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  • TDS Moderators: AlphaMethylPhenyl | Eligiu | deficiT | paranoid android

Opiate Withdrawal.

Yeah man, day 3-4 seems to be the worst. Idk why but like day 4 you've had it with the whole process and just get high. That's a turning point. Could go one way or another. Best thing, get off and stay off!!
 
I'm getting off the oxy again. First time was cold turkey from 60 mg / day. That sucked.
This time is starting 150 mg / day. I'm doing a taper this time. My plan is to cut out 15 mg/day at each level. One level lasts 4-7 days. I have just completed 6 days at 135 mg/day and I only felt wd's for about an hour on the fourth day. Just a little lethargy and leg aches.
Today is start of level 2 - that's 120 mg/day. I'm doing this without any medical supervision. My plan is to confess that I'm cutting down to my Dr, just in case he decides to drug test me. But I plan to lie about how fast I'm cutting back so I can still get the larger Rx since my copayment is the same for 5 pills as it is for 90 pills. When this is over I want a stash for furure needs.
I am doing this with no help from anyone. I have a drawer FULL of oxycodone, oxycontin, norco and percocet. So how do I keep myself from taking the extra pills and getting high???? Even when I know my Dr will give me a lit more each month????
Each dose I take, I recite to myself some version of this : " I am a drug addict. I am taking this pill only to keep away withdrawls. If I ever want to free myself from slavery then I cannot ever take these pills to get high. If I cheat, then I will eventually have no pills and a huge habit. This is my only chance to quit oxy without suffering withdrawls."
This little speech has worked well so far to keep me from desiring to take extra and get a little relief. O needed a solution since I have nobody to hold my pills for me.
 
Dunno why but I vomited this morning about 2 hours after I woke up and took a 30 mg extend release oxy and a 30 mg normal oxy (my usual morning routine), so I used that as an excuse to take an extra 30 mg tonight (150 mg today total when I'm supposed to be at 120mg). I really don't want to struggle through the night with wd's. I took an Ativan (lorazepam) before bed too just to be sure. Insomnia would make me quit quitting for sure!
 
Squeaky -

dont quit quitting! I know exactly how you feel - you are still in the fear of withdrawal stage. I'm sure to some degree, we all are.

How do you feel now? I mean while using 150 mgs a day - how do you feel? I only average about 80 mgs a day and I can assure you I feel like shit most of the time. A huge turning point for me was realizing that, if I don't feel good on the opiates, then what's the downside to feeling bad without them? At least feeling bad without them is doing some amount of good, at least my body/brain is healing.

It it helps me to realize that a life of addiction is really no better than a few weeks of withdrawals.

Tapering with your doc can be sooooooo difficult. Can you switch to Kratom and taper from there? Often times it's easier to taper with a substitute substance.

Just don't quit quitting, sometimes it's all we have.

- VE
 
Squeaky: I too have struggled with tapering off of oxycodone and oxymorphone due to a great fear of having to go cold turkey! You are an inspiration to me in that you are insuring that you have a stash in case you get dropped by your doctor, the laws around opioids change, etc. I have a goal of creating a reserve of pills so that I too never have to go through cold turkey withdrawal again. I have failed miserably, but your post and that little paragraph you tell yourself has gotten me re-motivated. Keep posting... and just resume your taper schedule as soon as you can!
 
VE- I feel pretty crappy all of the time.
60 mg/day- I felt great. A little extra oxy made me feel better.
90 mg/day- I felt a little stoned most of the day. It was pretty nice. Once I got used to that dose, I could still take extra to help with the pain from surgery, but it helped less than before.
120 mg/day- I was convinced the pills were necessary and that taking extra would really help in that moment. Truth was that it was just maintenance and my dependance was doing more harm than good
150 mg/day - I was really only keeping away wd's. I was nauseous about 60% of the time.
 
I know the wd's from oxy well enough now. I have Ativan to get through sleeping problems, but I don't want to trade one drug for another. I'll just tough it out with the current plan and keep posting my progress along with any useful tricks I come up with.
Maybe this can help someone else.
 
The hardest part seems to be the simple fact that it is always easy to do more of the bad stuff in life and harder to to do less of it. Compound this with the fact that the drugs really do provide some pain relief and the thought of using less sounds hopeless.
 
Ok , so I figured out that I have been nauseous A LOT since being on 150 a day. It may be the dosage or it may be the time release pills that are part of my pain control regimen.
Either way I am trying to taper down, so starting today I went straight down to 90 mg/ day. That's all the instant release oxy thd Dr gave me and none of the time release oxy. It's a big step down and so far I am getting to feel the wd's but it's not really bad(yet). I take 15 mg every 3 hours while I'm awake and I am feeling the wd's about 30-45 min before each dose. They go away when the pill kicks in. My guess is that 4 - 7 days and I'll be stable at 90 mg/day and I can go back to a more gentle taper. I am now taking lorazepam 2mg at noon and before bed to help with the depression from the new routine and they really help. I don't care that I'll probably have to kick benzos again when this is all over.
 
