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Positive The Tapering Support Thread v 2.0

papercuts said:
@Squeaky How did you approach your doctor to increase or decrease your dose? I want to say I know for a fact I feel better on higher doses, but can't say how I know, because y'know how tight those drug abuser labels stick and I don't want one.
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First bit of advice:
I worked on him for a couple of months. Started with basically the truth, that I was in more pain. Then asked if there was anything over-the-counter I could add for pain and sleep. I told him next month that it didn’t help and that I was saving my pills to mostly use at night, just so I could sleep because the pain was waking me up. But I approached the conversation like a wounded bird, trying to convey a sense of helplessness. I had one Dr who was determined to give me less, so I waited until I got lucky and got a new guy seemingly fresh out of med school. Just don’t go into it with an attitude.

Second bit: Don’t ask for more. My life kept getting worse as I got more pills. They create more pains than they cure. Even when I stopped actually using the pills, my mind was constantly driving me insane knowing they were there, or coming next month. It wasn’t until I told the Dr to cut me back that life started to return. My guess is that I’ll have to quit completely in order to get it back to something good.
 
Squeaky said:
First bit of advice:
I worked on him for a couple of months. Started with basically the truth, that I was in more pain. Then asked if there was anything over-the-counter I could add for pain and sleep. I told him next month that it didn’t help and that I was saving my pills to mostly use at night, just so I could sleep because the pain was waking me up. But I approached the conversation like a wounded bird, trying to convey a sense of helplessness. I had one Dr who was determined to give me less, so I waited until I got lucky and got a new guy seemingly fresh out of med school. Just don’t go into it with an attitude.

Second bit: Don’t ask for more. My life kept getting worse as I got more pills. They create more pains than they cure. Even when I stopped actually using the pills, my mind was constantly driving me insane knowing they were there, or coming next month. It wasn’t until I told the Dr to cut me back that life started to return. My guess is that I’ll have to quit completely in order to get it back to something good.
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The irony was that I felt like life was getting better as I got more drugs. I was so focused on my own suffering that I couldn’t see most of it was from the pills and the hole was only getting harder to climb out of with each increase.

If you want your life back, and you want your pills to start working again like they did in the beginning, ask for less. It sounds insane, but it really was the truth for me.
 
Squeaky said:
The irony was that I felt like life was getting better as I got more drugs. I was so focused on my own suffering that I couldn’t see most of it was from the pills and the hole was only getting harder to climb out of with each increase.

If you want your life back, and you want your pills to start working again like they did in the beginning, ask for less. It sounds insane, but it really was the truth for me.
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Why is your life is better on percocet than oxy? Is your head clearer, is your pain less? What makes the difference?
The hospital had a fire alert and evacuation in the middle of my procedure today and the nurse held me tight as we walked to the entrance, to prevent me falling because there was no way I can walk in a straight line any more, I don't know which med is doing it, or is it because I cut back on my opies?
They told me not to smoke for three days lol, I've a vaporizer, doesn't produce smoke most days.
They were suspicious enough to ask why I was on so many painkillers (I was so wobbly and stupid), the nurse was lovely, but thought I was an idiot I'm sure.
This time is easier tapering down the opies, clonidine is the new addition to the detox kit, kratom got dumped for being too addictive itself, so I've these main ones,
Vitamin C 10-20 grams a day
Clonidine up to 0.8mg a day
Baclofen up to 50mg a day
Gabapentin up to 1500mg a day
loperamide as needed
And Black Cohosh as needed
All spead as evenly through the day I can manage, it completely wipes out the symptoms of withdrawal, I'm impressed for sure, but I'm still far from having quit.
I hate that I need to quit to travel, I'll get there someday.
 
I have to taper off pregabalin and topiramate. I’m not gonna do both at once as that will REALLY fuck with my head, and this is gonna be hard enough. I have tapered down from 100 mg topiramate to 25, but yesterday I caved and took an extra 25 because I was feeling so shitty. They don’t tell you, when you’re about to be on these meds for years, how hard it will be to get off. At least this is my second go-round with the topiramate, so I know what to expect, a little. Part of my concern is that it was helpful for SO MANY things other than just migraine prevention, which is what it was prescribed for: it also helped my anxiety and it kept me sober and it helped me lose weight and it helped me sleep. Basically it made me into a normal, sane person, albeit a bit dumber. But it’s almost as if I needed that “muffling” effect, the slowing of thought (because that’s literally what it does, it blocks the voltage, it slows your brain down) so that I could be happier. When I think too much, I’m miserable. But aren’t we all on this site because we’re using drugs to cope with reality?

