johnny-be-gone
Greenlighter
- Joined
- Apr 20, 2014
- Messages
- 3
Hello,
After approximately two years of progressively increasing my opioids with little therapeutic effect and without any noticeable/regular high, I decided to quit them altogether. My habit started off for fun -- a friend bought Lortabs by the hundred -- and gave me a couple here and there. I shortly started buying them from him and then when the opportunity presented (hurt my back, which was always acting up in one way or another), got a Norco 10/325 scrip from my PCP. Had these refilled regularly enough until "they weren't working" and he switched me to Percoset 10/325. Had dental surgery while on the Percs and the surgeon said I was taking too much acetaminophen (9-10 pills was ~3k acet) so he switched me to Oxycodone 10mg. Started taking those and then had my PCP match when finished. Eventually pharmacist said I should have stronger dosage so told PCP to up them to 30mg and 1/2 the quantity. He did and when I kept refilling those quickly he referred me to pain management doc.
Pain management doc put me on 6 x 30mg/Oxycodone as well as 3x40mg Oxycontin. Continued on that for 3-4 months when back started to get marginally better (original issue was herniated disc, stenosis, etc. -- actual issues that made exercise nearly impossible just not requiring surgery). Eventually dropped me down to 20mg oxycodone and just 1x20mg Oxycontin but it wasn't touching the pain. Eventually, all that was helping was Naproxen (which I continue to rely heavily on).
Reason I'm here today is I've decided that I'm 100% getting off all opioids. They've (quite obviously) made me dependent on them, influenced relationships, dropped my testosterone levels to barely on the map, and so on and so forth.
TL/DR (READ ONLY BOLD)
The plan the doc put me on is as follows -- and here's where I need your help to validate and let me know what else to expect:
Day 0
Instructions
- Take doses of Oxy 30mg as normal (6) that day, ending at night.
What actually happened
- Wanted to be done and get started next day without having any reserves, so ate remaining 8 and ended by 5pm. Went to sleep w/o issue.
Day 1
Instructions
- No more Oxy (fortunately I ate them all, so no chance)
- Start taking Clonidine and Klonopin every 8 hours (up to 3x/day) as needed for W/D symptoms.
- If that doesn't do it, take 2mg Sub film every 2 hours until WD symptoms stop (once reaching bottom of "medium" level on COWS worksheet).
- Count total mgs of Sub taken in 24 hours, divide by 4, and that becomes my every-6-hour dose for Day 2.
What actually happened
5:30am - 8:30am
- Woke up at 5:30am (~12 since last dose) in WD, feeling very uncomfortable. This is normally when I'd take my first dose of 40-60mg Oxy.
- Instead, took 0.1 Clonidine and 1mg Klonopin. Was surprised to find by 6:30am that my nose stopped running and my spine no longer felt that someone was squeezing it in their first and shaking it. In the past, the ONLY thing that was able to fix those symptoms was more opioids.
- Normally, would not be tired at all at this time (i.e., had I taken opioids), but the Klonopin must have K-me-TFO so I passed out like a baby from 6:30-8:30am.
- Woke up DRENCHED in sweat, and the couch was soaked too. Stripped off my clothes and forced myself to take a shower. Felt OK but not nearly as good as I did at 6:30am.
8:30am - 11:15am
- Started to feel progressively worse until about 10am when I could no longer take it anymore. Back to severe-enough WDs that I needed to take something. Didn't want to take the Clonidine because it hadn't been 8 hours yet, but was told I could take the Klonopin after 6 hours and we were "close enough". Took 1mg of that.
- Waited 30m to 10:30 and still felt awful. Severe restlessness, anxiety, nose running, etc. Oh and my back was killing me (reason I was taking stuff to begin with), so I took a big fat Naproxen to see if it'd help. Another 15m passes and I can't take it anymore, so I decide to take my first dose of Suboxone (2mg) at 1045am on Day 1.
- Figure out how to cut open the stupid packaging and put the little thingy (only 2mg) under my tongue. Immediately floods my mouth with liquid and I have no idea what I'm supposed to do now; wait about 2-3 minutes as if I'm using mouthwash but trying to keep under tongue, then finally swallow it. No idea if that's right?
- Doctor said to wait up to 2 hours and if I didn't feel better, take another one. I waited about 30min to 11:15am and took my 2nd Clonidine of the day.
11:15am - 12:00pm
- About 15-30min later (~11:45am, 1 hour after taking Sub), I again pass the F out on the couch. Wake up at about 2-230pm, again COMPLETELY drenched in sweat.
- Shower off and feel ridiculously weak, tired, etc. Back is killing again, so take my 2nd Naproxen 550mg of the day.
