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Positive The Tapering Supportive/Social Thread

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I have the depression and anxiety too. From many things, but 100 x worse when coming off opiates. I treid relaxing with a few cocktails last night. BIG mistake. Couldn't hardly sleep. I took extra oxy and Lorazepam during the night to sleep, and now I feel I have to go all day with nothing to stay on track with my tapering plan.
It's gonna be a difficult day.......
 
Squeaky, I quit drinking after being on opiates... I just got plain old sick. I am sorry to hear you are feeling badly...

I am suffering massive anxiety right now... my pain management office just left me a voice mail stating that my appt for tomorrow morning is being canceled.. the doctor had an emergency. I tried to call them, but the phone just rings and rings.

I don't know if I should start looking for another doctor right away, or wait 24 hours to see if they are able to get a temporary doctor, as their message stated they are trying.

I am almost tempted to go cold turkey when the few pills I have left are gone. I am down to 20mg oxymorphone ER a day, with my taper. I think the withdrawals will still be very harsh, as oxymorphone has bad w/d...some of the worst, is what I read, of the shorter acting opiates. Any thoughts you have would be appreciated.

One good thing... I am relatively free of commitments, but Friday -Monday I am watching two dogs, at my home, who are low maintenance... I will just have to let them out in the back yard and feed them twice a day.
 
PK- That sucks.
I recommend quitting before you run out for two reasons.
1: you're probably around the place where the WD's would be the same either way. Quit a little early and you'll be done sooner. In other words.... Rip the band-aid off now and start getting better sooner. The anticipation of knowing the end of your taper is coming can cause tremendous stress.
2: If the WD's are worse than you expected and you're at the point of needing to go to the emergency room, you have at least one pill left over to get you through the night and figure something out the next day. Cut that pill in half, take it and get a few hours sleep. Wake up the next day and come up with a plan. You don't want to carry the guilt of leaving those dogs while you're twitching in the waiting room at the ER.
 
Squeaky ^ That is such a common sense approach ... it makes perfect sense for my situation. I did try to stop completely earlier today, but caved after extending my time between doses on my tapering schedule. This is the perfect time for me to quit... by the time the dogs get here, I will have had to seek other medical care. I went to the ER my last time I had to quit, in 2012, and I dread going again.

What do you think of me calling my PCP and telling him what happened, and asking him to call in some clonidine?
 
I'm currently on try 3 of a taper off 150 mg/day oxycodone. I am down to 90 mg/day solidly, so I am making progress. BUT... I have around 2,000 mg saved for the day I get stuck in your shoes.
Some Dr's don't take WD's seriously enough. I've been suicidal plenty of times during WD, and I have seen enough documentaries about drugs to know that suicidal acts are very common while in WD from just about any prescribed drug.
I lie to my Dr and exaggerate my symptoms to build my stash because I did get stuck once. I took myself off all the pain meds. Then the Dr refused to put me back on the meds as before. It took 3 months and another back surgery to get back to a pain management plan that worked. Now I'm trying to get off the oxy again, but I'm doing it way faster and I started sooner than what I'm telling the Dr.. That way it's on my terms, not theirs.
 
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I may sound like more of a seasoned expert than I am..... I've never tried clonodine. But I always vote that you should have every tool in your toolbox that you might need BEFORE you start any project. If you can get it, then do so. Better to have it and not need, then need it and not have.
 
Find a place to put your last pill(s) that is reachable , but not easy reachable. I would put it in a pickle jar and bury it in the yard. Also , wrap the pill(s) in a note where you insult yourself for being weak. This will stop you from doing anything impulsively.
 
Squeaky thank you for sharing your experiences and for the support and encouragement. I appreciate you!
 
Hey all,

I usually post in the pain management thread in other drugs, but I wanted to share here and support Pokemama and everyone else. I think it's a crime that with our health care, that we need to struggle, stash, and carefully manage ourselves with pain meds. My last three discs are in the process of fusing on their own. I've been on every combo of meds; they won't fuse me due to my age (well, I'm glad the three surgeons I met with voted not to fuse; they said if I went ANYWHERE else, I would be fused immediately.) But then the pressure would just travel up my spine to the next discs.

I am so tired of this pill game, too, and after mis-reading my date (we tried something new for 2 weeks), I ran out and cold turkeyed it a few weekends ago. Ugh.

Anyhow, I used everything in my arsenal; Xanax, Valium, neurontin, and for the first time, loperamide. I told everyone I had the stomach bug, except my husband, who was awesome and brought me both a bottle and Immodium pills.

I hope everyone is successful in tapering; I'm usually only successful at the end of the month, as I see my bottle getting lower and lower...

Be gentle with yourselves; realize you are accomplishing a huge feat, and when you stumble, just pick up and start again. Most people don't have the strength to do what you're doing at all!

Hugs and drugs,
Annabanana
 
I had a horrific night... I forgot how bad cold turkey was, and was very disappointed that being at 20 mg oxymorphone before jumping off to 0 mg didn't seem to help lessen the w/d's at all.

I called a new PM office.. they agreed to accept me, but are booked solid this week. I will see them next week. I am praying to God for the self discipline to be able to taper consistently, once I get my new meds, so that I will have extra for if I am in this situation again.

Thank you Anna, for the support and encouragement you are providing to me at this dark time... you are a little angel.
 
