Codiene withdrawal

[CorinaC]

Hi all. Well this is my first time posting on here and my story is a long one so I’ll try to keep it as short as possible.

I have been an addict for about 5-6 years now, I’m a 32 year old English female, I work full time, live with my partner and don’t have any children. I first stated using opiates about 6 years ago, I was suffering with cystitis and my pal whipped out some tramadol. Not only did it take the pain away but it made me feel WONDERFUL! I pretty much had access to an almost limitless stock so kept taking it not realising it was addictive. Fast forward several months and my stocks run out. The WD comes, oh man I was ill. For a few years I then switch between buying Nurofen + over the counter and tramadol online. This went on for a few years till 2 years ago I OD’d on tramadol and had a full on grand mal seizure at work. My parents then found out what was happening and I went into cold turkey. This was the worst CT ever, I couldn’t eat, kept throwing up, terrible diarrhoea, awful anxiety, restless legs, the whole shebang. About a week later the physical was pretty much over but I still lacked energy, was very depressed, couldn’t concentrate at work and found joy in nothing so I went back onto Nurofen + and have been on it ever since. A few weeks ago I went to my doc for help and she put me on a taper programme using codiene phosphate. I stupidly didn’t stick to the plan and was using all the codiene pills then topping them up with Nurofen + so this weekend have decided to stop it and just stick to my plan but by now my plan is 1 x 15mg pill 4 times a day (this from 8 x Nuro + tablets 4 times a day so quite a big drop). I’m not doing too bad, I’m able to sleep through, a little diarrhoea but just mainly feel bored. One thing I’ve read about is the use of loporomide to help with WDs so I bought some yesterday and I’ve got to say I’m pleasantly surprised! I took 6 x 2mgs per the advice I’ve read and I felt almost normal! I’m struggling a bit with RLS today so I’m going to take some more loporomide and hopefully that’ll sort it out.

Sorry for the essay but I felt that I had to get it all in.

Has anyone else used loporomide for help with WDs? Or does anyone have any other advise to reduce WDs?

I’m happy to ask any questions as well. I’m only on day 2 and am still taking 1 x 15mg of codeine phosphate 4 times a day so it’s not as bad as it could be if I was taking nothing!

Peace and love to all x

 

[Jekyl Anhydride]

Hi Corina and Welcome to BlueLight!

So let me start off by saying that you're far from the first person to be stuck in this position and won't be the last. The fact you're ready to take the bull by the horns and get this under control is a positive thing and your future self will thank you more than you can comprehend right now.
Getting to the HR stuff first, are you CWE'ing your pills?, that's cold water extracting the codeine from the ibuprofen/ APAP/ Aspirin to save the abuse to your liver. It's very important fro your long term health, second while the Loperamide is a big help make sure to keep the amounts as low as possible as some with bad opioid habits use very high doses and it can cause serious heart problems as well as drag out the W/D as it's actually an opioid itself, it just doesn't get into your brain in very large quantities so keep that to a minimum and for as short a period as you can tolerate.

Now I don't want to sound cold and callous but there are tons of threads that are filled with tips and stories of what people did to get off opioids for good. Let me direct you to some to get you started.

Best of Luck to You and here's some great places to get started. Hang in There Corina!

http://www.bluelight.org/vb/threads/569872-The-Opioid-Withdrawal-Megathread-and-FAQ

http://www.bluelight.org/vb/threads/548643-Cold-Water-Extraction-(CWE)-Mega-Thread-amp-FAQ-v2-0

http://www.bluelight.org/vb/forums/47-The-Dark-Side

http://www.bluelight.org/vb/forums/269-Sober-Living

 

[CorinaC]

Hi Jekyl, thank you for your reply ?? I’m doing my best to hang in here, this is my 4th attempt at coming off these devil pills and I’m determined that it’s going to be my last! It’s particularly difficult for me because I’m still at the stage where I enjoy the feeling it gives me. My main motivations are money (I’ve been spending an absolute fortune on the Nuro +) and my health. I don’t want to die. I don’t want my stomach to be all churned up because of the ridiculous amounts of ibuprofen I’m consuming. I also am sick of living the life of a junkie - getting my next fix being my main priority.

I wasn’t doing the CWE method, I had read about that but had read that this can decrease the strength of the codeine so I just took the tablets. It would appear I would rather put my health at risk than lose any amount of high ? anyhoo, it’s now Sunday 3.30pm and my last Nuro + tablet was taken at around 2pm on Friday.

Thank you for the links, I’ll take a look at those now. With regards to the Lopo, I took 6 x 2mgs pills and the same today. I supppe I should just ride it out and not take anything at all but I’m just not that brave ? the one thing I’ve found to help is music. I’ve just had a bath and put som upbeat music on and it’s worked a treat. I’m going to try to get some cleaning done then check of the links provided.

Thank you again Jekyl.

Peace and love to all ??

 

[Keif' Richards]

Corina, I understand that you're new, so I'm not gonna hammer you too hard . We're a pretty extensive Harm Reduction resource and much like that guy on the State Farm commercials, "If it's happened, we've covered it!" (or whatever he says). So, you can probably expect, that given the history of our forums, you are not the first individual to consult us regarding how to handle Opioid withdrawal. So, for both the good of the community and yourself, I have to direct you to use our search engine or consult our Opioid withdrawal megathread. We have countless, endless threads devoted to your problem and being able to find them would enable you to help yourself and not rely on our being available for you. With that being said, I'm going to send you on your way with the basics that I go by. I've been an Opioid addict for about a decade and I've withdrawn countless times. My mother is quite proud of me.

Gabapentin (Neurontin) or Pregabalin (Lyrica) - The latter is better, but they are essentially cross-tolerant. Restless legs/Akathisia, Sleep, Anxiety, Depression and Lethargy. If you intend to follow my advice, this is your most important component. Ask for 800mg x3/day or if not, try to get at least 600mg x3/day

Cannabis - Whether you eat it, smoke it or shoot it up, there's no cure for nausea like Cannabis. When I'm sick, I will typically smoke and then force myself to eat and drink. The Cannabis helps me keep the food and fluids down. It's also great for sleep and tends to have a minor impact on my RLS/Akathisia

Clonidine (Catapres) - It's a blood pressure medication, but is sort of a jack-of-all-trades/master of none. What I mean, is that this one drug is not likely to make a seriously noticeable difference in your symptoms. It helps, but it's not enough on its own. It's a sedative and will help calm you down, reduce hot/cold fluctuations and can help make the difference between a night of restlessness and 6 hours of sleep.

There are a ton of other medications that you may or may not find helpful, but these are the 3 most important in my opinion. I start here and if I decide it's not enough, I go further, but this is my tried and true cocktail. I typically avoid Opioids and Benzodiazepines completely though. You may want to use Benzodiazepines, which is fine if you can be responsible, but you should always steer clear of Opioids as they will only prolong your syndrome. If you're taking enough Loperamide to actually alleviate your symptoms, you're taking too much Loperamide. You should only use enough to make the level of Diarrhea bearable. Loperamide is itself a powerful Opioid and using it, even though it doesn't produce euphoria, will prolong your syndrome just as if you were using any other Opioid agonist. Try your best to rely on medications that are not Opioids.

I'm closing this one, as we have way too many threads devoted to basic Opioid withdrawal already. OP, if there's anything that I did not make clear enough, please send me a private message.