Quitting pregabalin is going to be difficult af, especially since I have to pretend to everyone in my household that I’m perfectly normal as I’m jumping out of my skin. My thinking is, should I switch to gabapentin, then taper the gabapentin? Gabapentin is the less-strong version, correct?
 
xtcgrrrl said:
I have to taper off pregabalin and topiramate. I’m not gonna do both at once as that will REALLY fuck with my head, and this is gonna be hard enough. I have tapered down from 100 mg topiramate to 25, but yesterday I caved and took an extra 25 because I was feeling so shitty. They don’t tell you, when you’re about to be on these meds for years, how hard it will be to get off. At least this is my second go-round with the topiramate, so I know what to expect, a little. Part of my concern is that it was helpful for SO MANY things other than just migraine prevention, which is what it was prescribed for: it also helped my anxiety and it kept me sober and it helped me lose weight and it helped me sleep. Basically it made me into a normal, sane person, albeit a bit dumber. But it’s almost as if I needed that “muffling” effect, the slowing of thought (because that’s literally what it does, it blocks the voltage, it slows your brain down) so that I could be happier. When I think too much, I’m miserable. But aren’t we all on this site because we’re using drugs to cope with reality?

Quitting pregabalin is going to be difficult af, especially since I have to pretend to everyone in my household that I’m perfectly normal as I’m jumping out of my skin. My thinking is, should I switch to gabapentin, then taper the gabapentin? Gabapentin is the less-strong version, correct?
Click to expand...
If you can switch to gabapentin then taper them it ought to be easier, I'm prescribed gabapentin and have stopped it loads of times, half your dose each day, pause the reduction if you get too miserable, then continue when you feel OK. A week usually is enough time for that part, unless your dose is very high. The equivalent gabapentin is six times the weight of pregabalin, you could ask a pharmacist to be sure of that.
Why are you stopping a prescribed medication that works well for you?
Squeaky is the gabs expert, I'm sure he'll be along soon. 🙂
 
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papercuts said:
If you can switch to gabapentin then taper them it ought to be easier, I'm prescribed gabapentin and have stopped it loads of times, half your dose each day, pause the reduction if you get too miserable, then continue when you feel OK. A week usually is enough time for that part, unless your dose is very high. The equivalent gabapentin is six times the weight of pregabalin, you could ask a pharmacist to be sure of that.
Why are you stopping a prescribed medication that works well for you?
Squeaky is the gabs expert, I'm sure he'll be along soon. 🙂
Click to expand...
My partner and I want to try for a baby and my gynecologist said that these two meds were the ones that I needed to try to get off of the most. I was also taking Hydroxyzine for sleep, but I already stopped that, it was easy enough.
 
papercuts said:
Why is your life is better on percocet than oxy? Is your head clearer, is your pain less? What makes the difference?
The hospital had a fire alert and evacuation in the middle of my procedure today and the nurse held me tight as we walked to the entrance, to prevent me falling because there was no way I can walk in a straight line any more, I don't know which med is doing it, or is it because I cut back on my opies?
They told me not to smoke for three days lol, I've a vaporizer, doesn't produce smoke most days.
They were suspicious enough to ask why I was on so many painkillers (I was so wobbly and stupid), the nurse was lovely, but thought I was an idiot I'm sure.
This time is easier tapering down the opies, clonidine is the new addition to the detox kit, kratom got dumped for being too addictive itself, so I've these main ones,
Vitamin C 10-20 grams a day
Clonidine up to 0.8mg a day
Baclofen up to 50mg a day
Gabapentin up to 1500mg a day
loperamide as needed
And Black Cohosh as needed
All spead as evenly through the day I can manage, it completely wipes out the symptoms of withdrawal, I'm impressed for sure, but I'm still far from having quit.
I hate that I need to quit to travel, I'll get there someday.
Click to expand...
Percocet is just low dose oxy with Tylenol. If you think in terms of percentages it makes more sense:

When they first put you on an opiate, you’re going from zero to 5mg percs. That’s like 100000% increase.

