C@dein getting lackluster

[Jellopanda]

Yesterday i said in the front page chat that i was drinking beer on antabuse. Mostly the reason for that was to deal with the pain. The alcohol only helps a little bit with the pain, but i've discovered that if i drink while taking zop i kinda forget about it, or at least put it at the back of my mind, not front and center. That's abuse ofc. Alcohol alone is abuse for me. As you can see a few posts above i said i had been alcohol-free for over a year, but yesterday i cracked. Taking it with zop only makes it worse (but feels better, the euphoria doesn't make the pain go away, but makes me focus on that instead of the pain).

I was determined to power through the antabuse. drink through the unpleasantness, and i partly did. The antabuse induced headache subsided, the pounding of my heart that was throbbing throughout my body lessened, the nausea went away and i started to feel i could breathe again (though i was worried for a time there). I was still breathing rather heavily. I still felt like i was sitting in a sauna, but all of this still felt kinda good in a way, as i had other sensations i could focus on. I'm still left with intense regret today. I really don't want to start drinking again, and that's putting it very mildly.

Thank you btw, Heavenlee, for expressing your concern when i said i was drinking on antabuse.

Tomorrow i have an appointment with my GP where i'm gonna ask for DHC or if that fails, stronger c0de1ne without paracetamol. I'm still debating whether i'm gonna tell him of this episode. On on hand he may think that giving me stronger pain meds would be preferable to me subjecting myself to this kinda thing, or worse, starting abusing alcohol again. On the other hand, as he has kinda shown before, this episode may confirm his suspicions that i'm an abuser by nature and he doesn't wanna give me any addictive stuff.

All i know is that this can't go on much longer, and eventually something's gonna give.

 

[Jellopanda]

So my doctor didn't give me deeHcee, but he did give me c0de1ne without p@racet@m0l, which my liver will me thankful for. For the first time now i took cody without any other painkillers. Usually para, since that was in the cody i had before and Eyebooprofane, so i thought i should take a little more to make up for not taking other pain meds. Took 150 mg which apparently was way too much as i'm kinda high atm. My pain is completely gone tho, which is rare, but i feel i can't continue using so much. 600 mg a day will probably give me an addiction quite fast and i'll be high all the time.

My doctor is quite wierd, which i may write about in the doctor consultation section. He has told me before that he doesn't really know much about my condition. This time he said he didn't want to prescribe deeHcee without backing from a specialist. So i guess the next move is go see my dermatologist. My dermatologist has already told me there isn't much he can do, unless i want to do a fourth surgery when the three previous ones didn't help much, but maybe he can give my GP the license he feels he needs to cover his ass and prescribe me deeHcee.

I'm gonna experiment with different ratios of cody, para and ibupr0f  and see if i can arrive at something that might work for me. But it'll be a balancing act, not too much cody, very careful with the para cause of my liver and over ten years of heavy 1bupr0fane use makes me leery of too much of that as well because of the ulcer risk. I have severe, what's that phobia called, dentistophobia  so for six years i ate a pack of 1buprofane a day while my teeth rotted in my mouth. Partly got over it and my teeth are all fixed now after 3 years and 20 000 dollars (actually i kinda have that hollywood smile now  though not quite that unnaturally white, though many of my teeth are fake).

 

[PTFC]

God ettermiddag @Jellopanda, if the dosage helped with the pain, then I would be happy. The key thing to remember is that cody is bottom of the league with regards to physical dependence, its easy enough to taper it down also. I'd find the dosage that eliminates your pain and stick with it for now. Getting paracetamol free tablets is great also, your liver will thank you!!!

 

[dotcomkot]

defo better without the para. u can only metabolise so much of that stuff at once so u after so many pills the extra wont work, id take them as many as u ned just to stop pain no more. u probably will grab a little habbit of them it wont be hard at all to taper off them though i can promise u

 

[dotcomkot]

I agree with the advice several people have given me about trying dhc before going for the scheduled route as you apparently call it. the drawbacks of that seem scary. I have checked a lot of vendors tho and can't seem to find dhc anywhere. Maybe it's in the mexican section, but that won't help me as i'm from norway.

Atm it seems like the route open to me is trying to convince my GP that i need it. He's a bit wierd when it comes to prescriptions. He has no problem prescribing 200 di@z. In fact all i need to do when i need more is call his nurse and tell her i need more and a few hours later an electronic prescription is ready for me at my local pharmacy, but when it comes to painkillers any stronger than 30 mg codeine/400 mg para he's really stingy. Maybe it's down to some kinda experience he's had with patients who have abused them or something.

in the uk ur lucky if u come out with a script at all an if u do it wil be for five 2mls with valium lol they are told not to hand it out 

 

[Jellopanda]

God ettermiddag @Jellopanda, if the dosage helped with the pain, then I would be happy. The key thing to remember is that cody is bottom of the league with regards to physical dependence, its easy enough to taper it down also. I'd find the dosage that eliminates your pain and stick with it for now. Getting paracetamol free tablets is great also, your liver will thank you!!!

