Thanks so much Kim. I can't take all the credit though. My wife is a huge help in supporting me through all of this. I truly don't know know what I'd do without her. After all the bloody bullshit from the one pain clinic. I had the first appointment with the new doctor. He's gone over all my records and all the other pain doctor's diagnosis's. As well as two family doctor's letters. Disagrees with the one doctor, who's opinion was reached by his experience with all the drug abusers that he has to deal with. He just didn't bother to check things out. He just labeled be an abuser and was done with me. So the new one's agreed with all the other diagnosis's that there is no other option other than to at least help me to have reasonable Quality of Life through the meds. So they increased my Fentanyl. I'd been told in the past by more doctors than I can honestly recall. That I'd be on them forever. So waiting to see how much the pain is changing. I'm just on my second dose. So it's wait and see at this point.
Cheers

Withdrawal will cause severe pain. If you’ve been dependent on pain meds for a long time, and you stop taking them, your body will send a signal to your brain causing you to believe that you’re in severe pain.
I was born with juvenile arthritis and I’ve suffered since birth. At one point my Dr convinced me that my only hope for relief was pain meds. I took high doses for 15+ years and then one day I realized that I had become a “legal addict”. With no knowledge of addiction, I decided to stop taking the meds cold turkey. My pain became worse with each dose that I missed. I have a very high tolerance for pain, but suddenly my pain was so intense that I was convinced that this was the worst pain of my life. I was in my early 50’s at the time, so my pain was very familiar to me. My older sister went to ER with me because I was suffering terribly. I’ll never forget her crying and telling the Dr. about my history of pain and how she’s taken care of me since childhood. She said “in about 50 yrs of severe pain, I’ve never seen my sister actually cry because of her pain, I know she’s suffering terribly!”. The hospital had an Addictionologist on staff and he explained to me that my body was craving the meds and trying to trick my brain into taking more meds. At this point, I was convinced that I needed to get off of the meds forever, so there was no way I was going to take more, no matter how bad my pain was. I suffered through a cold-turkey withdrawal for about 3 months, but never looked back. It’s now been about 14 yrs and I’ve never experienced that horrible pain that made me cry again! Now, all I take for my pain is Kratom. I’m very careful because of my past dependency, so I alter my Kratom doses, skip days, etc. I will never again take anything the way meds are given e.g. X amount every X hrs. I now realize that that’s how dependency happens.
I did a lot of research and I’ve read several times about withdrawal making us believe that we were suffering worse than ever.
As I said, I have a high tolerance for pain. 2 yrs ago my appendix ruptured and it was painful. I stayed home for 5 days because I didn’t know it was my appendix and I kept thinking I was getting better. I now realize how severe my pain from my ruptured appendix was, and yet it was never so intense that it made me cry like my addiction withdrawal pain did. Can you imagine how severely I was tricked by my med dependency that it actually led me to believe that my pain was much worse than it was?
I suggest finding an Addictionologist to anyone who may be experiencing this same situation.

You are an incredible person. It takes an amazingly strong soul to go through all that. I am a legal pain med addiction also. When I finally graduated from my family Physician to an actual pain Specialist. My doses, “I was told” were so high they were given to Cancer patients to keep them comfortable as they waited to die. Honestly I didn’t even know they had Pain Specialists. My New PS Sent me directly to a Detox Hospital. Coming off high doses of pain meds I had been prescribed for 6 yrs is dangerous and very very difficult. They didn’t slowly cut me back, I was only allowed Tylenol for pain. I literally felt like I had been hit by a MAC truck. I’m so awestruck by your strength and determination. I hope to never let the claws of hell or visit that hospital again. I wish you all the beautiful blessings your heart desires. You deserve it Celeste.
-Kim

No absolutely not

I was on 2 different morphine, Fentanyl at the highest legal dose and four other pain meds and it was not able to relieve most of the pain. I was paying $700.00+ a month out of pocket but in 2010 I moved to another city and I was not able to get a doctor for almost a year. I was not able to get any pain meds and went through pure hell going cold turkey off of them for 4 months. Fast forward to now I have not started taking pain meds again as I can't afford it for one thing but I am clear headed for the first time in a long time and I'm certain that I was in more pain taking the pain meds. Also the pain meds were very rough on the intestinal organs especially the liver. I have some really bad days without the pain killers but I have a clear mind and I think that is more important.