Can't do this another day -- please help me -- I've become a worst case

[[Pa...]]

Amped up all the time is horrible but that groggy, sluggish and weighted feeling won’t be good either.  I wonder if you’ll acclimate to it like members who have crossed to Valium, they feel quite sedated at first until their body gets used to it.

[[Re...]]

Right. This is what my PCP said. He was not happy with the morphine side effects but I was also told (thankfully) these are common!!!! FINALLY. I am having a common reaction to something again. Which I used to have before being too rapidly tapered off Ativan and then put on this Seroquel. But I digress. I did wonder if it is a sign my system is maybe maybe maybe going back to normal. I do not have hopes up though. Sadly. There isn't much positive hopefulness here anymore. Anything good that happened would be a surprise.

 

I am seeking consults with anesthesiologists's who have pain management expertise -- maybe they will have some ideas. Fingers crossed. One is outside of the states. 

[[Th...]]

I don't have much to offer here, but just want to let you know I'm thinking of you and hope you get some healing soon.

[[Re...]]

Thank you, I think of you and your wife and send you health and wellness also.

[[Be...]]

Are you still deciding on whether you want to try the morphine? 4 mg is a really small dose. If it helps, you should consider doing it just long enough to get off the Seroquel. People take morphine for pain, I've known people taking 200-400 mg twice a day. You shouldn't have any difficulty tapering off such a small amount taken for a short time. Getting off the morphine will be nothing like getting of benzos or AP's. You can cut and hold off that 4 mg easily.

[[Re...]]

Hi Lottie, Thanks for the information. OK here is my stream of consciousness around this...

 

I might have to pick a best-of-the-worst scenario here. I am not sure that I have another option at this point. I really want one!!! I want a naturopathic option ideally. Energy medicine, anything. But...here we are.

 

First of all, I have been in hopeless overwhelm, and I need to get out of it. There have just been so many roadblocks and I need to look for an alternate route.

 

The morphine... it was a trial. I tried it. Was is perfect? No. Do I feel 100 percent confident moving forward with it? No. Were there benefits? Yes. I did not feel "good" on the morphine like I expected to. Mainly, it stopped the movement and I had a somewhat more "normal" day. Normal meaning I was not functional but I was not as agitated for four hours or so. I laid in bed with a friend by my side and we could have watched a movie. I slept that night and laid in bed the next morning. I didn't like how I felt the day after the morphine. I was really groggy and my hands have hurt up to my elbows since I took it. Achy/hot/pins and needles type of pain. Probably a side effect or something getting irritated by it. When the 4mg wore off I had jaw pain also and some body aches. Those went but they felt SUPER intense when it wore off. I did not expect that.

 

I don't think that it made things worse. I was mostly concerned about that. If anything this week I have been super groggy in the mornings and have been able to lay in bed despite the inner restlessness. It doesn't feel calm or relaxing but I have been able to do it so there is a slight improvement there. Then again, I have not tapered anything I have just held the dose at 28mg.

 

I could try a Fentanyl patch. Although isn't it synthetic? Or I could just take the morphine for a period of time and deal with the side effects to get off the Seroquel. I would have to take more than 4mg. Probably at least 4mg every 4-6 hours. That is with these symptoms so if they got worse I would likely need more.

 

I hate that this is all an experiment. I really do. Thank you for caring and checking in on me. If you have any out-of-the-box ideas I would love to hear them.

[[Be...]]

Sorry, I needed an extended break from here, but I've been thinking about you, and praying for you.

 

Morphine isn't going to work out-of-the-box. And it is very common to feel groggy, weighted, sluggish, etc. You will get used to it, your body will adjust. I have a theory as to why it may be helping with the Akathisia. AP's impact dopamine, they directly impact the D receptors, they literally block dopamine. This is why some of the people I have met on Twitter's #prescribedharm community that were on AP's for many years, and a few many decades, have had a hard time finally getting off. Opiates do not, in and of themselves, directly touch D receptors, they increase dopamine, they are compensating for the reduced dopamine caused by AP's. It seems this is all about Dopamine. So, you are reducing the AP, the continued use of the morphine will boost dopamine, which offsets the reduced dopamine caused by the AP. I may very well be wrong, but this makes sense to me. The more opiates taken, the more dopamine signals reward to the brain, the more dependent you become. It took me a while to taper off Dilaudid, and I really didn't have issues until I finally tiptoed off my last dose. And it wasn't anything close to benzos. The taper itself was relatively symptomless, I had the expected 'two weeks of hell' and that wasn't really hell. Benzos were hell, it still is for me. I didn't detox, I tapered off opiates.