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My guess is that the underlying reason we run out each month is that the pain is not being properly managed and we overuse our pills to overcome the pain(including the pain of withdrawls). I was having mild withdrawls between doses during the day even before I tried to taper down what I was taking.
I figured out a while back that it was really easy for me to take more than scripted and not know it until my bottle was near empty. Now I keep a daily log if every pill I take(even Tylenol). I don't show it to anyone, but it does keep me from taking more than I planned. It really helps to build my rainy day stash.
 
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I totally agree, squeaky. I think if we're running out, we're either

1) under dosed (Closeau was seeing a doctor who refused to up his dose, even though he'd been on the same dose for several years)
2) taking more than needed (now that I actually enjoy my med, I admit that I take it more than strictly necessary)

I use an app now to track my meds. It's iPill Trackr. I put in my med, and then just type in each time I take it. I also stash a handful of meds at the beginning of each month. It's like my bank account. If I see a ton of money in there (I get a balloon check at the beginning of summer) I have this crazy notion that there is 'extra'! So even though I know that I have more meds in my closet, it slows me down at the end of the month.
 
Hi, It is almost 2 am and I am wide awake. I think tolerance is ignored by most doctors now that there are caps on how much they can prescribe on a daily basis. My (old) PM office had a sign saying they will never prescribe more each day than the equivalent of a certain mg of morphine. And that number continues to be decreased, so if we tell our doctors that our meds don't work, they recommend alternative treatment to supplement the current dosage... they never say that they will raise my current dose.

My phone doesn't have apps, but that sounds cool. I do like tracking my doses on a private blog that is not published. Necessity was a powerful motivation to my tapering efforts last week.

Anna, I would divide my doses by the week, and then put the pill bottles for the coming weeks hidden in different places. It did not help too much with overusing early in the month a couple of times; other months, it was extremely helpful.
 
I got some disturbing news. I called the pharmacy that we have been forced to use by my pain management clinic and found out that they did not know when my pm clinic was re-opening. And... they have discontinued filling any prescriptions for my clinic.

That means that the reason for the shut down is more than the doctor being out of town.
 
I just wanted to share that my GP actually called in a prescription for clonidine for me to my nearby pharmacy...that is such a relief! That is the medication that helped so much for withdrawal in 2012... I paid a huge co-pay to go to the ER for one little clonidine patch.... this prescription is so much more affordable. ( I hope these vague terms do not violate BL's price mentioning policies... if so, please edit).
 
I was talking to my husband about the crisis last night; he watched a video (darn people who stand by and video every.single.thing instead of helping), but this poor little 3 or 4 year old girl is in the store with her mom...who ODs. She starts crying and pulling on her. Was terrible. Turns out she lived, to face some harsh crimes.

But out do we blame the people who are handed something extremely powerful and often addictive without proper explanation, and then turn to become addicted? It sucks for us pain sufferers, who go under treated because some arbitrary law says that it needs to 'cut back'? In what other medical arena would that be ok? Too many baby deliveries; need to do less this month.

I am very fortunate that my pain place is legit, and really tries to treat the whole person. They are super understanding, and all know me by name. I hope everyone in pain finds such a place.
 
Anna,
So true... there is so much shaming of addicts, like in this video... people do not understand. Maybe this woman had her child by Cesarean section, was given pain meds, and got addicted. Who knows? I have met women who had such experiences. However, they were cut off their pain medications at some point in time, and a few ended up using Heroin, and lost their children due to their addiction.
I also post on another forum where there is a thread made up of chronic pain patients who use my Pain Management clinic. Last night, the posts about the recent shutdown became more prevalent, and there is panic, as there are people running out of pain medications this week-end. It is very sad... does the DEA know that they cause so much stress and suffering by shutting a clinic down, without even giving people the option of bridge prescriptions until they find another PM doctor?
If I did not have the support of my friends on BL, I would surely be lost.
 
Fortunately, other than my messed up back, I am generally a healthy person. If you had medical problems and had to go through withdrawal? I can't imagine that it's ok on the body. I know it was horrific for me.

Hang in there, Pokemama!!
 
I think this is my 9th day? Yeah... I was directed to this page. I am not doing well.

My oxy use has been escalating very fast. For the first few years, it was stable, but not anymore. I need to deal with this and I am really struggling. I had excruciating chronic pain like a lot of opiate addicts, that is what initially drove me to use (I had been in bed as a ceiling-starer for 2 years of my 20's). In other words I'm better off on the stuff, I just want to drop my tolerance down and make sure that I still have self control.

I cut back from ~150mg/day to 60mg/day for each of these days. It has been a fucking fight and I am very close to relapse, which is why I am posting here. I always relapse between days 7-10 it seems. I've been getting over the depression (I think 5-htp really helps) but the physical sickness is just agony. The physical sickness is just fucking agony. Yesterday it was all in my gut, today it is back to aching god damned arms. Eventually, it will ALL be my spine again and I've already felt it, the pain is still extreme.

You would think after 9 days some of the physical symptoms would subside? My abuse was pretty severe and included china white at one point in these past 3 years. I think duration of use got me because, considering I can't walk without them, I was always on something. If I can't do it on my own this time, I am seeking help because every time the withdrawal really does get worse.
 
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