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Opioids Reduce sweating during opiate withdrawal?

I dont have any idea of what can help this, I've experienced it as well and it is extremely unpleasant... BUT I'd like to say that make sure you are drinking plenty of water during this. You are no doubt becoming very dehydrated from all the sweating and dehydration will make you feel even worse than you already are.
 
I found a text on sweating ("Learn What Sweating Is Caused By") in the "Cordyceps Sinensis Blog".

They list some causes of excessive sweating. Withdrawal is one of them. But unfortunately no explanation.
I know that withdrawal can cause excessive sweating but that is no real cause... Why do I sweat so much during withdrawal?

They list some causes that are in no relation with withdrawal. But then they say that "hyperthyroidism" can be a cause of sweating.
Opiates seem to have effect on thyroid hormones.

Another cause is "menopause". When I read this, I remembered that opiates shall have a decreasing effect on testosterone throuch increased prolactin release.
It can also cause OPIAD:
opioid preparations suppress the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis in men and produce a symptomatic state of opioid-induced androgen deficiency (OPIAD).
Daniell HW, Lentz R, Mazer NA. Open-label pilot study of testosterone patch therapy in men with opioid-induced androgen deficiency. J Pain. 2006 Mar;7(3):200-10.

I'm not sure about this but hormones (maybe thyroid hormones, maybe cortisol, maybe some sex hormones, ...) can perhaps cause that excessive sweating.
I don't know enough on the effects of opioids on the different hormone systems. It's not easy to find good information (that I will understand as not M.D) on that.

I really want to understand what happens in the body during opiate withdrawal. Is here anybody who can explain the effects on the hormone systems?
And could it be possible that hormones are responsible for this excessive sweating? (If yes, which hormones?)


The chinese mushroom Cordyceps Sinensis is said to be able to help with the sweating. I don't know what it does but I will try and tell you if it really can help.
 
I hope you are right. I have been sweating terribly day and night for almost 1 year! I was addicted to oxycontin over 600mg a day for 2 years...I have literally not stopped sweating for an entire year..Summer/winter/autumn and spring...Rain/hail/snow or sun!!!! I am losing hope now...I think im gonna be like this for ever...arghhhhhhh

Man I feel the same way, I've been taking oxy for 7 years and was doing mmt (methadone) for over 3 years. I finally got off everything and now my armpits make me sweat like a heathen! Its so fricken embarrassing, I have to keep a fan on me at work that seems to help a little. Also it seams like just the anxiety of sweating makes me sweat too. I've notice I don't sweat while I'm sleeping, so that's strange. I've been drug free for over a month now and was hoping it would go away soon but after reading your post I'm not feeling so optimistic.
 
If you have very very excessive sweating ive heard you can get "BOTOX INJECTIONS"...They are apparently on the PBS for this cause also...Im not 100% sure about it, when i get time i will look on d internet....Sleeping is the worst time for me...I sweat in places that dont fuckin have sweat glands!!...Running down my back, back of my legs...Sweat running down my chest...I take 2x catapress every night and it helps for 6 hours...If i try sleep more than 6 hours, thats when i start to get real sweaty...I dont want to take too much clonidine so i stick to my two per night...
 
I have access to clonodine, at what times per day do you take it and what dose? (to help with general w/d)
 
Do you know what your blood pressure generally is like?...Did you get them from a Dr or on the street?
 
It sounds counter intuitive, but exercise during the day helps me a lot.
 
Sweating in opiate withdrawal is probably caused by rebound overproduction of Noradrenaline, the neurotransmitter responsible for the 'fight or flight' response. Note lots of posters above have recommended Cloinidine, not all of them understanding why.

Opiates suppress Noradrenaline production, so the Locus Coeruleus learns to work harder to produce enough to keep the body functional. When you stop taking Opiates this suppressing effect disappears, but the Locus Coeruleus takes a while to catch up to the fact so keeps on pumping out what it thinks is a normal amount. Yer Noradrenaline goes high. This excess of Noradenaline produces a lot of the classic Opiate withdrawal symptoms. Clonidine supresses that over-production of Noradrenaline. Lofexidine is probably better, because it doesn't seem to lower blood pressure to quiet the same degree IME. Either one is a big help.
 
It sounds counter intuitive, but exercise during the day helps me a lot.


You are so right there with the exercise...It does help if you can sweat it out in the day...But i still get the terrible night sweats and chills..I basically change sheets through the night or if im lazy i pop a towel on my bed!!!

Clonidine....It dropped my mum one day...She blacked out...She had taken just two 100mcg tabs..You really should be careful with these little buggers...Im not comfortable guessing how much you should take man...Start out with a half tab or quarter? ..If i have a real important thing on like work (teaching) where its inappropriate to sweat all day i would take 1 catapress in the day...but i mostly use them to help me sleep....
 
