Dihydrocodeine Addict - next steps & what to expect

[JohnsThrowAway234]

Hello guys.

My saga continues. I have been diagnosed with recurrent depression, but I've stayed TRAMADOL FREE! since my terrible time coming off it. Perhaps it kicked off the issue or perhaps it always there and I was self medicating?

I'll cut to the chase.

For 8 weeks I've been using 120mg of Dihydrocodiene a day; 2 x30 in the morning and 2 x 30 at lunchtime.

I want off them but I am so, so scared because of the terrible time I had with Tramadol.

What kind of withdrawal can I expect from this habit in the grand scheme of things if I were to stop cold turkey.

It's not a nice feeling to be afraid or unhappy with your own mind so that you have to escape with drugs, but Im not keen on going any further down the hole.

Tramadol was incredible. And Im never touching it again. So there's that . [I had a 600mg a day or more habit for 18 months]

Insight much, much appreciated guys. The SSRI's dont work as Im sure many of you know so I started self medicating again with DHC...Damn it.

 

[fermonos]

Tbh mate, 120mg daily is nothing. I'd be surprised if you felt anything after stopping. Just stop worrying man, enjoy life.

 

[keeping]

right so you were addicted to tramadol in the past but got clean, but now yuor hooked on DHC?
opiate wds are opiate wds but codeine is normally the most gentle of the straight opiate family - if you can get hokd of a very small dose of methadone (5ml) that might help with the aches and sweats whilst you detox - if not get some paracetamol, immodium, buscopan and maybe some sleeepers (valium) if you can trust yourself.m

 

[isaaccain]

Don't worry about it mate, I was taking more than that a week ago, now it's like day 5 and I'm almost done with physical withdrawals, just some bone and muscle pain and my usual chronic pains are worse too, but you won't have to worry about that (unless you've got chronic pain, of course). I think I went a week on 300-600mg and then just used 180mg for a while to stave off sickness for a month, getting high occasionally. Day one and two just felt like I had a really bad cold, day three was terrible, and day four felt like I had a really bad cold, but not as bad as day one and two. You can probably expect some withdrawals but think of it this way:

The oral bioavailability of dihydrocodeine is 20%. If you are taking 120mg a day, only 24mg will be metabolised in your liver to make dihydromorphine with an efficiency of 90%. A conversion efficiency of 90% with an fully absorbed dose of 24mg is 21.6mg of dihydromorphine, which is 115% the strength of morphine. 21.6*1.15 = 24.84mg of morphine. 24.84mg of morphine a day for 8 weeks isn't much, and in general dihydromorphine/dihydrocodeine has less addiction potential than just straight morphine. I mean, the half life of dihydrocodeine is 4 hours, so 24.84mg/6 (6 because 24 hours in a day, 4 hour half life, 24/4 = 6) = 4.14, which if you had 24.84mg for say, 60 days without a break, you'd have a dependance of having about 200mg of morphine in your system, which is barely any (only it's not morphine, it's dihydromorphine, I just couldn't be bothered doing the conversion again). For a comparison, I would've had a dependance of about 2 grams of morphine, ten times what you've had, you see what I mean? Your withdrawals shouldn't be that bad. I hope that makes you feel better. You probably won't even be physically addicted.

 

[fermonos]

Also take into account that Codeine is rated 'high' for dependency on Wikipedia where as DHC is only 'Moderate to High'. Probably means nothing but like I said before I think the dose is too low to really mean anything, I mean even 8 weeks isn't that long a time, especially if it's one of your first times stopping opiates.