When you go up one level to 10mg, that’s 100% increase.

When you go up to the next level, maybe taking 2 at a time, that’s another 100% increase.

At the next level, you’re already at 20mg per dose, so they move you up to 30mg oxy’s. That’s only a 50% jump. It does work better but not as much of a boost as before. So the addics in the room quickly start taking those 2 at a time. Your brain keeps looking for that 100% jump in dose.

When I got to 100mg per day, I would need to take 200mg per day to get the relief I used to get when I first got prescribed 5mg Percocet’s. Pretty soon I was taking 150 mg at a time to get the relief I was looking for.

I got away from the huge doses every day. I only get opiates a few days at a time. I’m spending 24 days each month with only Kratom, and that’s holding my tolerance up high. But I’m not using enough to go back to needing it every minute of every day just to feel normal. I switched down to Percocet with the hope that I could get back to getting that same relief I had been having in the beginning but that didn’t happen. At least now I’m only in mild wd for a few days each month and I usually sleep pretty well.

Every plan I have had has failed, but this one at least seems to have failed upward. My ultimate goal is to retrain my brain to see only the negatives in using my pills. I’m getting closer to that every month.
 
papercuts said:
When you figure out how to do this painlessly, let us know, I promise to do the same!
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Right now I seem to be stable on my new dose of 25 mg which is the lowest I have. I’m nervous about jumping off, tho. I’m thinking maybe I’ll give it another few days. Or maybe I’ll cut these 25 mg pills in half and do that for a week? It feels SUPER WEIRD in my head now. Like I’m not the same person I was on Topamax. But I know I am. It’s just that your brain has to re-wire itself a bit. I looked up how topiramate works, and it’s actually fucking INSANE…here’s a link I found that’s ALSO giving me anxiety, about what I may have done to my brain in taking this for so long:

www.hormonesmatter.com

Topamax: The Drug with 9 Lives- Hormones Matter

Topamax is widely prescribed for many disparate conditions. Does it work? Is it safe? Or is this overreach medication marketing at its worst?
www.hormonesmatter.com www.hormonesmatter.com

Add to all this the fact that I had my IUD removed a few weeks ago and so now my hormones are returning to normal after being on hormonal birth control for nearly 7 years. It’s making me fucking horny but also moody af and I’m just feeling bad for my partner and everyone who has to be around me right now🤦🏻‍♀️😭 I’m a mess, but if we get a healthy baby out of this it will all be worth it!!! Gotta keep my eye on the end goal!!! 👍🏻
 
Squeaky said:
I’m proof that hope moves painfully slow, but over time there is definitely hope. Two years ago I was absolutely f’ed. Today I’m only a little bit f’ed. Maybe 2 years from now I’ll be free.
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Lol! So true my friend. So true.
You and I both are proof of this painful, slow, exhausting journey.
Trying to have a life in between chronic pain and balancing medication.
It is a very challenging thing.

I just have to say that I recently tried the high dose Vitamin C option and that worked spectacularly well.
Those Emergen-C little packs you add to a drink work really well.
With no bad after effects.
Give it a try guys.

Be sure not to make the mistake of taking too much loperamide.
I did that once and ...well...you can read the horrific results documented somewhere in this thread.
It was bad.
Small doses. Just enough to take the edge off and keep you out of the bathroom constantly.
Mixed with high dose vitamin C worked like a charm.

Hope everyone is doing alright today.
Don’t give up.
One step forward, two steps back, Three steps forward!
We can do this.
Just a matter of finding what works for you.
 