- Managed to get out of the house and walk up to nearby stores to re-stock on supplies. At this point I had been downing Gatorades, Vitamin Waters, Sparkling Waters, and whatever else I could get my hands on. Also been drinking Muscle Milk and eating Powerbars for energy. I should mention that I've had NO GI problems -- no diarrhea, no cramping, nothing; only thing I've had are some serious bowel movements which I attribute to no longer being backed up by the Oxy (yuck, but all solid).
- For the rest of the day I am as lethargic as I can possibly be. Fortunately, even by 7pm, I have no serious WD symptoms, which I suppose I attribute to the Sub I took at around 11am.
- At 10-12pm (have lost track of time by this point), I decide I'd really like to have a nice night sleep (impossible I'm figuring, right?) and so I take the 3rd and final dose of Clonidine and Klonopin. My WD symptoms are back pretty significantly by this point so I take my second dose of Suboxone (2pm) at about 11pm on Day 1.
- Fall asleep again on the couch (it's far warmer than my bedroom) as I've got the heat cranked to ~80deg.
Day 2
Instructions:
- Tabulate my suboxone dose over the past 24 hours and divide it by 4, then take that amount every 6 hours for the next few days(?). He didn't say when to stop, though to his credit, he did say some people can get over the W/D by only using the other two drugs.
- STOP taking the Klonopin and Clonidine. (Not sure why? Addiction risk to benzos I suppose?)
What happened:
- Well, we're on Day 2 and I'm confused as f****, so this is why I'm posting to y'all. Is this the calm before the storm or what?
- I woke up at 8am feeling pretty damn good. No serious sweats.
- Had some yogurt, a banana, another Gatorade, and some more Zinc and 15000 ITU Vitamin D (oh yeah, took those yesterday AM as well).
- Back is really hurting again, so took my first dose of Naproxen (550mg).
- So far, (it's 11am in LA as I'm posting this). I have no withdrawal symptoms. I'm actually up and moving and sitting at my desk writing this. If you asked me if I could do this yesterday, the answer would have been not a chance
So after all that BS, here are my questions to the oh-knowledgeable ones here at Bluelight:
After approximately two years of progressively increasing my opioids with little therapeutic effect and without any noticeable/regular high, I decided to quit them altogether. My habit started off for fun -- a friend bought Lortabs by the hundred -- and gave me a couple here and there. I shortly started buying them from him and then when the opportunity presented (hurt my back, which was always acting up in one way or another), got a Norco 10/325 scrip from my PCP. Had these refilled regularly enough until "they weren't working" and he switched me to Percoset 10/325. Had dental surgery while on the Percs and the surgeon said I was taking too much acetaminophen (9-10 pills was ~3k acet) so he switched me to Oxycodone 10mg. Started taking those and then had my PCP match when finished. Eventually pharmacist said I should have stronger dosage so told PCP to up them to 30mg and 1/2 the quantity. He did and when I kept refilling those quickly he referred me to pain management doc.
Pain management doc put me on 6 x 30mg/Oxycodone as well as 3x40mg Oxycontin. Continued on that for 3-4 months when back started to get marginally better (original issue was herniated disc, stenosis, etc. -- actual issues that made exercise nearly impossible just not requiring surgery). Eventually dropped me down to 20mg oxycodone and just 1x20mg Oxycontin but it wasn't touching the pain. Eventually, all that was helping was Naproxen (which I continue to rely heavily on).
Reason I'm here today is I've decided that I'm 100% getting off all opioids. They've (quite obviously) made me dependent on them, influenced relationships, dropped my testosterone levels to barely on the map, and so on and so forth.
TL/DR (READ ONLY BOLD)
The plan the doc put me on is as follows -- and here's where I need your help to validate and let me know what else to expect:
Day 0
Instructions
- Take doses of Oxy 30mg as normal (6) that day, ending at night.
What actually happened
- Wanted to be done and get started next day without having any reserves, so ate remaining 8 and ended by 5pm. Went to sleep w/o issue.
Day 1
Instructions
- No more Oxy (fortunately I ate them all, so no chance)
- Start taking Clonidine and Klonopin every 8 hours (up to 3x/day) as needed for W/D symptoms.
- If that doesn't do it, take 2mg Sub film every 2 hours until WD symptoms stop (once reaching bottom of "medium" level on COWS worksheet).
- Count total mgs of Sub taken in 24 hours, divide by 4, and that becomes my every-6-hour dose for Day 2.
