He's been chasing pain medications this WHOLE time!

[lovemysons]

Yep, it would appear that the "back injury" is just another ploy to get ahold of pain medications. We all finally realize this and the only help I am offering at this time is to pay his rent for the next 2 months so long as he goes to rehab or sub abuse program.

I'm am secretly keeping in touch with his mother in law at the moment. That poor woman has put up with so much from young difficult child. She's had her debit card stolen, Macy card charged, and a flatscreen tv "walked out of her house" one day. He has even used food stamps to get cash and buy pain medications, etc (according to his wife).

I told his mother in law that she had our blessing to drop him off at a homeless shelter anytime she is ready. We are all fed up!

LMS

 

[DammitJanet]

Stand strong LMS. As a person with chronic pain issues, I have huge issues with people who abuse pain medications because it makes it harder on those of us who are really in need of them. I sit in the waiting room of my pain management clinic and can look around and see the people who I am pretty sure are scamming the clinic. I hear them whispering to each other about how to beat the urine tests. I hear others who complain because the doctors wont increase their pain medications fast enough. They want more, more, more!

I guess that is why my doctor is so thrilled with me because I am just the opposite and beg them to keep me on the lowest dose possible and try everything else possible before increasing my narcotics. I have been there a year now and have only had two urine tests....lol. Guess that shows something.

 

[possumholler]

My mother is a chronic pain sufferer. She has to submit to random drug tests every 6 months. It is really fun to wait for an 83 year old woman to give a urine sample. But I see them too in that pain clinic, the ones who are there to get their fix. Everything we do is simply to live after people who have abused the system--I wish her regular doctor would prescribe the minor (compared to the other patients there) pain medications that keep her going, but he has been burned by too many "doctor shoppers" and it is too much trouble to go through the paperwork. In fact, I get to go tomorrow--half a day of my life I will never get back. I pray that it is not drug test day, because that prolongs the appointment. another 2 hours at least.
I personally like having to give all my info to the pharmacy so I can buy sudafed.

 

[DammitJanet]

LOL on the sudafed. Yeah. One day at the drug store I couldnt buy a box of regular sudafed and a box of allergy medications that had sudafed in it as the decongestant at the same time. What a pain in the butt.

 

[Hound dog]

Stay strong LMS.

Think of it this way, you're all on to him now, which will make you less likely to fall for the next line of bull hockey he comes up with.

hugs

 

[rejectedmom]

So sorry he scammed you all again. Glad you are detaching.

 

[susiestar]

I am so sorry he scared you so badly wtih a story of such a bad injury. Isn't it incredible the lengths an addict will go to in order to get a fix? You must feel very much betrayed and deceived by him. I know how worried and upset you were when you heard of his accident. I remember how furious I was when my bro fessed up to some big lies and it is a ton worse when it is your child, in my opinion.

Lots of hugs,

Susie

 

[lovemysons]

I'm trying to stay strong...it's not easy for sure.
It was very difficult to see young difficult child in the hospital and barely getting around except for the wheel chair.
The back injury (fractured vertebre and even a couple of herniated discs) is real. But it's like so is the pacemaker young difficult child got after he came home from the Army and the shoulder surgery he had while in the Army, etc. And all of this even starts to make me wonder which came first...the injury or the desire to get more pain medications.
I mean I'm starting to think young difficult child might be intentionally hurting himself in order to get these drugs!

So he's not "making stuff up"...but yet all indications are that he is living for the pain medications. I know he went to the ER twice last week. One of those time was clear across town...likely because he already has been to the local ER so many times that they might be catching onto him.

Last week he apparently got into an arguement with his wife and husband and I found him at our house on the floor of one of our bedrooms the next morning. He had gone to the ER and drove himself home after the ER gave him pain medications. The hospital called the police and the police came to his mother in law (where he wife and grandbabies have been staying recently). Young difficult child told his wife to lie for him to tell the police that SHE drove him home not that he drove himself home. Guess the hospital could have been liable if he had gotten in a car accident.

I have barely heard from young difficult child all week except to call and ask me for money...to the best of my knowledge he has not entered any kind of sub abuse program. I even told him of one a week ago that is top notch according to one of my mothers' friends. He said his Medicaid would only pay for certain ones and that he already had one in mind. I don't think he is serious about getting help at this time.

We offered to pay the rent on their apt (and did so last month) but they also owed overdue fees and water and elec which we did not pay for...so they thought their water and elec were cut off and so haven't been "living" at the apt but rather mother in law's house. mother in law said the only reason she let him back into her house was because he (after being in the hospital a week) showed up on her doorstep dropped off by a "hospital paid for" Taxi in a back brace looking for his wife and kids. She said she couldn't turn him away at the time even though she had previously banned him from her house for all of the thievery she believes (and so do I) that he was involved with using her Credit Cards, etc.

This time young difficult child has GOT to hit bottom. I really think he's going to end up in a homeless shelter or possibly end up with being forcefully hospitalized, I dunno. But if he makes threats of suicide (like he has many times in the past) I may just call authorities and have them pick him up.
This has gone on long enough...over 3 yrs now and it's effecting the grandbabies as well.
mother in law told me on the phone a few nights ago that she came into the house and my grandson told her that M and J were fighting. He did not say "mom and dad" but referred to them by their given names...was very disturbing for mother in law and myself.

