Will someone one tell me why?

You sure have more pain problems than you deserve, Daniel~. I'm sorry that this Zoster thing has cursed you for so many years, it's understatement to say that this is not fair. I'm not an authority on pain by any means and I'm not particularly knowledgeable about opioids.
I have personal experience with heroin, which is derived from the opium poppy yet not created by a mad scientist. Opioids are by definition synthetic. Though they can be effective in relieving serious pain they come with a huge "catch." Which is that an addiction to one or more than one of them is FAR more painful to give up than an addiction to an "honest" opoid such as heroin, morphine or opium.

Heroin is no fun to say goodbye to. Long term heroin users, as in many years of daily usage do experience a terrible withdrawal.

I'm overjoyed to say that I lost that addiction after a mere six months of daily usage. The army changed its policy on handling heroin addicts shortly before I was caught. Some army companies had ninety percent of their members on heroin. Not mine, less than ten percent of us were addicts.

"Hey, let's be humane" said a high up general, ending the policy of kicking junkies on to the street back in the USA--with three thousand dollar a day heroin habits. The heroin in Viet-Nam was 98% pure and very inexpensive. I was sent south to TC Hill near Saigon to kick. Viet-Nam was just one of my country's major mistakes, as if "major" is big enough to describe it. I was majorly unhappy and freaked out about allowing myself to be a minuscule part of that war upon the innocent. I responded to that situation in an unhealthy way. Very few men were able to "rise above it." I envied their strength, but couldn't emulate them.

After a miserable week at TC Hill I was cured. The physical pain was hard to take, and dysentery plus throwing up all of the food you ate. But grokking the damage I did to my soul was even worse. Sure, pain of any kind gets smothered well by heroin. But so does all joy.
It only takes two weeks of daily use to become hooked on heroin. It's a very good drug to avoid, something like a third of the people that try it get hooked.

I was scripped small amounts of methadone a few years ago for rheumatoid arthritis pain. Thank God I used it for very short periods only!
A very old friend of mine was on daily methadone to lessen the pain of withdrawal from long term heroin use. Being hooked on it was far worse than heroin, synthetic opioids are extremely cruel to people that are addicted to them. Withdrawal from the man-made pain killers is extremely prolonged. Some say that methadone withdrawal is ONE HUNDRED times worse than even withdrawal from long term heroin use. Which can damn near kill long use addicts, btw.

That's a road no one deserves to be put on. Methadone is a way for the state to control you when you need it every day. However there are great benefits of methadone programs to society at large, much less crime by needful junkies and a dose of it lasts up to twelve versus four hours for the big H. Plus no needles needed.

I don't know how many or even if there are accessible methadone programs for bona fide heroin addicts nowadays. We are a society in LOVE with punishment. We can't get enough of it.
It's been proven over and over that humane treatment and counseling programs keep us far more free from drugs than punishment and imprisonment do. And treatment costs far less than jail does.

Naturally these simple facts are anathema to our upside down world of punish, punish, punish.

But in our truly bizarre world the pain and suffering borne by our "inferiors" is a very good thing. LOOK how virtuous WE are! What do you mean that three of the fingers of the hand pointing out those lesser beings are pointed back at us. What an inconvenient fact. No, my index finger is my passport to superiority.

Hoyt Axton, interesting anti-establishment character. IIRC, he brought a couple of kilos of opium to Hong Kong when on leave from Viet-Nam in the Sixties. Had it changed into heroin there. Bad Mr Axton!

I sought oblivion when I was an alcoholic. What a mean spirited drug. I guess that the punishment of hangovers and loss of sleep keeps it legal? It's fine in small doses, but a little wasn't enough. Bad choice of drugs.
Heroin is indeed the Great Escape, but I was too stupid to realize that that escape doesn't really work. If you use it forever and always have an unlimited supply, it's a good imitation of an escape. But there is no escape from the pain we all experience, that pain of daily living. Using junk keeps it away from your immediate consciousness. When you stop you discover that all of that daily ration of the pain involved in simply living draws INTEREST while you "were away."

