Excessive Sweating?

After 10 years of high dose opiates for chronic pain I've been off completely for over a month. I weened down from 180 methadone (pills for pain, not the liquid like from a clinic) over the course of over 2 years and took my last 5mg's on November 10th. I'm feeling much better in a lot of regards but I have excessive sweating. I'm (healthily) skinny and would almost never sweat before this. Even doing exercise I really didn't sweat very much. Now its out of control. My ass, my pits, my feet, my hands. I've tried gold bond powder for my ass and anti antiperspirant dry spray (20%) for my pits but nothing works. As I write this I'm sitting naked on a towel because I don't want to needlessly sweat through another pair of pants. My wrist even sweats when I'm using the mouse. Is this common? Anyone know how long something like this will last? I don't take clonodine / vistiral/ gabapentin anymore. I only used it for about 2 weeks to get through the worst of it but didn't want to become dependent on any meds again. I'm also having rapid heart beating throughout the day, for which I'm getting an EKG on Wednesday (just to make sure everything's okay). According to my pain guy I may also have something called gastric rising syndrome. I feel this weird, almost menthol like sensation in the back of my throat that gets better when I eat - but only for a little. That combined with stomach issues and chronic thirst that never gets quenched is just a pain in the ass.

Any advice?

Have you considered having your thyroid checked out?

Someone suggested the same to me. I have had bloodwork done recently but I don't know if thyroid requires a specific test that is not done on a regular blood panel. I am a heavy sweater as well. I sweat heavily during exercise (I leave a lake around my spin bike at the gym) but thought nothing of it because I was told it was sign of physical fitness and anything that requires the least amount of physical exertion. And whenever I sweat for no reason, I thought it was usually associated with my past heavy drinking. I have also recently experienced anxiety and rapid heart rate for no seeming reason. It happened at work last week. I couldn't do any of my usual stress busters like going on a bike ride. I didn't know what else to do so I popped an Ativan, but I really don't like taking benzos. It calmed the racing thoughts but did nothing for the rapid heart rate.

I had a bunch of blood work done before I came off the methadone and, minus my testosterone (free and total - which were abysmally low @ 5% of what it should be) the other tests were fine. The sweating started when I came off the opiates. Even last night I drenched my bed through my pjs. The fan was on full blast and the air conditioner was on (it was like 85 here yesterday but the house was cool). I wanted to wait to get blood work done until I had adapted more but I guess I'll do it this week and see what's up. I really hate getting my blood drawn. I've developed a really weird response to blood / bodily stuff. The needle stick doesn't really bother me, but the fact that I'm trying to get a vein to pop out makes me feel very sick. I avoid blood draws pretty much at all costs lol.

Well if the sweating started when you were coming off opiates, my guess is that it's probably still a symptom of withdrawal even though you may no longer be experiencing symptoms of acute withdrawal. I know when I came off alcohol I would sweat heavily for weeks afterwards. If you've been clean longer than about a month, I'd definitely get checked out by a doctor.

It's been about 5 weeks

Definitely a good idea to have a physical to make sure everything's going okay body-wise, but excessive sweating five weeks post cessation for someone who took over 100mg of methadone for over a year (let alone high dose opioid use for ten) isn't actually all that unusual. Not something to be ignored, but I wouldn't freak out about it either. Get checked out, and try to get some rest. Whatever you do make sure you keep well nurished and hydrated.

Thanks. It was actually 10 years of opiates. Almost 7 of 180 methadone. I didn't jump from 180 though. I weened down over time. Cutting the pills into such small pieces was a bitch but it got the job done. This sweating is such a pain in the ass. I have an appointment Wednesday so we'll see. My concern is - do I treat any problems that the blood work may show? If it shows a problem with my thyroid couldn't that just be my body getting itself back into wack? I don't want to jeopardize that. I want my body to get back to normal and not be dependent on meds to keep it that way.

Your body shouldn't be messed up from just the methadone withdrawal, so if something like your thyroid is out of wack I'd definitely get that treated ASAP. You blood won't be significantly off just because you took opioids/methadone for so long and then went through withdrawal.

Yea, if you were on that kind of dose for seven years, the sweating now is not at all unusual. I mean, it may not exactly be the norm, but neither was the dose you were on or how long you were on it (I don't say that with any positive or negative connotations mind you, no judgement, we need to do what we need to do and all that jazz).

It will probably take a full six month for your body to full stabilize and re-acquire a state of homeostasis after that long a habit. And that is considering you tapered too. But don't let that worry you. I have a similar issue with sweating and coming off methadone, haha and sweating while taking it, so I have an idea of what you're talking about.

I just mention the six month time frame because it will take your body time to get reacquainted to life without the daily use of potent opioids. Sweating, yawning, insomnia, these are pretty long lived, common side effects of methadone withdrawal, especially if you've been taking it for a long time as you have. And it may take months for your body to get used to the way it was a decade ago, you know?

Take care of yourself. Great work!

I was on it for chronic pain. Never abused it. I kind of thought that going down slowly over more than 2 years would fix some of the withdrawal stuff. I'm actually sleeping just fine. Minus this weird sensation in the back of my throat, the sweating and some rapid heart rate bouts throughout the day I'm pretty great. I had wicked symptoms a few weeks ago but I've evened out pretty well. I just can't stand this sweating. I've never dealt with anything like it and didn't experience it even when I was weening down at a low dose.

Edit : if you look back at my first post you'll get the gist of it. I'm still in pain but I've found other ways to manage it. Opiates are the devil and after such a high dose for so long I doubt they were helping with pain at all when I started to ween down. I don't have any cravings for them. I weened ahead of my schedule pretty substantially. I just couldn't go slowly when every drop was so painful. I wanted to get it over with. Now it is and I feel, in a lot of ways, better than ever. In other ways I feel shitty but I still have way more energy and just a better outlook on petty much everything. At the time I thought my low dose of methadone wasn't affecting me mentally but considering how different I feel now I can say that it really did.