as you all may know, I thought buprenorphine was causing some pain issues so I quit taking it and went back to 5 mg of oxycodone three times a day. I gave it a solid month to be sure.
this was a terrible terrible mistake.
it appears the buprenorphine has changed my body. The oxy was not only mostly ineffective, but in the four hours after it wore off I went into immediate withdrawals with increased RLS. It was worse than at any time in my life.
I drifted off to a nice medicated sleep only to awaken at 2, 3 and 4 AM in the most agonizing pain and discomfort. For some reason, it was really bad in my hands.
I returned to buprenorphine this afternoon and evening and all is right again.
I’m glad I performed my experiment because I learned that this is now the only drug the controls my symptoms.
Written by
Marlayna67
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Thank you for sharing this experience. I am on 10 mg of methadone and it does a great job of controlling my severe RLS. I had previously been prescribed and tried every possible medication for RLS with all the usual problems. Hydrocodone was effective but when the recommendation for methadone or bupremorphine was released I changed tomethadone and I am pleased.
I am soon to have major back pain. I am wondering if Hydrocodone will now be less effective for pain control. I will be discussing it with my surgeon. Your experience is relevant.
This group is so helpful. Thanks to everyone that participates!
I’m glad to give you something to talk about. I gave it a good month for all the buprenorphine to be out of my system, but while the oxy had somewhat of an effect on my pain, it was not as effective as it was before, and the RLS I had was a whole different magnitude that did not get better as I said even a month later. Quite a surprising experiment.
I remember you were having problems finding a good doctor who would take your insurance. It would be great if you could tell me who you found and where he is located so if someone else asks I can recommend them.
I shared my delicate with a personal friend. He looked at the guidelines and agreed to help me because he knows he can trust me. He will retire soon and I will be back with no solution in Kentucky. I spoke to a new physician in town last week in a sleep clinic who advertises that he treats RLS and he said no way he would prescrbe opioid of any kind for RLS. I can only hope that the state medical community is compassionate, educated, and enlightened in the near future. So sad. So wrong.
For your surgery tell your doctors and anesthesiologists about your RLS and its symptoms and that you need your medicine and ask if there will be any drug interactions from what they will give you. . Also talk with the patient representative ahead of time. Tell them not to give you any sedating antihistamines or sedating anti-nausea medications. Instead insist they use Zofran (ondansetron) for anti-nausea. You can download the Medical Alert Card that you can show your doctors, that tells them about the condition and what will happen after surgery and what medicines to avoid at rlshelp.org/ although you will need to join the RLS foundation. A membership is $40, but they have some good information on it and you get their monthly magazine. However the safe antidepressants listed on medical alert card are not antidepressants: Lamotrigine, Carbamazepine, Oxcarbazepine. Also there is a 2 page handout "Surgery and RLS: Patient Guide" on the RLS Foundation website which is very helpful. Also "Hospitalization Checklist for the Patient with RLS" And make sure your ferritin is high as surgery can cause blood loss making your ferritin go down.
I would not recommend this experiment. It doesn’t make sense that the bump. changed my body even a month after it was out of my system, but it’s a fact that it did. I don’t know what’s gonna happen. Should I ever need major surgery, but that is for the doctors to figure out in my case and yours!
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