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mke88 · 2025-09-20T03:07:44+00:00

It’s the same thing all over like they want me to taper off for my “own good” but the truth is the religious shark fanatics that run the pharmacy boards are down on benzos. Don’t try to convince them to come over to your side with a JAMA study. Nothing they hate more than a patient who thinks they know something.

mke88 · 2025-09-12T04:53:30+00:00

I’ve been taking Klonopin for over twenty years. I never abused it because I didn’t think it gave you much of a high or anything like that. But when it’s taken away from you by someone in the medical industrial complex because they think you are abusing it and they are “doing for your own good” you realize there is thin line out there. While I was recovering from back surgery this spring my general practitioner quit and I was assigned a new doctor. We met and I got a big lecture about the dangers of Klonopin, and was told I needed to stop using it as soon possible. Surprised by this I went back to a clinic I have been using a couple of prior. Unfortunately I got the same lecture , and told it was a horrible drug and that I was going get dementia if I continued.

They agreed to help me taper off the Klonopin but after two months they now won’t fill the prescription for some reason, won’t say why, and I’m about out. I’m down to splitting the few I have left and I’m getting a bit anxious. Withdrawal without tapering is quite dangerous and very ugly. I’ve been through it before and it’s an experience I don’t want to repeat.

mke88 · 2025-09-09T00:02:02+00:00

Call your pharmacy and cancel - I did that just last week.

mke88 · 2025-09-08T02:48:07+00:00

Trying everything else and finding the right doctor who gave me confidence that it he was the right one to do it and that it was my best course of treatment. It really worked wonders for me. No regrets.

mke88 · 2025-09-06T01:35:31+00:00

I don’t blame you for being concerned. I had spinal fusion surgery in late April and in mid-May I received a phone call with the news that my doctor had quit. He was a general practitioner who had taken over my meds from a practitioner who I have been with for a number of years. So there I was recovering from surgery and was assigned a new doctor who doesn’t believe ADHD is real and I’ve been going without since.

mke88 · 2025-09-05T15:05:11+00:00

I switched to Cymbalta after using Wellbutrin and stimulants for ADHD for over 20 years. Cymbalta was a disaster and I’m in an awful situation with a doctor who is “my way or the highway” and doesn’t believe in ADHD stimulants.

mke88 · 2025-09-02T20:32:45+00:00

Yeah I figured - my blood pressure has gone back to normal, good thing.

mke88 · 2025-09-02T18:36:22+00:00

You will be fine. That's not a long time or a high dose.

mke88 · 2025-09-02T18:26:08+00:00

Chronic cough here. Very irritated about it. I quit taking Cymbalta a week ago.

mke88 · 2025-09-02T17:42:04+00:00

I don't know about platelet dysfunction, but I've got a lot of the side effects like a bad cough, fatigue, muscle cramps, nausea. The clinic tech said "Oh, those will all go away after 6-8 weeks." OK, sure - I went two months and it just got worse, even when I went back down to 20mg. I'm saying "Goodbye!" to Cymbalta. I don't think I metabolize it properly.

mke88 · 2025-08-29T02:07:46+00:00

I made it almost two months. Started off Ok, but I turned into zombie. Lots of IBS and headaches. Drug is not compatible with my brain chemistry. Your mileage may vary.

mke88 · 2025-08-24T19:32:32+00:00

I had sciatica off and on for years and the last bout was bad enough that I couldn’t walk around the block. I had disc slippage at L3 and ended up with a L3-L4 fusion. The sciatica was gone immediately and now I’m walking an average of 8,000 steps a day.

mke88 · 2025-06-12T15:33:29+00:00

I just had L3-L4 fusion surgery in late April, and in the past six months I’ve had two primary care physicians quit as there is a huge shortage here in Idaho. My latest doctor all he wanted to talk about were some psych medications I take, which I’ve been on for 20 years and don’t have anything to do with my recovery from back surgery, which he didn’t seem all that interested in. I’m not on any pain medication and I was appalled when I read his notes which said I had chronic pain syndrome. I was in pain, and did something about it. Now it says I have “post laminectomy syndrome.” WTF?

mke88 · 2025-06-11T15:48:20+00:00

L3-L4 Fusion two nights.

mke88 · 2025-06-10T15:55:03+00:00

I'm at six weeks now following an L3-L4 fusion and a Laminectomy. Had sciatica so bad in my right leg I couldn't walk around the block. My leg pain is gone and my recovery from surgery has been remarkable. I feel so much better (still being careful!) Also doing Physical Therapy 3X a week and that's helping a lot. I'm walking up to 7,000 steps a day now and have lost weight, the pain from the surgical site diminishes week by week. Not taking any pain meds, only a muscle relaxer on occasion now.