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Do you know what your blood pressure generally is like?...Did you get them from a Dr or on the street?

i generally have higher than average blood pressure, and have taken the pills before. they are from a doctor. they are 0.025mg.
 
ok dude...I feel much better now...Well mate, i take em as needed...My Doc gives me 100 at a time and im allowed 3 per day...The sweats dont fuck with me too much during the day unless i need to work at school, then i try and NOT sweat my fucking ass off in front of the kids and other teachers!!


so what did your Dr say?

I take what i need, when i need...BUT no more than the three per day....I only get them in 100mcg or 150 mcg...and be carefull...they really can drop you...My two each night at about 8pm after my daughter in bed, put me on the nod in around 20 mins...
 
This problem plagued me for MONTHS after I stopped Buprenorphine. The weird thing was, I never sweated at night. It was during the day that sweat POURED from my underarms. Nothing hotter on a date that armpit stains on a nice shirt. It bothered me so much I scheduled Botox injections to block the sympathetic nerves. I decided to wait when it dawned on me that the outrageous half life of buprenorphine might mean that I was still experiencing Post Acute Withdrawal Syndrome despite months after discontinuation (a hell on its own). Now, 6+ months later, the sweating has stopped. THANK CHRIST. It will eventually stop but I promise I do understand just how disruptive hyperhydrosis can be. Clonidine, and oly 1st generation antihistamine Cyproheptadine, and tramadol helped but I believe weak opioid agonists only further protracted the problem. It can take MONTHS for the reregulation of opioid receptors but it will happen. Hang in there!!
 
I have access to clonodine, at what times per day do you take it and what dose? (to help with general w/d)

WHen i am in heavy withdrawals I take 2mg 3x a day max any more and I will get lightheaded. Start out taking a .1mg dose though and see how you feel. Clonidine is strong and you can get lightheaded when you stand up or even black out if you take too much. It is not recreational but does have qualities which help withdrawals.

Even though clonidine has a long half life I still find that when I am using it for withdrawals splitting your doses into multiple times a day vs all of it at once works better.

It will help with hyour sweats and also help you sleep (it's GREAT for sleep).

I personally find that benzos reduce my sweating when in withdrawal. Also help with RLS a LOT.
 
Clonodine can be really helpful, if you can't get any Afrin brand nasal spray contains a chemical that is similar to clonodine, pharmacologicaly speaking. I often use the inhaler every hour or so. Benadryl is another winner, I always keep it in stock.

Loperamide, at excessive doses (I go with 80-140mgs per day, most people dose every other day, but I have a fast metabolism, even methadone I had to dose twice per day) can nearly eliminate opioid WD at doses this high. Be safe though, some people have OD on it, I've read some speculation that there may be a toxic MPP like metabolite at really high doses..

One real bitch about clonodine is that it can really add to the fatigue of opioid WD. Other drugs that effect the sympathetic nervous system such as gabapentin and propranolol can be a less sedative alternative. I use these during the day and save clonodine for night.
 
I have access to clonodine, at what times per day do you take it and what dose? (to help with general w/d)
. . . . . . . .
i generally have higher than average blood pressure, and have taken the pills before. they are from a doctor. they are 0.025mg.

First things first, I'm not medically trained. I can only tell how I used it, and what I know about it generally. You should be taking Clonidine under medical supervision in an ideal world. Disclaimer out of the way, doses as high as 1mg - 1.2mg / day are quite often prescribed for acute opiate withdrawal. Depending on severity of symptoms you might find 0.2 - 0.4mg / day is enough. Always do a test dose of no more than 0.1mg and give it a good few hours to take full effect, make sure your blood pressure's not crashed too much before redosing or taking anything higher than that.

I'd start at a low dose maybe 0.1mg 3 times a day to start on day 1, building dose in small increments up to peak withdrawal day 3. Can't remember if I ever went as high as 1mg. Probably not cos it crashed my blood pressure a bit too much, to the verge of blackout when I stood up too fast and I used Lofexidine instead for subsequent attempts at detox, which I tolerated much better. If you find that happening to you skip a dose and / or cut your dose back. You just have to trial and error it to an extent, any noticeable effect on blood pressure dictating what your limit is. It's a delicate balance, so err on the side of caution.

It's important you taper dose over at least 4 days once you've hit peak and are coming out the backside of withdrawal to prevent rebound hypertension when you stop taking it. Jump off point wants to be 0.1mg / day or less.

Good info here on a fairly typical dosing regime that might be of use: http://www.quadrant.net/cpss/pdf/Opioid_Withdrawal_Protocol.pdf
 
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When I was first read clonodine could help with withdrawl I really didnt believe it. Then after getting prescribed them they have helped me taper down to 5mgs of methadone. I honestly dont think I could have gone this far without them. I started when i was at around 18mgs of methadone. Iv been going down 1mg per week. But just recently slowed down to 1mg ever 2 weeks. Its been over 2 years since I have did any other opiate/opiods other then methadone.
 
