Opiates and relief (not during but the day after!)

Hi everyone, its been a while since I've been here. I've had substantial pain and tension when using my voice for 6.5 years, and still have to limit the amount I speak daily, often to not speaking at all. Its really turned my life upside down, and although I believe a huge portion of it is TMS, its also mechanical/habitual as the pain only gets unbearable when using my voice. Otherwise there is just some general tension in the throat and diaphragm

Anyway, I wanted to see if anyone else had this experience with Opiates. It seems that very often when I take even a single 30mg codeine tablet one morning, then the day after I get a huge amount of relief and freedom with my voice and the pain and tension. I dont get this during feeling the effects, and by the time I am feeling relief the drug is not having any noticeable effect and should mostly be out of my system. But it always interests me that this happens. Then the day after that it goes back to normal....tense and painful

I was thinking back to before ever having this pain condition, and I remember once taking an opiate one day and the next day my anxiety was hugely relieved. Back then I struggled with chronic anxiety. Of course that makes sense, as I guess many of our pain issues are just anxiety.

but I wondered if anyone else had experienced something similar?

 

Nope. The only time I have even used an opiate in decades was in the summer of 2018 when I developed walking pneumonia after coughing for two months. The only reason I went into urgent care (I was not being smart) was for painful back muscle spasms that developed from the worsening cough. When I got to the point of having to go to my bedroom to lie across the bed and cough without screaming pain, I finally realized I had to do something. These are what we call "acute" symptoms, which are not the chronic symptoms of TMS - again, I was not being smart about it.

Anyway, in addition to the antibiotics, prednisone, and inhaler they gave me, I asked for an Rx of just ten oxycodone. I took one at night for two nights, half a one during the day for maybe three days, and probably a half for two more nights - and I returned the rest for drug disposal later on. They totally worked for the intended purpose and in the expected time period, to take the edge off so I could sleep and function while the other drugs did their job.

When I crashed my bike in 2008 and broke my femur, I had surgery to insert three pins. They kept offering me opiates, but I made do with ibuprofen then Tylenol. Post-surgery I remember telling the nurses "I've had cramps worse than this". That back pain from the coughing was worse than the menstrual cramps. I recall that in the 70s, I got Demerol after having my wisdom teeth removed, and it just made me sick, as did codeine when I tried that for the menstrual cramps back then. Ibuprofen was a miracle drug as far as I'm concerned. Did nothing for my sudden-onset RA 2020, however! RA is not TMS, of course - although I know that it was stress-induced.

Anyway, back to you - do you really need us to tell you that your voice symptoms are TMS? Just do your research into the effects of opioids on the brain.

 

There is early science suggesting that vocal chords can be effected because of anxiety breathing patterns. One of my symptoms is a change in power and effectiveness of voice which directly effects my work. TMS work and practicing relaxed breathing, and making sure I take long, slow exhales has reversed this.
Focusing on it, worrying about it made it much worse (which I actually never did that much because it seemed just like an attention getter, since it’s work related. I focused on why my voice would need attention: what I was thinking and feeling and telling myself about work.. it had nothing to do with the way I speak but everything to do with self-judgement, comparing myself to other etc. I still think those thoughts now, but catch myself and remind myself: thoughts are not truth, I do my job well, I LOVE my job, I can be hard on myself.
Amazingly, my voice returned quite strong, I do better work!
Perhaps because you think opioids work, they do for a time. Watch your thoughts. See if symptoms return because of expectation. See if you actually relax more after taking them because of their action or because you expect the will relax you.

 

Yeah.. That's my first thought. Opiates aren't really in your system effectively 'the next day' if I am understanding you right.

I abused opiates. If they made me sing better I wouldn't have been eating all of that prednisone, and gargling it down with tequila. You probably just get some relief and then are relaxed.

No one knows what opiates do. If you read the medical literature they bind to the opiate receptors and then...."..action Unknown". They know how amoxicillin kills bacteria. They know how insulin works to balance blood sugar. Hell, they even have a model for how SSRI's work

With opiates, doctors know that when they give them to people with gripes, they stop griping...period. Action Unknown.

I never took them much when I had TMS pain because they didn't make my pain go away....to me they were a 'fail'. Nine lortab 10/500's did NOTHING to reduce pain..(3/3x a day).
However
....once my pain was gone, I discovered Hydro, Perco, Oxy and later Morphine and Heroin. They made my shitty job go away. They made the things I was angry about no so bad....My Bad marriage was bearable, everybody got nice and there was love in the world..

'til I got dopesick.

Then I was alone and cold in a land without refuge, guilty dirty and scared and couldn't control my bowels..which didn't matter because I was wholly and completely Alone.

so..I'd recommend going easy on that stuff. Try reading some literature, finding God, or something like that. "Action Unknown"

 

Thanks, glad to hear you made progress with it.

Sadly I am unable to talk most days at all, so its nearly impossible not to think about it as its very hard to navigate life. But I have come to accept it much more than previous years, my new solitaire life, but it doesnt seem to make any change to the pain! Also my voice is actually not functioning properly and sounds bad. I have been doing a lot of training with classical singing teachers in Italy to correct this, its hard to correct a life times worth of habit. But you are right, breathing has everything to do with voice production, and anxiety of course. The voice is the breath essentially

I don't think the opiate after effects are placebo, because I never expected any relief for the first many times, and then noticed a pattern. I do think they somehow relax something in me, but weirdly its the day after more than the day I have them! But often you get a delayed reaction to things

 

I usually sing my best when I have something to do leading up to the recording or show. Been doing this 35 years and still get a little nervous BUT if I occupy myself with chores, a project, something that is good and distracting to take my mind OFF of singing, I warm up and my voice is usually good. When I try to 'relax before the show' ,all I do is fixate on how relaxed I am (or am not) and I end up singing kind of strained....I also keep going over the material and fatigue myself

Remember...our personalities are compulsive and perfectionist. If I have a gig at nine, I will start 'warming up' waaay too early (like noon) too 'make sure' I'm all good and have full range....very similar to OCD

I always remember a Xmas gig I did in my 20's. I had been ill and was more nervous then ever.. my voice was 'blown' and I could hardly speak...But when I got up on stage, just the adrenaline of being there made my voice return...until the show was over... right back to being 'blown'. BUT I got what I wanted from the divine gift giver.

Like most of our other challenges, this one is largely psychological though it seems physical