I am Addicted to Opioids. In My Desperation I Turned to the Internet for Help — Here is What Happened.
Imagine being — what most would probably consider — a “normal” person: Back in 2018, I had a stable job, a young daughter and was in a happy relationship. But life can change quickly. On one unfortunate morning, while skiing at Mammoth with my boyfriend, I had a ski accident — which changed everything. Now, the accident wasn’t wasn’t anything too dramatic, and had it been captured by my boyfriend’s (spoiler alert: now ex-boyfriend’s) GoPro, it would have probably looked quite underwhelming. However, a few weeks later, the MRI report of my knee was in and it showed that I had torn my ACL. And since I am an active person, my doctor recommended knee surgery to have it fixed. That following summer I finally had it repaired. Thankfully the surgery went well, but after the procedure I had quite a lot of pain. In some patients this can be expected, I was told. So the doctor had prescribed me a strong type of pain medication which included oxycodone — 42 tablets to be exact. I never had any experience with this mediation, however, it did help keep the pain under control. About a week into it, I started noticing that my pain was significantly improved, but for some reason I kept on taking the oxycodone-containing pain medication. Whenever I stopped taking it, I developed restlessness, anxiety, nausea, body aches — something I had never really experienced before, and which I later learned were the typical opioid withdrawal symptoms.
Fast forward to 2019: My pain was mostly gone, but my oxycodone requirement went up to about 12 pills per day. And when my doctor stopped prescribing them to me, I had to turn to street pain medications. Things escalated rapidly when I had my first overdose and ended up in the emergency room. I had to be revived with naloxone after I had stopped breathing. The doctor suspected that the oxycodone I was taking may have been laced with a strong synthetic opioid, called fentanyl. You can imagine that this was quite a shock to find myself waking up in the back of an ambulance, after naloxone administration. Sadly, it was not enough of a shock to stop taking pain killers cold turkey. In fact, during the worst of times I would spend almost $1,000 for a 10-day supply. Because both my boyfriend and I had separate incomes, I was able to maintain my addiction financially for a while. And everything was still going well with my daughter, too. But when I could not hide my addiction anymore, my relationship with my boyfriend slowly deteriorated. Of course, initially I did not call it by its name: an addiction— I was in denial. But my boyfriend repeatedly called me out on my behavior, and one day could not take it anymore and just left me. To drown my sorrow, my pill requirement went up even more. When an old high school friend of mine also overdosed on opioids, I finally had an awakening. I did not want to be part of a statistic — one of the approximately 50,000 opioid-related deaths every year. This needed to stop. Now! For the love of my daughter. And for the love of my own self.
Finding an addiction program that would fit my life as a single working mom (yes, I still had my job), was harder than most might expect. An in-patient rehab facility was out of the question — not just for financial reasons. Methadone clinics were not feasible either: waiting in line every morning to get your dose of methadone for that day, at a time when I need to bring my daughter to school and get ready for work.
After consulting ‘Dr. Google’ and doing a lot of research, I found that the best solution for me was going to be medication-assisted treatment (MAT) with buprenorphine (Suboxone). It is a medication that comes either as a pill or film and targets the opioid-related withdrawal symptoms, the cravings, as well as the pain (which was not my primary reason to take the opioids anymore). At the same time, when you are taking buprenorphine it is harder to “get high” or overdose on other opioids. And because buprenorphine has a so-called “ceiling-effect” it is difficult to overdose on the medication itself.
Now the biggest challenge was finding a certified MAT addiction provider who was licensed to prescribe the buprenorphine (only about 5% of doctors in the US are certified). I went to multiple doctor’s offices and urgent care clinics, and none were able to help me. The closest outpatient buprenorphine program was almost an hour away, and they would have still charged me a fortune.
In my desperation, I turned to the internet. Yes, that same internet that sells sketchy miracle drugs for every disease possible. It took me a quite a while, but I was able to find a telehealth addiction service that specialized in remote addiction treatment (a term coined as Tele-MAT). They had good reviews, and at that point I felt I had nothing to lose. The service did not require any in-person visits, and they were able to start me on buprenorphine online (this stage is called buprenorphine induction). Ironically, the COVID-19 pandemic made this possible, as it prompted the DEA to allow buprenorphine prescriptions online via telemedicine.
My first consultation was approximately 25 minutes by video. I was quite nervous, but the doctor did manage to alleviate my fear and walked me through the process. My internet is sometimes a little slow in the rural area I live it, so a few times the video connection was a little choppy, but overall it went well. The online doctor sent the first trial-prescription to my neighborhood pharmacy shortly after the consultation.
I was told to delay taking the first dose of buprenorphine until my withdrawal symptoms have fully started, which definitely did at that point. The doctor followed up right after I took the medication and again later that evening by email.
Two doses of self-administered buprenorphine later and my withdrawal symptoms were completely gone. I had no more cravings for opioids while at the same time not feeling overly drowsy. I did feel some sweats about half an hour following each dose (but they subsided after about a week). The next day I continued taking one tablet twice a day — the dose I have now been stable on. The first three weeks required two consultations, but once I was on a fixed dose (this period is called maintenance phase), consultations were spaced out to be a month apart. Each visit was $75. Unfortunately they do not accept insurance, but that fee does not even compare to the amount of money I was wasting on opioids before that, or to the outrageous amount of money traditional in-person addiction clinics were quoting me. Thankfully, my insurance fully covers the Suboxone prescription.
I choose are all my follow-ups to be via phone: I am just not a fan of video consultations that much — maybe I am still not over getting judged for my addiction.
I was also referred to addiction counseling, which I now go to regularly and which helped me get through the rougher days.
As of this week, I have been stable on buprenorphine for 3 months without relapsing.
I could not be happier about how my recovery went. And yes, that is why I am sharing this story. To give hope to others who are finding themselves in a similar situation I was in. To assure you that things can change and to provide some guidance in finding help.
I am now back to feeling how I felt before the surgery— almost. There are of course days that are still rough, and recovery is almost always a roller-coaster ride. But overall I am the old me. And in case you were wondering: I still have my daughter— and my job, and I could not be more thankful for that gift. And if I can do this, you can, too!
