medication, like he did when he was taking pain pills because the patch was time-released. Therefore,he only got the amount of pain medication the doctor wanted him to have. At first, his pain just seemed to disappear with the pain patch. He loved it, until one day, after a few months of being on this pain patch, he was not able to get his patch the day his old one ran out. Later that night, he went through full-blown withdrawals. He did not even know he was addicted, because he was not abusing the medicine the way he had with the pain pills. Apparently his body had become addicted to this pain medicine.

Suffering through a withdrawal was awful, and according to my patient he was shaking, shivering, and vomiting, he hurt in places he didn’t know could hurt. It was miserable, and he was terrified. Nothing made it stop. He wasn’t able to drive himself to the hospital. His wife had to take him to the emergency room. The doctors put a pain patch on him, and after it got into his system, he was fine. After that incident, he made sure to never run out of his medication again. He wanted to just stop wearing the pain patch and taking pain medicine, at that point, but he still had the problem of back pain to think about.

Please don’t think I’m trying to scare you. However, I want you to understand how this addiction can affect you. You may not know you are addicted, until it is too late. Do not assume that because you are taking the medication as prescribed that you will not become addicted.

If you personally have back or neck pain, and you are concerned about taking pain pills for years and becoming addicted to them, then research your alternatives. Always talk to your doctor about the concerns you may have about becoming addicted. Neck and back can be treated without the need for pain medications. The problem is that most of the medication that will help you with pain is addictive and will not treat the cause of your back or neck pain. You have to be very careful with these medications. I hope that this story has helped you or answered many questions that you may have had about pain medication addiction.