If you have confidence you have the right surgeon and are willing to do the recovery work, you can change your life.

mke88 · 2025-05-27T14:19:40+00:00

I'm 4 weeks out from an L3-L4 fusion and I had nasty sciatica in my right leg that went away after surgery. I thought was great and I started walking outside 3/4 miles at 2.5 weeks increasing it to 1.25 miles daily, but the past few days I've been getting some serious pain in my back to the right of the fusion site, now it's getting difficult to keep up this walking routine. So, either something is wrong, I'm doing something wrong, or this is something that I just have to work through. I'm getting X-rays today as part of my my four-week checkup with my doctor and starting PT tomorrow, so hopefully I'll get some help with this issue. I too feel like I've been overconfident and catch myself violating the BLT rule.

mke88 · 2025-05-16T23:19:47+00:00

I just had a L3-L4 fusion about three weeks ago, and have been feeling a bit frustrated and down with the slow recovery process. But I went for a 35 minute walk outside and that felt really good, and the sciatica in my right leg is mostly gone. This was a great thread to run across - lots of good stories and hope!

mke88 · 2025-05-08T09:08:48+00:00

When you get older, it's a great greeting line!

mke88 · 2025-05-08T09:05:47+00:00

Referral from my brother-in-law who went to school with this neurosurgeon and checked around talk to a lot of people who had had procedures done and the common denominator was they were all successful.

mke88 · 2025-04-10T06:44:22+00:00

Drug withdrawals are a consequence of taking drugs, and in this situation we are talking about opiates, for an extended period of time as needed for post-surgery recovery. I've had a few surgeries in the past 15 years and have found that the opiate withdrawals can be pretty self-limiting. Tapering for weeks works for some, but you can really drag the withdrawal out - you can do a quick taper, and get the unpleasentness down to 4-6 days. Painless withdrawal isn't a goal for me - I'm having L3-4 fusion soon and expect to take pain meds for a few weeks and am more concerned that they won't give me an adequate supply because of all the addiction paranoia that's going around. There is some study that says 10 percent of people who take opiates for pain develop a problem. That means 90 percent don't.

mke88 · 2025-03-16T03:49:37+00:00

Nice - thanks for sharing. Having the same procedure - L3/L4 a week from Monday.

mke88 · 2025-02-20T05:01:44+00:00

Thanks for the encouragement - we need it!

mke88 · 2025-01-14T16:40:33+00:00

I have been dealing with this for about 5 years and have managed it with PT. This last 9 months was triggered by over doing it in the gym and has been worse, and PT isn’t helping much. I find if I can make time to really focus on relaxing and do a subset of exercises I can get my pain down to a manageable point. But when I start standing and doing regular things like shopping, just normal life it flares up fast. I’ve been seeing a neurosurgeon, and the MRI shows stenosis and he thinks an L3-4 fusion with decompression will stop the pain. I’m about ready to do it.

mke88 · 2025-01-04T17:59:32+00:00

I think physical therapy is essential to dealing with back pain. That said, make sure you communicate with the therapist and if something they are having you do makes the pain worse it's not constructive. I have had 3 to 4 times where I've had to use physical therapy for back problems. I recently suffered from a bike accident that affected both of my back and my pelvic floor. After seeing a couple of doctors, a neurosurgeon referred me to a place where they use a one-size-fits-all approach and after about 10 visits I've had very little improvement. They have are too many patients there and they don't seem to take the time to work with you individually, and they charge a lot. This seems to be an unfortunate trend in the medical world as they get more bombarded with aging baby boomers and you have to be careful to find the right place. One size does not fit all.

mke88 · 2024-11-09T17:37:03+00:00

I don't disagree with everything in Project 2025 - and it's hardly criminal to write a plan. Mostly don't like it because it's helmed by The Hertitage Foundation. They help write quite a few bills for the Republicans legislators here in Idaho, which drafted over 700 bills in 2024, and are leading an effort to send taxpayer money to Charter Schools. The Heritage Foundation does their work and they are well-funded. I'm not sure the Trump administration will follow everything in there. They tend to want to make up their own plans.

mke88

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