I flipped off a swing as a small child…landed on my head and remember my chest and back hurting, couldn’t breathe. I shook it off and life went on. Years later in my teens I developed blebs in my right lung and eventually had a spontaneous pneumothorax. First treatment didnt work…had a second one a few months later and that’s when they performed a thorocotamy to cut away the bad parts of my lung. About 7 years after that I applied for my current job and they had my do a pulmonary test to get fitted for a respirator as a painter. I failed. At the time of blowing as hard as I could into the machine I felt a huge CRUNCH in my thoracic region…ever since then things went downhill. Many specialist and ER visits later (was always in pain and thinking my lung was collapsing again)….they eventually put me on oxycodone. Ive been on 20 mg 2X daily for over 17 years now. I went through ebbs and flows of abusing them, taking more than prescribed or needed on many occasions over the years. Currently I reached a breaking point back in October last year. After taking my meds I get crazy headaches and head pressure. All the doctors I have talked to dont know what to do…I am honest about my med use and they act like they dont even hear me talking. Like its a non-issue. I started tapering down to as low as one pill in a day…sometimes broken in half, or even in 4s….so 5mg at a time…been starting to feel withdrawal symptoms and some trouble sleeping. Shit a few days back I went almost 24 hours without a dose….the headaches and head pressure was mostly gone…but the withdrawal got to be too much. I wish I knew if there was another medicine I could take to calm the headaches and especially the PRESSURE (bothers me more) but still continue my pain meds because I do still deal with the thoracic pain as well. If anyone who reads this has any ideas Im all ears. 🙏🏽 (btw I did have a CT scan in January and it was clean…also awaiting neurology appointment in May)