What actually happened
5:30am - 8:30am
- Woke up at 5:30am (~12 since last dose) in WD, feeling very uncomfortable. This is normally when I'd take my first dose of 40-60mg Oxy.
- Instead, took 0.1 Clonidine and 1mg Klonopin. Was surprised to find by 6:30am that my nose stopped running and my spine no longer felt that someone was squeezing it in their first and shaking it. In the past, the ONLY thing that was able to fix those symptoms was more opioids.
- Normally, would not be tired at all at this time (i.e., had I taken opioids), but the Klonopin must have K-me-TFO so I passed out like a baby from 6:30-8:30am.
- Woke up DRENCHED in sweat, and the couch was soaked too. Stripped off my clothes and forced myself to take a shower. Felt OK but not nearly as good as I did at 6:30am.
8:30am - 11:15am
- Started to feel progressively worse until about 10am when I could no longer take it anymore. Back to severe-enough WDs that I needed to take something. Didn't want to take the Clonidine because it hadn't been 8 hours yet, but was told I could take the Klonopin after 6 hours and we were "close enough". Took 1mg of that.
- Waited 30m to 10:30 and still felt awful. Severe restlessness, anxiety, nose running, etc. Oh and my back was killing me (reason I was taking stuff to begin with), so I took a big fat Naproxen to see if it'd help. Another 15m passes and I can't take it anymore, so I decide to take my first dose of Suboxone (2mg) at 1045am on Day 1.
- Figure out how to cut open the stupid packaging and put the little thingy (only 2mg) under my tongue. Immediately floods my mouth with liquid and I have no idea what I'm supposed to do now; wait about 2-3 minutes as if I'm using mouthwash but trying to keep under tongue, then finally swallow it. No idea if that's right?
- Doctor said to wait up to 2 hours and if I didn't feel better, take another one. I waited about 30min to 11:15am and took my 2nd Clonidine of the day.
11:15am - 12:00pm
- About 15-30min later (~11:45am, 1 hour after taking Sub), I again pass the F out on the couch. Wake up at about 2-230pm, again COMPLETELY drenched in sweat.
- Shower off and feel ridiculously weak, tired, etc. Back is killing again, so take my 2nd Naproxen 550mg of the day.
- Managed to get out of the house and walk up to nearby stores to re-stock on supplies. At this point I had been downing Gatorades, Vitamin Waters, Sparkling Waters, and whatever else I could get my hands on. Also been drinking Muscle Milk and eating Powerbars for energy. I should mention that I've had NO GI problems -- no diarrhea, no cramping, nothing; only thing I've had are some serious bowel movements which I attribute to no longer being backed up by the Oxy (yuck, but all solid).
- For the rest of the day I am as lethargic as I can possibly be. Fortunately, even by 7pm, I have no serious WD symptoms, which I suppose I attribute to the Sub I took at around 11am.
- At 10-12pm (have lost track of time by this point), I decide I'd really like to have a nice night sleep (impossible I'm figuring, right?) and so I take the 3rd and final dose of Clonidine and Klonopin. My WD symptoms are back pretty significantly by this point so I take my second dose of Suboxone (2pm) at about 11pm on Day 1.
- Fall asleep again on the couch (it's far warmer than my bedroom) as I've got the heat cranked to ~80deg.
Day 2
Instructions:
- Tabulate my suboxone dose over the past 24 hours and divide it by 4, then take that amount every 6 hours for the next few days(?). He didn't say when to stop, though to his credit, he did say some people can get over the W/D by only using the other two drugs.
- STOP taking the Klonopin and Clonidine. (Not sure why? Addiction risk to benzos I suppose?)
What happened:
- Well, we're on Day 2 and I'm confused as f****, so this is why I'm posting to y'all. Is this the calm before the storm or what?
- I woke up at 8am feeling pretty damn good. No serious sweats.
- Had some yogurt, a banana, another Gatorade, and some more Zinc and 15000 ITU Vitamin D (oh yeah, took those yesterday AM as well).
- Back is really hurting again, so took my first dose of Naproxen (550mg).
- So far, (it's 11am in LA as I'm posting this). I have no withdrawal symptoms. I'm actually up and moving and sitting at my desk writing this. If you asked me if I could do this yesterday, the answer would have been not a chance
So after all that BS, here are my questions to the oh-knowledgeable ones here at Bluelight:
- Am I done w/Suboxone? Do you think I'll need to take it again? The last thing I want to do is trade one addiction for another.
- It's been just over 12 hours since I took it, so could it just be that it's still "tiding me over" so to speak?
- If I start getting symptoms again, should I go for the Clonidine, the Kloponin, or just try (hah!) to tough it out?
- Any other advice?