Jo takk PTFC. I agree it would be best if cody suffices. Hope i get enough of it from my doctor. he gave me 2500 mg for the time being. Ofc in the case of cody i always have the option to get it from a certain vendor. That it hasn't got paracetamol is very important for me as i have mentioned in other posts i have some liver damage from alcohol abuse. Thanks for being the voice of reason.

 

[Jellopanda]

in the uk ur lucky if u come out with a script at all an if u do it wil be for five 2mls with valium lol they are told not to hand it out

As i said my doctor is very weird. He's very restrictive with pain meds, but he hands out benzos like candy. last time i asked for z0p1 he gave me 200 7,5 mg, and anytime i need V@l1um all i have to do is call his nurse and then he send a prescription to my pharmacy for 50 of them. I suspect he may be enjoying benzos himself

 

[PTFC]

There are some products that can help with your liver @Jellopanda, milk Thistle for one, also I recently done a course of essentiale forte.  A quick Web search can provide you with info on these products. A search on forum about supplements will bring up a thread of info too.

 

[Smoka90]

@Jellopanda Sorry I'm really late to this topic, but I'm in a long-term relationship with op8s, so I hope I can help a bit...

But most of the stuff's already been said... I see you're off the paracetamol compound ones, which is good, since that stuff is more harmful to your liver than code!ne ever will be... But for me, I'm prescribed DeeHCee, and after some time of using that, I get zero benefits from code!ne whatsoever. I guess my point is that if you do manage to move to DeeHCee, keep it in mind that it may make code!ne a lot less useful. But if you don't get much from it anyway, maybe that wouldn't be a bad thing..?

As for getting DeeHCee, I hope that you get what you need. If you're telling your GP that you're still in pain, he should put you on something stronger...

And even if you weren't on an SSRI, tr@m@dol is dangerous. Haven't taken that stuff for nearly a year. I have no idea why they dish it out so much. Can code!ne or other 'classic' opiates/opiods give you seizures at moderate doses? No... doesn't make sense to me.

I mean, there is also kratom. I'm not sure of its legal status where you are, but at the right dose I would put its strength above code!ne and below DHCee.

 

[Jellopanda]

Thanks to @PTFC, @Smoka90 and @Nikolas for great advice. I have an attending physician, i believe you call it in the states, of social medicine whose area of expertise (apart from social medicine) is alcohol addiction and she's told me from my liver tests that while my liver isn't in critical condition it's in danger of damage. She hasn't give me any medication, but told me that i really shouldn't drink any more alcohol. I still take some Paracetamol, but been able to reduce that substantially now that i've gotten para-free c0de1ne. I will look into natural remedies for the liver tho like the thistle milk PTFC mentioned.

 

[Smoka90]

I can echo PTFC's milk thistle suggestion. I've never used it personally (maybe I should...my regime is a bit heavy), but someone close to me uses it daily and, God willing, it seems to be beneficial. It certainly wouldn't do any harm at all, so even if there's a 10% chance it would benefit you, I'd say it's worth it for something as important as your health.

I do hope you get what you need, though. I've been in/still am in a similar position, so I know what it's like to have to...get ping ponged between specialists and doctors, makes you just wish it was all simpler. Hope it works out well.

 

[Jellopanda]

You've been very helpful @Smoka90, and you and @Nikolas seem very knowlegable about benzos which i'm gonna respond to tomorrow, but i'm headed for bed right now. For the last couple of days, after i got my para-free c0de1ne, my pain has been quite tolerable. Hope that continues.

One strange thing about cody, is that it sometimes gives me headaches, not severe ones, but noticeable, which seems quite counter-intuitive, seeing as cody is a painkiller. Ibu makes them go away however. I suspect it may be something neurological. I'd like to stress that this isn't a big problem as the headaches aren't that bad. Just strange.

 

[Smoka90]

Agh, why didn't I mention cold water extraction before? Dang. It's too late now, but it would have been very helpful when you had co-codamol. It's basically just filtering the code!ne from the paracetamol, very simple to do, and it can really help your liver.

Sorry, my mistake there. =/ It might be helpful in the future, though..?

I'm not sure about the headache thing, though. Hmm... if it's making you take ibuprofen on an almost regular basis, that's not great. I do it all the time, so I'm a hypocrite, but taking one thing to cancel out effects of another is never good.

One thing I do know, though, is that code!ne is weird! I don't bother with it now, because it's so hit and miss. Maybe my tolerance is too high for it, but last time I took it, it just made me dysphoric. Really dysphoric. I think the fact that it's a pro-drug (like me, hehe) and relies on liver metabolism to be active can complicate the effects quite a lot.