 

Also, you have been pushing your body with the agitation from the AP, plus, you're still in Post-Acute from benzos. Anything you throw in would likely hit you at first. The morphine wore off, and it's likely your dopamine levels were back to where they've been with the Seroquel. Ironically, repeated doses of morphine will knock down the aches and pains.

 

Yeah, it sucks we have to experiment on ourselves. I did that with iontophoresis NAD+, I did not know if it would even work. It was my own little science experiment.

 

Fentanyl is absolutely out of the question. You have to be 'opiate-tolerant' and it is a very powerful drug. I was on it years after the car accident that left me disabled. I had a consultation with a specialist who suggested joint-protection techniques to me, and recommended I switch to something less powerful and strong. I eventually ended up reducing to an equivalent dose of morphine sulfate, then to an even lower dose of hydromorphone. It took me a while to make reductions in steps. No one in their right mind would give Fentanyl to anybody not opiate-tolerant. Even cancer patients are given weaker opiates initially before given Fentanyl. Taking too strong a dose, when not tolerant, can't result in respiratory suppression, and even death.

 

If the morphine needs to be dosed more than once, to be effective, you could consider a time-release or extended-release formula. These can be dosed one or twice-a-day. Again, you have to be tolerant first. I can't say what you should do, I can only share my own experience with opiates. We all wish there were easy answers with all these drugs we are put on. 

[[Re...]]

Sorry, I needed an extended break from here, but I've been thinking about you, and praying for you.

 

Morphine isn't going to work out-of-the-box. And it is very common to feel groggy, weighted, sluggish, etc. You will get used to it, your body will adjust. I have a theory as to why it may be helping with the Akathisia. AP's impact dopamine, they directly impact the D receptors, they literally block dopamine. This is why some of the people I have met on Twitter's #prescribedharm community that were on AP's for many years, and a few many decades, have had a hard time finally getting off. Opiates do not, in and of themselves, directly touch D receptors, they increase dopamine, they are compensating for the reduced dopamine caused by AP's. It seems this is all about Dopamine. So, you are reducing the AP, the continued use of the morphine will boost dopamine, which offsets the reduced dopamine caused by the AP. I may very well be wrong, but this makes sense to me. The more opiates taken, the more dopamine signals reward to the brain, the more dependent you become. It took me a while to taper off Dilaudid, and I really didn't have issues until I finally tiptoed off my last dose. And it wasn't anything close to benzos. The taper itself was relatively symptomless, I had the expected 'two weeks of hell' and that wasn't really hell. Benzos were hell, it still is for me. I didn't detox, I tapered off opiates.

 

Also, you have been pushing your body with the agitation from the AP, plus, you're still in Post-Acute from benzos. Anything you throw in would likely hit you at first. The morphine wore off, and it's likely your dopamine levels were back to where they've been with the Seroquel. Ironically, repeated doses of morphine will knock down the aches and pains.

 

Yeah, it sucks we have to experiment on ourselves. I did that with iontophoresis NAD+, I did not know if it would even work. It was my own little science experiment.

 

Fentanyl is absolutely out of the question. You have to be 'opiate-tolerant' and it is a very powerful drug. I was on it years after the car accident that left me disabled. I had a consultation with a specialist who suggested joint-protection techniques to me, and recommended I switch to something less powerful and strong. I eventually ended up reducing to an equivalent dose of morphine sulfate, then to an even lower dose of hydromorphone. It took me a while to make reductions in steps. No one in their right mind would give Fentanyl to anybody not opiate-tolerant. Even cancer patients are given weaker opiates initially before given Fentanyl. Taking too strong a dose, when not tolerant, can't result in respiratory suppression, and even death.

 

If the morphine needs to be dosed more than once, to be effective, you could consider a time-release or extended-release formula. These can be dosed one or twice-a-day. Again, you have to be tolerant first. I can't say what you should do, I can only share my own experience with opiates. We all wish there were easy answers with all these drugs we are put on.

