Hello. I was diagnosed with spinal stenosis and degenerative disc disease around 10 years ago. I had surgery around 6 years ago and because of my allergy to IVP dye was left with nerve damage to the left side.

During this time my nerve endings started to die and my muscles atrophy so the pain was beyond anything I could imagine. In the beginning I was on Morphine and later went to Hydrocodone on a constant basis for 1 year. I was also on Xanax and muscle relaxants.

It scared me too. What I did was to start cutting the dose. I never even cut one pill at a time but half a pill. If I took two in the morning I would take one and one half. I did this for 2 weeks and then cut out the halfs and eventually only took a half. Now I take one only as needed which is in the Winter when its worse.

Part of the quitting is not only the addiction to the med but the pain you remember before the meds. I know its scarey buttry cutting back a tiny bit and see if it works. It did for me much as mixing tiny amounts of decalf to regular coffee til it was all decalf.

May God give you strength,
barbara~