 

[PTFC]

As@Nikolas said, codeine can cause headaches , and headaches when stopping it. Ironically, the paracetamol is the best thing to stop the headache. I would take half a paracetamol tablet along with the codeine to counteract this. It's only a small dose and safer than 1 gram of the stuff.

 

[Jellopanda]

Seeking help and advice.

Wrote about this in another post, but felt it was appropriate to write a little about it here as the thread was about c0de1ne getting lackluster and it's getting even more so now and i'll expand a bit on what i said.

When i was at my GP i found out Ibupr0fane was contra-indicated with my SSRI as they together can cause rapid and severe stomach ulcers requiring immediate surgery, and with my doctors strongly advising me not to take p@racetam0l because of my extensive use of it for years, both before and during my alcohol-abuse and the danger both those things has put my liver in, i now have pretty much only c0de1ne to rely on. Now para and particularly ibu is out of the picture. C0de1ne felt to mild even with those potentiators, alone it simply isn't enough, especially on bad days.

I walk around with pain most of the time, and when it get's bad enough i don't walk at all, just going to the bathroom is excruciating, even on 100-120mg per dose four times a day.

As i have mentioned my GP won't give me anything stronger without a specialist signing off. I went to my addiction-clinic today and talked to the consultant helping me with my alcohol addiction (free of it for one year now discounting the one time i screwed up), and he told me that c0de1ine and in particular stronger stuff worried him, but that one couldn't simply deny people with serious pain the medication they needed, if there was a legitimate need for it, despite earlier addiction problems. He told me to talk to the attending physician of social medicine at the clinic about it, and also talk to my GP and make him refer me to my dermatologist or surgeon.

My appointment with my social medicine doctor is a month from now tho and i would like to talk to her about addiction issues before i talk to my dermatologist and i can get an appointment with him within a week, and it's starting to feel urgent. Should i give my doctor of social medicine a call or make an earlier appointment with her to hear what she has to say about addiction and related problems and then contact one of my specialists to potentially get stronger pain meds? 

One other problem is that DeeAgeCee, which seems like the next step (can't take Tr@m@ because of seratonin syndrom) isn't well know in norway. What's the next thing? Hidrac0d0ne? Codeine already worries me. It gives me dry mouth which makes me drink a lot and at the same time urinary retention, tho the least of the problems. It also makes me very sleepy even in the morning and the middle of the day. I have trouble keeping my left eye open for some reason and my speech is slurry, making people, especially those who know me well, think i'm high or on alcohol again, which is the last thing i want them to think.

And i already feel the danger of addiction. i find it reduces anxienty and even somewhat depressive moods very effectively and i have taken them sometimes for those reasons even when not needed for pain. And worst of all, at the doses i'm taking c0de1ne now the danger of addiction and increased tolerance seems very high. So even though i find i need it, stronger pain meds makes me worry a lot. I don't know, i'm in pain and feel like i need something to help me, but there are so many problems with stronger meds. I feel like i'm in a bit of a bind here. To suddenly find myself in a position where i'm addicted to oxyc0d0ne in a few years doesn't seem very appealing. If there is anyone with some advice, experience, knowledge tips or just random thoughts out there, please share them with me.

 

[AngryBird]

@JellopandaIf you feel it will help to talk to your social medicine doctor, I'd call and see if you can get an earlier appointment. 

You are wise to be concerned about addiction, especially since you already have some history with alcohol.  

It is possible to be treated appropriately, even with addiction issues. Perhaps there is some non drug treatment that could help, too? I do a lot of things besides just meds to help with my issues.

If opiates are needed, steps can be taken to reduce the likelihood of misuse. Being able to be honest with your treatment providers is a great benefit. 

If there is anything I can answer to help, just let me know.

 

[DippityDoo]

One strange thing about cody, is that it sometimes gives me headaches, not severe ones, but noticeable

@Jellopanda  You'd recently mentioned caffeine in another thread about wakefulness and alertness.  Rather than drinking coffee, I take 100mg of caffeine 2-3 times a day.  The 100mg is the smallest dose available over the counter in the U.S.  If my butt is really dragging, I'll take 200mg, which is said to be the caffeine equivalent of a cup of coffee.

One day around 3:00 pm I noticed a headache coming on.  A  steady, hard kind of headache behind my eyes that ever so gradually kept spreading around the vast empty chasm that is my cranium.  I took the max dose allowed of ibuprofen (800mg), the best over-the-counter anti-inflammatory available, but it did NOTHING.   Then I realized I hadn't had ANY caffeine that day, so I took one dose of 200 mg and in 45 minutes that headache was kapoot!  Ipso facto gone-o!