papercuts said:
I can't decide what to do.
I have made a plan and gathered up helpful meds.
This morniing instead of a pot of expresso pods, I had omeprazole, baclofen, clonidine and vitamin C. Two hours after the omeprazole I can start on gabapentin too, then keep redosing through the day. Got loperamide on standby too.
I feel fuzzy headed and nauseous, but already I'm defeating myself saying it's pointless to quit when I know come Christmas I'll be back on anything I can get hold of.
Then I'll be back to doing another withdrawal or working out how to get what I need in an unfamiliar country.
My life on repeat.
A friend tried suicide, it shook me up, he said heroin doesn't work any more, I'm thinking my tolerance needs addressing too.
Is there any point trying when I know it's going to end up being a temporary measure?
Click to expand...
I am really sorry to hear about your friend.
I know that is really stressful .
I just had really my best friend die. Murdered. She was with her cousin, whom I also know, and his kid and her kids.
The cousin’s kid shot her and the cousin (his dad) and then shot himself.
Meanwhile, my best friends boys (whom were raised as good friends with my daughter) ran to the police station and they had a big standoff That was on the news!
My daughter lives close to the cousin’s house and called me crying.
God, it really sent me into a tailspin.
That kid gave me a ride home in his new car and scared the shit out of me once.
He always seemed really nice and I thought he was a good kid. Then one night I needed a ride home and he didn’t want to do it but did and wow! He changed when I was in the car with him. I was afraid he was going to kill me.
He locked the doors and started driving like 150 mph. I made him get off the freeway and take a neighborhood road to my house..
I kept telling him to slow down because there is a lot of deer in this neighborhood.etc....anything I could think of.
He was so mad when I finally got home because he could of just drove On the freeway but he would have killed me!

Anyway....this life is hard.
People are not what you think sometimes.
I miss my friend and I have been having nightmares about that car ride and the weird change in him.
I felt like I had gotten in the car with Bundy or something.

I have a theory that us “opiate” users are the sensitive people in this world.
We feel other people’s pain and we somehow cleanse negative energy from this Earth.
It is a hard job. Useful at times to be so sensitive, but, drives us to get some relief.

I am just getting straightened out from going overboard on my medication.
It was a huge overboard too.

It is important that we get some support. Even just talking about it here with you friends, helps.
It helps a lot.
Keep on communicating here.
Come here when you have emergency situations.
Come here when you are doing well to help one another.
That is how we make it friends.
Together.
*Hugs
 
Sorry @Painful One ! You are very strong. You were just in these circumstances.
Thankfully you are so strong. Good thoughts to you and prayers to help. 💙🕊️

I am so sad to here that you had to go through that. It's a lot. Please stay well.
 
hylite said:
Sorry @Painful One ! You are very strong. You were just in these circumstances.
Thankfully you are so strong. Good thoughts to you and prayers to help. 💙🕊️

I am so sad to here that you had to go through that. It's a lot. Please stay well.
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Thank you my dear @hylite.
I am lucky my family is so strong honestly.
If they had not been there for me, every single time....man, I thank my lucky stars for them.
and for you friends here.
You guys really UNDERSTAND.
More than I would wish you too.
I love you.
P.O.
 
I was thinking about you. And hoping the best for you always.

Well at least nothing like that can happen again. That was awful.

Just stay safe be aware and I know the worst is over

I'm so very sorry.

Love you Always 🤍🕊️🤍

I know it's tough. Hang on. And we will. 🤍

Painful One said:
Thank you my dear @hylite.
I am lucky my family is so strong honestly.
If they had not been there for me, every single time....man, I thank my lucky stars for them.
and for you friends here.
You guys really UNDERSTAND.
More than I would wish you too.
I love you.
P.O.
Click to expand...
 
Painful One said:
Thank you @hylite.
Click to expand...
nfR9RrO.jpg
 
hylite said:
I was thinking about you. And hoping the best for you always.

Well at least nothing like that can happen again. That was awful.

Just stay safe be aware and I know the worst is over

I'm so very sorry.

Love you Always 🤍🕊️🤍

I know it's tough. Hang on. And we will. 🤍
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Thank you love.
You got me crying and now I can’t stop.
It feels good.
I haven’t been able to cry for a very long time and I need to.
I need to release this.

I have thought of you as well.
Many times.
I worry for you guys.
I don’t ever want to come here again to find that I have lost one of you.
That The World has lost one of you.
It is a huge loss.
Be well everyone.
You are loved more than you may know.
 
There's going to be very
painful moments in your life
that will change your entire
world in a matter of minutes.
These moments will change
YOU.
Let them make you stronger,
smarter, and kinder. But don't
you go and become someone
that you're not.
Cry. Scream if you have to.
Then you straighten out that
crown and keep it moving.

<3🕊️
 
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