 

Thanks for all this info. Truly. As I’m tapering the AP wouldn’t it increase dopamine if it’s releasing the receptor step by step? I wonder if that with the morphine could lead to increased issues.

[[Be...]]

Sorry, I needed an extended break from here, but I've been thinking about you, and praying for you.

 

Morphine isn't going to work out-of-the-box. And it is very common to feel groggy, weighted, sluggish, etc. You will get used to it, your body will adjust. I have a theory as to why it may be helping with the Akathisia. AP's impact dopamine, they directly impact the D receptors, they literally block dopamine. This is why some of the people I have met on Twitter's #prescribedharm community that were on AP's for many years, and a few many decades, have had a hard time finally getting off. Opiates do not, in and of themselves, directly touch D receptors, they increase dopamine, they are compensating for the reduced dopamine caused by AP's. It seems this is all about Dopamine. So, you are reducing the AP, the continued use of the morphine will boost dopamine, which offsets the reduced dopamine caused by the AP. I may very well be wrong, but this makes sense to me. The more opiates taken, the more dopamine signals reward to the brain, the more dependent you become. It took me a while to taper off Dilaudid, and I really didn't have issues until I finally tiptoed off my last dose. And it wasn't anything close to benzos. The taper itself was relatively symptomless, I had the expected 'two weeks of hell' and that wasn't really hell. Benzos were hell, it still is for me. I didn't detox, I tapered off opiates.

 

Also, you have been pushing your body with the agitation from the AP, plus, you're still in Post-Acute from benzos. Anything you throw in would likely hit you at first. The morphine wore off, and it's likely your dopamine levels were back to where they've been with the Seroquel. Ironically, repeated doses of morphine will knock down the aches and pains.

 

Yeah, it sucks we have to experiment on ourselves. I did that with iontophoresis NAD+, I did not know if it would even work. It was my own little science experiment.

 

Fentanyl is absolutely out of the question. You have to be 'opiate-tolerant' and it is a very powerful drug. I was on it years after the car accident that left me disabled. I had a consultation with a specialist who suggested joint-protection techniques to me, and recommended I switch to something less powerful and strong. I eventually ended up reducing to an equivalent dose of morphine sulfate, then to an even lower dose of hydromorphone. It took me a while to make reductions in steps. No one in their right mind would give Fentanyl to anybody not opiate-tolerant. Even cancer patients are given weaker opiates initially before given Fentanyl. Taking too strong a dose, when not tolerant, can't result in respiratory suppression, and even death.

 

If the morphine needs to be dosed more than once, to be effective, you could consider a time-release or extended-release formula. These can be dosed one or twice-a-day. Again, you have to be tolerant first. I can't say what you should do, I can only share my own experience with opiates. We all wish there were easy answers with all these drugs we are put on.

 

Thanks for all this info. Truly. As I’m tapering the AP wouldn’t it increase dopamine if it’s releasing the receptor step by step? I wonder if that with the morphine could lead to increased issues.

[[...]]

I am being told to slow taper this Seroquel they gave me for sleep during benzo wd. Taking this was a bigger mistake than taking the benzo. Benzo wd was easier.

 

It has now gotten unmanageable. I am being told by other members to continue to taper slowly. But at this rate it will take me 4.5 years to get off of 28mg.

 

I don't leave my home. I walk miles on the porch. I wake up feeling like my body is full of air in excruciating pain. Unable to work or function. I cannot go on like this. I feel like there is no way out. B6 didn't work. Propranolol depresses my breathing for some reason.

 

There has to be something I can do to get this medication out of my system without causing further harm. I tried splitting the dose and it made things worse for me. I couldn't see straight trying that and it didn't cover the Aka in any way.

 

I have hired a forensic scientist who specializes in drug harm and gene analysis to analyze me and help me look at medication options. It's the only thing I can think to do.

 

Physically, mentally and emotionally I cannot go on like this. There has to be SOMETHING I can do to get off of this medication without further harm. I can't CT it. Can someone offer any ideas, please?

 

Hi Rebecca29,

 

I don't have much to offer either, I just hope you find what helps you and makes you feel better.

 

My wishes for everything to go well.

[[Re...]]

Thank you. I’m glad you’re doing better.