I’ve only been able to read half way through as I’m really disgusted with some of the inaccurate and harmful posts.
According to NHS pain clinic consultants (so they people in the best position to know in this country) taking pain killers correctly decreases sensitivity to pain not increases it!!
If your body feels pain your nerves split so increase so become more able to feel pain next time, even when there’s less stimulus. Also the pain receptors in your brain multiply every time you feel pain, so again feeling pain increases your sensitivity to pain- not decreases it like some bloody idiots are suggesting.
Op the first problem is your pain isn’t being managed at all- a maintenance pain killer routine should mean your pain is manageable on a day to day basis and baring new injury doesn’t require more pain relief- this clearly isn’t happening. The more you feel (physical) pain the more you are sensitised to pain and that how chronic pain becomes a life long issue where you need more and more pain killers just to have your previous lower level of pain. You need to see the pain clinic specialists to address this firstly- if not every time you try to reduce you will be in worse pain, which increases your pain sensitivity, which sets you up to fail. There are many other medication options, the anti depressants used to treat pain may not be the ones your doctor prescribes for depression, and the pain clinic can assess if you can take both. There are also several anti epileptic meds used of licence to treat chronic pain. And there’s other medical options and many non medical ones that can work along side the correct medication routine.
I have elher danlos syndrome. I have pregabilin and codine daily and never need to take more than prescribed once the right solution was found, I take less than prescribed most days. This requires a lot of physio along side, Pilates, careful weight training, and tens machine and tens acupuncturist and a Fuck tone of supplement also (cortaflex, MSM, magnesium, feroglobin plus, omegas) along with realistic pacing and a real understanding of what’s going on with my disability and what puts me at risk for worse pain. This took over a decade to get right- the anti depressants made me suicidal, many other opiates made my hyper or caused vomiting, others worked but Fuck was I high. I can’t take other types of pain meds due to other conditions. It’s a pitfa to manage it all, but mostly the pain is manageable these days. When it wasn’t I was desperate and depressed and unable to function at all, and I certainly wouldn’t have been able to deal with the emotional addiction issue on top of untreated pain. The balance I have now gets rid of 80% of the pain and I don’t feel high at all and I don’t feel anxious if I miss doses- before the pain was managed I’d feel like I was having anxiety attacks without my pain meds, because the fear of the pain was debilitating because pain itself is debilitating.
You need to address this first. And the pain clinic consultants are experts at understanding how untreated pain leads to addiction, and how best to tailor medication to give you the best chance at successfully addressing any addiction.
Then you need to address why your current mh treatment is leaving you needing to use pain meds for anxiety. Getting the right balance of pain meds to manage the pain effectively meant I didn’t self medicate, despite ptsd, but it sounds like you have long standing problems with addiction before your pain issues. Having the best pain management program for you will give you the best chance to address your mh needs (and addiction is a mh problem, it’s not something will power does anything for the same way will power can’t magic away psychosis or anxiety or flash backs).
People who are in pain seek out opiates, start dealing with the route cause of it all to let yourself be free of the problem. Physical pain (even life long disability like mine) is the easiest pain to treat, mh pain is much harder but the right meds and right therapy process is the same as finding the correct medication for pain and the correct management routine to go with it. It’s a medical need just the same and treating it as such helps. It’s not a character flaw or a sign of weakness or anything that has a magic solution or can be wished away with will power- you wouldn’t expect cancer to magically get better on its own without medical help, mh problems are no different.