Just a thought; might not help in your case.  But for me, the headache was because I'm a daily caffeine user, I had failed to take caffeine one day and all the ibuprofen in the world wasn't gonna fix it.  Once I finally did take some caffeine, the headache went buh-bye. 

My mom drinks coffee.  Strong coffee.  Lots and lots of it.  She drinks the Keurig coffee, which is pretty intense.  One day she had a headache behind her eyes that just would not go away.  She'd taken one Advil but of course that did nothing.  So I asked her, I sez, "Hey mom, when's the last time you had some coffee/caffeine?"  It'd been like eight hours since her last cup.  So she fixed a cup, slugged it back and voila!  What felt like her brain pulsating her eyes out of her head was actually her body screaming for caffeine and her headache finally eased up.

Again, might not apply in your case, especially if you're not a regular consumer of caffeine.  But once you're a daily consumer of at least 2-3 doses of caffeine/cups of coffee, suddenly going without brings a caffeine headache for which the only fix is caffeine.  Or intravenous morphine, but that's overdoing it a bit.  :tongue:

The only undesirable side effect I get from plain codeine with no Tylenol or ibuprofen is itching.  Like a crazy person with the itching! 

 

[Jellopanda]

@AngryBird I think you're right, that i should see my social medicine doctor. I really like her, a lot more than my GP. I'm completely honest with her and she listens to you all you have to say, even when you're just rambling, and is understanding and kind in addition to being strict, that i only feel benefits me when it comes to addiction. Besides she's six feet tall, blonde and blue-eyed like all norwegian woman (I'm kidding only 90% of them are like that ;P ). I actually bought her a christmas present that Richard Dawkins said you should buy two of, one for yourself and one for your doctor (hope she doesn't take that as some kind of advance, come to think of it :/) The book is mentioned in the books/music/songs section.

I'm trying to find milder alternatives for all my meds like the z0p1 and the benz0s for instance, but in the case of c0dy i feel like i've run out of alternatives and need something stronger, which is what worries me, because i would need to take it very often and probably in increasing doses, and that's a recipe for addiction, and after a while when the efficacy of that drug wears off i need something even stronger and so on, and so on. A road i feel like many here on this site has walked down.

@DippityDoo I drink about two cups of espresso a day, really strong ones, but before 2 pm. Before i used to drink it all day long, but that made sleeping a lot harder even than it is today, so i've stopped doing that. I don't have caffeine headaches anymore either, and I used to have them like you talked about. A lot of my friends need coffee among other reasons not to get those headaches. Anyway coffee doesn't help me at all when it comes to counteracting the sleepiness early in the day that c0de1ne gives me. I guess a plus is that a heavy dose of cody just before bedtime helps my sleep, i've cut down on Z0p1 as result.

For those with sleeping problems and who aren't aware of this, caffeine has a half-life of around 3-7 hours, depending. People who drink coffee or take pills regularly, like every one to two hours are gonna build up a higher and higher amounts of it in their bodies all throughout the day and if you keep it up til just a few hours before sleep that is when your system will contain the most caffeine. For many heavy users, limiting their intake to just a cup or two in the morning or quitting altogether really helped them and in many cases fixed their problems altogether. One really shouldn't underestimate the negative effects caffeine has on one's sleep.

I used to have heavy itching from cody, just like you, dippy, but it's gotten better over time, but not gone. Wouldn't mind a tip there either. Just not a prescription one. I have enough of those.

I get other side-effects like crazy otherwise, worried what a stronger Op1ate will do, in addition to the other problems, like tolerance and addiction, which is the worst of it all of them.

 

[Trudy L]

Hi JelloPanda, I hope something goes in your favor soon! Sounds like you have thoughtfully considered all angles and are being as careful as you can while trying to have a normal life despite chronic pain.  Couple of questions:  is Hyde even available to you where you are?  I've had it over 15 years and I will say for me there is NO Itching with hyde.  Most of it is with Kody, and a bit less with his cousin by the Cee.

Also, if your MD can at least move you up to 60mg that might help.  I hear what you say about your getting sleepy.  I've found that I can offset this by following up with either caffeine OR sugar OR in some cases a small dose over the counter of Pseudephedrine. 

Umm...something to consider - are you taking the Kode orally? If so, is there another way you can do it?  (NO, I do NOT mean up the nose, especially if it has Tylenol in it- dangerous).

 

[mickp1]

in the uk ur lucky if u come out with a script at all an if u do it wil be for five 2mls with valium lol they are told not to hand it out 

I know how hard it is to get a Valium script from your doctor and why they dont like giving them out.

I've been getting 30mg every day from my doctor for the past 11 years, and i'm still looking for ways to obtain more.

can anyone recommend a website where i can buy Valium or Rohypnol ?

I dont mind whereabouts in the world they come from.

Thanks. Michael