I am tapering my methadone dose. I feel no withdrawal symptoms except that I wake up wet from sweat.

I now ordered some diphenhydramine. Maybe it really hels with sweating. I will try take the stuff before going to bed. Then see if it helps. But it is no herbal remedy...

Then I wanted to try, if Cordyceps sinensis can help. I thought, I still got some of this stuff. But I am not sure. Hard to believe what some vendors sell... I got a big box but there is absolutely no text on it. I'm not sure what is in it. It's mushrooms pressed to tablets. Either Cordyceps sinensis or reishi. But I don't know if it is pure mushroom powder or a mixture of mushroom powder and extract powder or pure extract powder. It seems like pure powder pressed to tablets. So I can weigh such a tablet to find out how much is in one tablet. But that will not help too much...
Never even the vendor's name is printed on this box. Then I could write an email and the if the vendor/producer could help me if I describe theses tablets.
But it seems there is no way to find out if it's reishi or cordyceps. I will just try and see if it helps.

But I still don't know what causes this excessive sweating.
I think it's not caused by too much cortisol. The body is in stress during withdrawal, of course. And then the body produces great amounts of cortisol. But I am not in severe withdrawal and I don't feel stressed. I just reduce my methadone dose. I not even wake up earlier which would be my first symptom where I reduce the dose a little too much. And I'm not sweating all the time just waking up in the morning with wet t-shirt and shorts. I don't think that my body is stressed so much that greater amounts of cortisol are produced.

I found that opioids are in relation to body temperature regulation. But I don't think that I sweat so much during the night because my body temperature gets too high. That could perhaps be the cause during real withdrawal. But then I should also feel hot flushes, I think.

Sweating is probably a reaction of the body in order to reduce the body temperature. But nearly everyone knows cold sweats. This has probably nothing to do with body temperature. Why does the body react in this way? What can cause this?
Why sweat during withdrawal and what causes my nightly sweatings from methadone tapering. I reduced the dose not so much that I feel any real withdrawal symptoms.
 
Sweating in opiate withdrawal is probably caused by rebound overproduction of Noradrenaline, the neurotransmitter responsible for the 'fight or flight' response. Note lots of posters above have recommended Cloinidine, not all of them understanding why.
But it is not just too much norepinephrine. This would also cause other ugly symptoms. I think during withdrawal it is only too much norepinephrine in the locus coeruleus in the brain...

I asked my doctor about clonidine and she nearly knew nothing. She even did not know that is can be used to alleviate opioid withdrawal symptoms. (And actually she is the doctor who started the methadone programme in the city were I live.)
She looked in her computer and told me that it seems that the stuff could help with sweating.

Methadone patient who have a problem with excessive sweating usually get polamidone instead of methadone.
If this does not change anything then the patients will get a "sormodren" prescription. It's a medicine for Parkinson's disease. The active ingredient is called "bornaprin" (probably "bornaprine" in English).
It's an anticholinergic and is said that it may have some bad side effects.


But strange thing - a Parkinson medicament. Parkinson medicaments also help for other opioid withdrawal symptoms although some of them work on different neurotransmitters.
Apomorphine is said to reduce nearly all opiate withdrawal symptoms. (dopamine agonist)
L-dopa is used to treat Parkinson but also RLS. It shall help with withdrawal RLS, too. (increases dopamine)
And it seems that in Russia, Parkinson patients will get phenibut and picamilon for Parkinson (Although this has effect on GABA and not on dopamine, it is said to help. At least I read this somewhere.)
Some of those GABA-drugs can also help with opiate withdrawal. GHB/GBL can reduce nearly all withdrawal symptoms. Baclofen, gabapentin and pregabalin seem to help some people during opiate withdrawal (but I never tried it by myself.)

Maybe there is a connection?
It seems that there is a lack of dopamine during opioid withdrawal. Parkinson patients have a lack of dopamine, too.
Parkison patients often have problems with excessive sweating. The same during opiate withdrawal.
And then there is the RLS problem. It seems that it also is a dopamine problem (at least for the opiate withdrawal RLS).

Maybe opiate withdrawal is something like temporarily Parkison's disease?

I don't know what causes excessive sweating in Parkinson patients. Maybe it's the lack of dopamine but maybe it is something else...
But perhaps the same thing triggers excessive sweating during opiate withdrawal, too.


Has anyone ever tried sage for the excessive sweatings?
 
Clonidine works great, but what's even better is oxybutynin (Ditropan). They both are great for taking away the sweats, but clonidine is a bit too subtle while the oxybutynin really dries you up.
 
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