Sometimes life is simply too damned impossible to handle. Not everyone is strong enough to take it on the prow when it's truly horrible. I wasn't. But I was not inferior because of that, moral judgment isn't always valid.

Dan~, you are in a dangerous position. Long term synthetic opioid usage is bad for your health, not to mention mental health. (Well, they can't prescribe the genuine narcotics can they? Oops, hang on, morphine is still on the legal list. It's rarely prescribed.) Opioids rule the PDR. Think of the HORRIFIC pain that the Legal Drug Establishment would have to bear. That gloriously profitable Empire of patented man-made pain killers---we CAN'T have them losing money!

And they, as in the PTB, have this situation all wrapped up in a pretty bow. Funny fact, plenty of their kin are addicted to man-made painkillers. But that doesn't count. They write the rules, democracy is nearly dead. Common sense means nothing, big money talks loudly, the little people mean less than zero. Oh well, I do blather on.

I had Dilaudid twice in my life. One purloined pill many decades ago and one injection after waking up from facial surgery. The stuff is extremely strong. It's another fake fruit of the poppy invention, and no doubt nastily addictive. At least it's a good deal older than Oxycodone and its kin--maybe it's less vicious when withdrawing from it? But I wouldn't count on that.

Yes, you should have been allowed to taper off of the opioids you were on legitimately--to help kill real pain. And it should have been an extremely long taper. Cutting down the dosage very slowly, as in over a period of months. If you take the stuff for a long time you need a LONG time to get off of it.
It is a practical insanity to suddenly stop taking opioids if you have taken them for a long time. Ah, but the punishment, it must be glorious! Suffering ennobles the spirit, but especially when someone ELSE suffers!

I have a relative with Brittle Bone Disease. He's had thirty seven major surgeries in his life. He is in constant pain that's unimaginable to folks without that terrible illness. He's taken heavy duty synthetic pain killers for decades. His doctors didn't try to take him off of the drugs. Until recently, because the gummint now wants to cut him back. They know better than his doctors--of course! Punishment for all who don't matter!

They frequently demand that methadone patients taper down their daily dose. And the clinics usually don't do it slowly enough.
Guess what? Many of the patients start to score heroin again. But a lot less of it than they did before getting on a methadone program. Thank heaven for small mercies.

Life has improved so very much for the man in the street over the last four decades that drug abuse is less of a problem.
If you believe that, good luck to you.
Humans have used drugs for hundreds of thousands of years, during hard times people need to escape more. Ergo, drugs are a huge problem. And the so-called War on Drugs makes everything worse. And keeps profits high for the men on top--notice how often that they go to prison? And makes the streets more dangerous--but the people who matter never walk on a street in real life. And they like it that way.

Drug addiction must be treated as a disease. "Taking care of it" with cops and jails is very wasteful and criminally cruel.
But we sure get our punishment quota in!

I was an alcoholic for three years too, Gizmo. But I hardly ever drank socially. It was less expensive and far more efficient to grab a four liter bottle of cheap white wine at the grocery store. I usually finished off that bottle within a day. I drank for effect, glugging down about a liter to start off with. Wine glasses are for effete non serious drinkers. Depending on mood, I'd polish off nearly an entire 750 ml bottle of hard booze instead. Why risk a slip between cup and lip with a glass? Only vodka for the last year. It didn't smell on your breath. Idiotic, naturally.
I had hepatitis C during my drunk years but didn't know it. I was blessed with one heavy duty liver.
The mental horror was extreme, awakened by the garbage truck at 4 AM. And I knew I would get no more sleep that night. Lying awake in the knowledge that I was killing myself. But too sick to get out of bed. Lie here and suffer, overly sensitized to all sounds. Good God, booze is a CRUEL drug.

I think it's safe to say that all things considered, it was much more painful to get off off the alcohol train than it was the heroin express. It's awfully prolonged pain while you're alcoholically addicted. You think you know hangovers? Not before you use a funnel to swallow it down all day for years.
Toward the end of my drinking career I started to feel very, very bad physically. Getting in or out of a car took three minutes, I was in great pain and had to move extremely slowly. As the saying goes, I hurt all over. And how.

