Tappering of Percs. How to overcome the challenges.

[Painkillerkhaos]

As you may know from reading my other posts I am an opiate addict. I was an off and on addict since I was 13. I am 20 now. I was mostly an on addict my 18th and 19th year of life. One day I had it, enough was enough and it was time for a change (anyone get the refrence there?).


I decided I wanted to quit. I would go cold turkey. The withdrawl anxiety became to much to handle. I resorted to Tramadol which I realized was basiclly still being an opite addict. I quit them. Anexity still bad. I came here for help and soon found Gabapentin would cure my issues.

Good news, my anxiety was next to nothing and I rarely even thought about opiates. Bad news, I became addicted to it. Tollernce raises fast, but goes down fast as well. Meaning it will get you high every 2-3 days at the least. I began taking 3000-5000mg of Gaba 2-3 times a week.

I then decided to tapper of this. This happened to be very easy as I felt NO withdrawl and my opiate use is long past so no withdrawl from that either. I was doing good. I was clean for the longest since I started.

If you read my post (working out while nodding...) I spilled my guts. Told my story about why I'm re-addicted. My grandmother, and father passed away. I was only close to three family members and they were two. I also only have one true friend who I paralyzed the last time I did H.

So I'm back on the pills and I need to quit. I have one reason and one reason ONLY to quit. My 18month old daughter. I love this little girl to death. If she knew about my addiction I couldn't let her be around me. I cry everytime I look into her eyes. I need to do right for this little girl. If I quit I know her and my girlfriend will come back.

I'm not afraid of withdrawl. I've faced it well over a dozen times. I can handle it. There's one thing I can't handle which is the aniexty. For my daughter I will deal with it though.

I don't want to quit cold turkey this time. I just picked up my (hopefully last) stash today. 3 scripts of 120 pills each. Now before you bitch about my money and it should be for my daughter...I have a great job and I'm close with a dealer. He gets his scripts free so I get them cheap. <sorry no prices> for the bottle. So <sorry no prices> for 360 pills.

I want to use these to tapper. I need to know the best way to tapper as I have only quit cold turkey. I only willingly quit once and I went CT. So how do I tapper down.

My daily dosage is I wake up and drink a CWE drink (using 37.5mg of Oxy from Percs) that I made the night before. After a light breakfast, sometime no breakfast I orally take 30mg more. After 4-6 hours ill eat a lunch and orally take 45mg (3250mg APAP). Then Ill wait another 6-8 hours before eating a smaller dinner then make two CWE drinks (37.5mg) one for now one for the next day. To make it simple I drink 10 pills or 75mg worth and orally take 10 pills worth making my daily oxy intake 150mg.

I want to tapper off as slowly and least painfully. I basicly need to know how to do it correctly. How to make sure when I'm at say 15 pills a day I'm not craving those other 5 pills. That's the part that scares me.

Please ladies and gents. I'm begging for help. I am tearing as I write this. I don't want to lose my daughter. Nothing has ever meant so much to me. I've never felt so much love. Even if me and her mother don't work out, and I see my daughter once a month I still want to make her proud. I want her to look up to me. I want her to see daddy as a hero. Thank you in advanced for all the help. Even if you have nothing I really want to thank you for trying, and reading my post.

 

[ThisIsAHeresy]

Some Information on Tapering
- 5-10% decrease of daily intake, every 3-5 days.
- Expect withdrawal symptoms, feelings of anxiety and/or depressing if you decide to taper at a quicker rate.
- Feelings of anxiety and/or depression can come up if you taper at a slower rate.
- Tapering requires a LOT of dedication and discipline.
- Having another person assisting you in tapering down (such as holding & dispensing your medication) might help.
- NEVER give into those thoughts of self-rationalization.
- Slip-ups are prone to happen, but don't give up.

When I was tapering off morphine, exercise made it a lot more tolerable. It kept my mind occupied, and helped with the anxiety and depression.

 

[DoxyMoron]

Dear PKK: This is sad, and difficult, but I can so empathize with your situation. My "little girl" is now older than you are, and the years go by so very fast, and of course you want to be the best dad you can be. I am now on a fentanyl taper, which is enforced as I only get one patch every 3 days. You may want to enlist someone to help you by dispensing only what you absolutely need to get through your day, on that day. I really hope this works for you. Best of luck, you have your motivation, and she's very much worth it.