I'm sorry that people like young difficult child make it harder for everyone else to get pain medications.
This cycle has got to come to an end soon.

LMS

 

[possumholler]

Argh! The back injury is what my mother suffered and has been on pain medications since 2005, but she is considerably older. If you can help it, don't let them recommend a pain management clinic. They are just pumping out addicts all the time. They DO offer steroid injections, spinal nerve blocks and the like which have had some temporary success with my mom. Those back injuries are a Pain Clinic's dream come true. He did it to himself good this time as these injuries are for the most part soft tissue injuries (the vertebral fracture alone affects so many of the nerves in that area that still hurt long after the fracture has healed) and he may be in pretty bad pain for years. At least there is a record of his medication shopping? So they may not even accept him anyway. The contract you sign is VERY stringent and you have to report every prescription you get from anywhere. When we go in there, the doctor has a list from the controlled substance database and checks for my mom's name. I made the mistake of giving her another medication because she ran out of her medication (it was xanax) and they drug tested her and they found that in her system and gave me the biggest blessing out I have ever gotten. Not only do they the in-office drug test, they send part of the sample to a lab.

There are some holistic-type places out there that deal with pain without drugs, but he is pretty much in for it now with these back injuries. If only he really knew how debilitating these injuries were in the first place--he will regret this, if indeed he did it on purpose. My heart goes out to you because I have lived with a person with these injuries for several years. The pain really doesn't go away.

 

[DDD]

LMS I'm sorry that the rollercoaster continues to plunge. Just remember to repeat the Serenity Prayer. Hugs DDD

 

[DammitJanet]

LMS...he is now searching for the drugs because what the doctors gave him at the time for the injuries and surgeries he had were the wrong medications. Plus he also has the addictive gene inside him..you know that. I am furious that doctors give people with acute pain medications that are for chronic pain. Its idiotic and they are causing prescription drug addiction. No one with a broken leg needs oxycontin. Its absurd. No one who has a hysterectomy needs oxycontin or time release morphine leaving the hospital...its idiotic. Yet doctors do it all the time. I was given percocet and sent on my way. I did just fine too even with the arthroscopic surgeries.

The reason people become addicted to pain medications is because they seek the high, not because they want the pain relief. I dont feel a daggone thing and if I do, I dont want to be on the medication, I refuse it. I have taken medication back to the doctor and told them it was making me sick and I couldnt take it because it was too strong for me.

If your son needs pain relief and he has a prescription drug problem, he needs to get help from suboxone. That is something that will help get him off the opiates plus help with pain. I have known of other people who had both issues and that is what they were put on.

 

[toughlovin]

What Janet says is so true. When I broke my back many years ago I was prescribed Vicodin. I remember asking the doctor about it being addictive because I was worried about that, although I had never had a drug problem. What he said to me is if you only use it when you need it then you should be fine. I did take it for several days for the pain but like Janet says I didn't really feel a thing from it except pain relief. As soon as I didn't need it for pain i stopped taking it which was before i was done with the prescription.

 

[lovemysons]

Janet, You are SO right...they have been giving him Oxycontin and Morphine. If/when he ends up in the hospital again and I am there...I'm going to tell the staff about his pain medication addiction, rather he likes it or not. If possible I will mention that a friend told me about the Suboxone.

Haven't heard from him now in a couple of days...they say no news is good news...we shall see.

LMS

 

[DammitJanet]

well the makers of oxycontin and ms contin..long acting form of morphine sulfate...have gotten wise to the street users who want to crush the stuff and either snort it or inject it. They have now formulated it so the only way it works is if you swallow it the way you are supposed to. If its crushed into a powder...it deactivates. If you keep the tablet whole and try to dissolve it in water? Same thing...useless.

 

[Hound dog]

Hmmm. I've taken so much morphine it's not funny. I even developed an addiction to it at one time which actually had nothing to do with whether I wanted it or not. It's was a doctor order mix up. I was getting a strong dose IV with antinausea medications via the kidney doctor for good reason. When fam doctor stuck her nose in and decided to change it to shot form.......yet no one discontinued the IV one.....which was continuous drip not patient controlled. Fam doctor didn't bother telling ME what she'd done. So when I thought all I was getting was the antinausea medication via shot........I was getting an extra whopping dose of morphine as well. Sad part is even at the ultra high doses it didn't do all that much for the pain levels.

Finally a nurse caught it, brought it to kidney docs attention. (after 10 days that way) And when they dropped it down to what it was supposed to be I had the most gawd awful withdrawals. Soon as the 2nd surgery was over I couldn't get off it fast enough. But then I'm always like that to the point my kidney doctor just shakes his head. Kidney pain requires strong pain medications.......so I want them to work when I need the darn things.

Shoulders.....percocet and a decent muscle relaxer was enough. Foot, same thing.

So yeah, your son shouldn't have received such strong medications. It wasn't really necessary.

But evidently I don't have the addictive gene because even after having morphine so much and the time of going through withdrawals I have no desire for it.

 

[DammitJanet]

My pain doctor says I am unique. I have bad pain but I can control it fairly well on low doses of pain medication and I use the15 m kicking and screaming. The 15 mgs was practically aspirin strength so he forced me to increase. he said most normal weight folks are on at least 100 mgs twice a day. Ok....I will take 30 x a day.