I haven't touched alcohol for more than twenty five years. I don't trust myself to have just one drink. I miss good wine, it's special. And single malt long aged Scotch is mighty tasty. That's OK, I had more than enough long ago.


Daniel~, Trying to answer your Q from many posts back about: Are heroin, morphine and Oxycodone the same for a junkie? From what I understand: once upon a time Oxycodone (wth is the other name for it? Can't recall) tablets could be crushed, then snorted or injected for a much faster "high." They changed the pills so that people couldn't do this any more, IIRC.

In a rough sense, they are the same for a jonesing (going through withdrawal symptoms) junkie. Yet the "high" (it's a common mis-perception that heroin and similar drug users want to be "high." Wrong. They want to be DOWN.
As in close to dead to all emotions.
I only ate prescribed Oxycodone pills for temporary pain, mostly from dental surgery. The stuff works well, it's an effective pain killer. I have no experience with snorting or injecting the stuff. TBH, it never crossed my mind to find out about this. Thankfully. As I've repeated, addiction to man-made opioids is far worse than addiction to the ""natural"" opiates.

Interestingly, morphine is three times more effective against pain than heroin is. But wait, there's more.
Heroin is three times more euphoric than morphine is. I've had very little experience with morphine, administered after surgeries a couple of time over a period of almost fifty years. It knocked me out immediately the last time and I'm glad it did. Pain from your face is so damned close to your brain, arrgh.

Thinking upon it, as far as heroin use goes I was in an extremely rare category. Easily available(most of the time) and dang near chemically pure heroin. And it cost between $9.00 and $18.00 per gram. Depending on the factor of availability and how much you scored in advance. We sucked the tiny balls(not powder, one millimeter balls) up into a cigarette and smoked the cigarette. Practically throwing away 98.6% pure heroin. Stateside junkies would have literally screamed over the waste. But 12% of it's potency delivered to the blood stream was plenty, believe me.
And hooked for six months was a meaningful but a short term addiction. And I tapered my dosage down to 30% of my former daily load well before that deer in the headlights day of discovery. Thankfully. My best junkie friend refused to taper, boy howdy that guy was in pain when he was stopped cold by the army.

If you want to explore the un-life you get while using heroin, you couldn't ask for a better way to go. The big plus was no freakin' needles. But being in a war really bit hard, even though I was far from being an action hero. Praise the heavens above!
And I weighed 137 lbs when I was returned to the stateside hospital. And weaker than a kitten, no lie.
Great Escape vacation that it sorta was, the cost was far from free.

Clinton and Trump. Both are terrible, somehow I don't think that's a choice of any kind. It looks like the Democratic Establishment will bar Bernie Sanders from the Presidency, even if he wins it fair and square. I think I'll still vote for him,
Clinton is a monster imnsho, and I can't define Trump as any kind of human.

If we really get the government we deserve, those chickens have come home to roost. In our faces.
I'm very glad that I'm old. The Radiant Future awaits. I apologize to the young, we have failed to avoid this situation.

Dan~, if you used Oxycodone and other synthetic, as in dreamed up in a laboratory man-made painkillers for a solid two years to combat the pain from your very rare (see, there is a God, Virginia) Zoster type Herpes skin eruptions you had a more difficult time than I did getting off of those drugs.
Two years of synthetic opioids versus six months of the finest "naturally derived" heroin in the world?
There's no comparison. I was on a vacation (sorta) as opposed to your spending time in real hell. And you still are, from what I understand.

And I cut my daily usage down from 2 grams to one third of a gram (which was no fun at all) before going to the army's drying out facility at TC Hill, near Saigon. Men that had really high amounts of heroin in them were put in a special ward and kept unconscious for up to ten days. I don't wish to do the math to convert 12% of 2 grams or one third of a gram of pure heroin smoked in cigarettes into an injected dose, in aid of clinical accuracy. TC Hill was surrounded by twin twenty foot high chain link fences liberally topped with razor wire, with a guard dog run in between them. One guy escaped (but escaped to what? He must have been able to live on the economy, totally outside of the military. Very few military pulled that off in DaNang. But DaNang was tiny compared to Saigon) during the two weeks I was there. Don't know how he pulled it off. Roughly two hundred soldiers were there during my stay.