Squeaky..don't give up..it looks like your doing a great job. I've been where you're at..I always feared the WD's so much that I ended tapering down too. I always hated that it felt like the dr's held that script above my head and loved watching me jump thru hoops for it. Needless to say I went for almost 2 years..needed emergency surgery and I'm back where I started. I don't know whether to laugh or cry. I do have a different doc who has some actual compassion. Feel free to PM me if you need a cheerleader at 2 AM..I fight with this chick called Insomnia and she wins everytime..lol
 
I recently discovered Zofran for opiate withdrawal, I was surprised how well it works. It made my cramps go away, my headaches, RLS, the shits, it helped with everything except maybe not the hot flashes I think it made them less severe though...thank god I have clonidine for that.
 
The Zofran controlled my nausea but gave me a headache. They say the clonidine is the best stuff to have...I used it a couple of years ago and it helped with the RLS..I've had that since I was a kid..sometimes my whole body. It's the worse!
 
Never got addicted to heroin so never expirienced withdrowals. What I can tell you is that sometimes I have an urge for taking heroin and alcohol reduces it to zero, if this is any helpfull.
 
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A lot of former heroin addicts who never particularly used alcohol end up switching and becoming alcoholics once they quit using heroin for some reason, it isn't uncommon. Problem is, that is probably even more unhealthy than using dope, or at least as bad in the long run, even if it legal and socially acceptable to a degree.

Probably not the best suggestion to use alcohol to cope with heroin cravings.
 
Thank you all for the support. With each day I get a little more momentum. Today seems to be my turning point, when I am absolutely determined not to go back.
I never got RLS. I got the aching bones in my legs and back, sweats, diarrhea.
 
Glad to hear you're feeling better Sqeaky! Keep up the great work - the worst is over!
 
How come I don't anymore fear withdrawals and can cold turkey even high oxycodone habits or taper them slowly or fast depending how much is available? Have I got used to having withdrawals as I have used for so many years and run out of script so many times I can't even count?

It is the PAWS phase in which I always relapse instead of acute withdrawals.

I have tried filling the void left by opioids with different hobbies, meditation, relationship etc. but still I relapse in some point and the trigger is often the boredom or feeling of not accepting the reality of having no real reason to live or no part in the big picture (ie. in scale of universum). I could even say that in the worst times using opioids along with benzos is an alternative for suicide.
 
MrRoot said:
I have tried filling the void left by opioids with different hobbies, meditation, relationship etc. but still I relapse in some point and the trigger is often the boredom or feeling of not accepting the reality of having no real reason to live or no part in the big picture (ie. in scale of universum). I could even say that in the worst times using opioids along with benzos is an alternative for suicide.
Click to expand...

I think this is really just seeing human life for what it is--our crazy, lonely, personal journey with our human minds. Dogs don't need the bigger picture and neither do snakes or birds or elephants but man, we sure do. We want to feel meaning and understanding. We want the thrill of being launched out of our small lives into something that we perceive to be there but cannot see. We want the peace of letting the burden of our ego's insatiable desires lifted by feeling our place in the grand scheme of things. But most of us stumble in and out of all sorts of ridiculous and self-defeating things because on the one hand we are these marvelous thinkers and have the imagination to grasp that there is a bigger picture and yet on the other hand we are simply complex bodies playing out whatever roles we have accepted from our tribe's cultural edicts. Some people get in bad relationships, some people buy things they don't need, some people eat and eat and eat and some people struggle with drug addiction but it's only drug addiction that gets the bad rap and the stigma.

As far as the boredom being a trigger, I think the best antidote is travel. My son just got home from hitchhiking around Central America for a couple of months and he said that he is trying hard to hang on to that feeling of pleasure that just comes from observing as well as the excitement you feel when everything is new and uncharted. It's easy and natural to get that when everything is exotic to you but when you come home it can also help you to not fall back into routine and boredom by reminding you that even where you live there is pleasure to be found in people watching, trying new foods, interacting with strangers openly etc. Are you still planning on taking your U.S. trip?

I think you would like the author, Craig Childs. He's a naturalist adventurer and his latest book, Apocalyptic Planet, draws your mind out of the small and into the scope of geologic time. He has a knack for understanding the here-and-now miracles we are surrounded by and the total irrelevance of all of that on the grand scale. I don't know if it would speak to your sense of a "reason to live" but it did speak to mine. Basically it just takes the burden of having any reason at all out of the thought process. In other words, you are here, it won't last long, open your eyes to what is around you and dig it while you can. I don't believe there is any reason for us to stay alive, there is only the desire to do so and the uniquely human connections we make with others, with other species and everything else we encounter along the way that make it worthwhile.
 
Wow Herbavore... That was deep.
I guess I always thought the same thing, just that my version is much simpler- everyone's addicted to something. The trick is trading a shitty addiction fot a productive or meaningful one.
 
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