 

[Swimmingdancer]

So just to clarify, are the pills you got to taper with Percocet?

I think the most important thing that needs to be done in order to be successful at a taper is to work on your mental addiction and use techniques to help with cravings.

Do you have anyone in your life who knows you are doing this and you can talk to about it for support?

The Sober Living forum might be a good place for you to post, since your goal is to quit and a lot of people there know what you're going through. Since your main question right now seems to be more about the mechanics of tapering with the least suffering possible I am going to move this to Other Drugs, which has a lot of posters familiar with opioids, withdrawal and tapering. But I encourage you to make a thread in Sober Living for additional support with the psychological side.

I guess for me, when I was ready I was really ready and learned to accept that it's impossible to get off opioids painlessly and that I needed to remember that the withdrawals would pass, because even tapering (methadone) sucked for me. I think you have to learn how to accept that there is going to be suffering in life and to learn how to deal with anxiety and pain, otherwise you will never want to quit or even if you do quit for a while you will automatically reach for opioids when something shitty happens in your life. That has been the biggest realization for me, that I don't HAVE to use just because I feel depressed, anxious or in pain, there are other healthier ways to cope.

Best of luck to you

BDD -> OD

*Note: if I misunderstood and you actually are looking more for emotional support while tapering/quitting than a dosing schedule for tapering please let someone know and this can get moved to Sober Living

 

[Painkillerkhaos]

Thank you swim. I will deffinatly go there and browse. When I get more free time on my hands ill write a post, and my story over there as well.

 

[Painkillerkhaos]

yes the pills I'm using to taper are 7.5/325mg percocets. That's the only opiate I can get since I started back up.

 

[vikenRedbull]

keep your doses short of getting a buzz is how i did it, that way taking one or 2 will keep you going in the day, just mentally overcome not needing to catch a buzz. also another option is find out how may that is, give the rest to someone who can dispense to you each time keep you on track, took me about a year of trying to taper, its so stupid hard

 

[Painkillerkhaos]

I don't get a buzz anymore though. Ill pop 10 even and not get a buzz. Then if anything sparks or goes bad (even little things) I grab more.

 

[BeachBum4u]

Some Information on Tapering
- 5-10% decrease of daily intake, every 3-5 days.
- Expect withdrawal symptoms, feelings of anxiety and/or depressing if you decide to taper at a quicker rate.
- Feelings of anxiety and/or depression can come up if you taper at a slower rate.
- Tapering requires a LOT of dedication and discipline.
- Having another person assisting you in tapering down (such as holding & dispensing your medication) might help.
- NEVER give into those thoughts of self-rationalization.
- Slip-ups are prone to happen, but don't give up.

When I was tapering off morphine, exercise made it a lot more tolerable. It kept my mind occupied, and helped with the anxiety and depression.

This is a great post! Spot on! You have plenty to cut back slowly and in my experience it's best to not only work on lowering the dosage but try to go an extra hour before another dose. Then try for one and a half and so forth. Also, you may need a legit Rx for your anxiety (IMHO). See a doctor and let them know of your problem. You may not need to go into a ton of details but it depends. I have a relative with the same issue and she takes Paxil and swears by it. I'll be honest, if you can't do it for your child, you may need to check in somewhere and deal with your problem, and all that entails.

Please don't feel like I'm judging, I'm not. I'm just probably old enough to be your grandfather and I've seen a bunch in my lifetime and honestly wish the Best!

 

[vikenRedbull]

mentally overcome the challenge of the 'need' for them when you may not really have the need. very hard to do, its within yourself, somewhere deep down, find that, hold onto it. i was at your point with norcos taking a handful not even counting anymore and would try telling myself just to take one or 2 cuz im not going to feel much from them anyway. im at 6 days now, i feel pretty good i muscled thru work all week had MANYMANY times ive had the urge to 'need' them and not taking them helps.

can you step back and survive on norcos? maybe get your receptors used to norcos for a couple weeks, then reduce those, then get to codene, then kratom and lope and cut it off 100% by 1 months time.. i hear norco WD are slightly better than oxy