Gizmo was at the very sharp edge of the sword in battle in his South West Asian experiences. He wrote that those kidney stones hurt far worse than being shot. More than once! His war experiences were completely different than mine. I was a REMF, Rear Echelon Muther Flocker. Of course there were no military "fronts" in either of those wars, but my rear was exponentially safer than his. My memories are Disneyland romps compared to Gizmo's. I hope I'm not revealing too much of his history.

I must agree, Europeans have had an especially evil history in conquering much of the world over the last five hundred years. Or maybe we are only the most recent example of might makes everything right.

I like to give some people that support Trump a tiny bit more credit. Some of them don't have enough education and support the guy(?) out of ignorance. But plenty of mean spirited idiots rally 'round him as well. That our political situation has fallen so far into the dark is breathtaking. IMHO, Hillary may be just as evil as is the Donald in her own power drunk way.

We've allowed the mean spirited rich and powerful to take nearly all of our Democracy away from us. Only disciplined and gigantic acts of lawful civil disobedience are available to us to change this.
The powers that be don't want to be threatened by this, the last chance we have against the dictatorship of the powerful.
Heavily militarized police stand ready to break the bones of those courageous enough to take this action. Make no mistake, even though the people pay the police's salaries, they work for the people on top.

If enough people stand up and say "no more of oligarchy, plutocracy and nothing for the little person" the police will change sides. Easy for me to say, I'm too frail to march with the trodden upon. As far as I can tell, if we don't say "no," we are completely and permanently doomed to have less and less of every thing worth having.

Bernie Sanders is far from perfect, yet at least he is a genuine human that cares about the little people.
Heyell cloasters, you don't know nothing. I sure don't know everything!

It's knee jerk easy for me to blame Republicans for nearly everything. They are such glaring examples of all that is wrong in this world of ours.
However, they are beyond the reach of a sane person, imho.
Very much of the blame falls upon the mercenary policies of the once upon a time New Deal Democrats. They sold out to the Corporatocracy lock, stock and barrel. And we stood there and let them do it.

As I wrote before, I think that massive, legal civil disobedience is the only route open for The People to reclaim their Constitutional powers. Because violent revolution from below can not possibly win against the intricate machine that monitors nearly every facet of our lives in real time. Hunting rifles versus B52's? It is to laugh, hopelessly.

I've been enthused about Bernie Sanders for many years. His voting record is not perfect, according to my Left leaning opinion. But it lives up to my ideals most of the time.
Yet he's far, far above my own state's senators, "Democrats" both who voted FOR the TPP. The Trans-Pacific Partnership has very little to do with trade. It is, plainly, simply and honestly--the final nail in Democracy's coffin. It hands over the enforcement of laws to the global Corporatocracy. It's interests do NOT include the people of its signatories. We are demoted to useless trash--except as consumers. And heaven help you if you can't consume.

And our current "Democratic" president supports this abomination. What a human being! His pockets are eternally richly lined with gold from his masters. His masters sure as hell don't look like you and me or any person. The rich and powerful lost the right to be called "people" long ago.

The little people have less and less of an education as time goes on. Critical thinking is not taught and hasn't been for many years. The people on top want the pesky public to think less, accept what they are told by the "media," pay their unfair share of taxes and serve in the wars that benefit only the people on top.
How's this plan working out? Until very recently very well indeed. Sure, there are voices that are raised against this cruel way of "living." But they are out-shouted by the five or six corporations that put out the daily "news." Mainstream media broadcasts and prints "Yay, hooray for everything." Far too many of us actually swallow this nonsense as truth.

Sure, this is just my humble opinion. Vote or don't as you think you should. Some say voting simply encourages the prolongation of our bad system of governance. I don't know if I agree with this. Hope springs eternal. Perhaps quite foolishly. I hope not.