For the first few years of my journey with pain I was heavily reliant on a cocktail of pain medications.  I hadn’t been taught, or learnt for myself, to understand pain or how to self-manage my pain without an over-reliance on pain-medications.  I lived ‘in the land of the fairies’ due to the significant side effects of the medication I was taking, and I remained in pain. I didn’t fully understand the long term consequences of being on such high doses of pain medications, and because I was on a cocktail of medications I found it difficult to work out which one was causing me any side effects.  I had little understanding as to how difficult it might be to come off some pain medications, and how dreadful the experience of withdrawal can be.  I had been on pain medications for such a long time I had completely lost the concept of what life was like without pain medications.

Thankfully I began to experience extreme sensitivity to opioid medication, to the point where I only had to take a very small amount and I would feel very ill and on occasions at risk of collapsing.  It was through this that I started to more actively explore other ways of managing my pain.  I was fortunate that around the time my response to medications was at its worst I was being seen by a physiotherapist who helped me understand pain and helped me better self-manage my pain without the need for high levels of pain medications.  Following this intervention I set about to come off all my pain medications (that wasn’t an easy process!) and am now mainly medication free.  Although I found my pain increased a little during the process of coming off my pain medications, I was surprised to find that the level of pain I experienced relatively quickly returned to that when I was on pain medications, if not below.

If I could turn the clock back then there is no doubt that I would have stopped taking regular pain medications well before the time I did.  I had no idea how much harm they were causing me at the time, and how little effect they were probably having.  I would certainly now choose to live with the pain I experienced rather than the pain plus the side effects from the pain medications.  At least now I am ‘me’ again.

I hope that the resources I have collected together below may help you with your understanding of pain medications, so that you can make informed choices when considering reviewing your pain medications.