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Do I need to taper post injury (Codeine/Zopiclone)?

SilentRoller

SilentRoller

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Joined
Feb 9, 2012
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Hi all,
I'll keep this short as possible.The last 4-6 weeks have sucked. I've been recovering from a shoulder injury, and also most recently a wisdom tooth extraction gone wrong.

Over the last 4 or so weeks, I have been using 5-10mg zopiclone to sleep most nights, and GP prescribed codeine at around 150 - 210mg a day. I already know I'm in for opiate WDs due to kindling, but I'm more concerned about the zopiclone.

I now don't need zopiclone to sleep as the pain has subsided (had my last 5mg last night), but I'm concerned about what will happen when the zopiclone is stopped. The codeine withdrawals are sucking (got to day 3), then had to go back on briefly on GPs advice due to a flare up in pain.

I'm pretty much ready to stop everything, but it's the zopiclone that concerns me. Like I said, I had 5mg last night, and woke up in the early AM to a couple of brain zaps, and then felt back to sleep. No day time symptoms, and I'm not expecting my sleep to be great for a few days due to codeine withdrawal.

How do I manage all of this without fucking myself? I want to make the opiate WDs as painless as possible and make sure I get some sleep at night, but I'm aware I can't push the zopiclone any further really. I have pregablin, but I don't want to give myself any more issues.

Do I need to be concerned about zopiclone at this dosage/length, or is all okay?

Cheers

SR
 
After about 4 weeks on zopiclone on those low doses, you should not get any worse than a few days of mild 'rebound insomnia.'

You may have difficulty sleeping on night 1 without the zopis, at worse you may not sleep at all, or barely at all. On the other hand it may just take a bit longer than normal to get to sleep, or you may get minimal, or even zero rebounds, if you're lucky.

The main thing is that recovery should be relatively quick after 4 weeks of such low dose use. I'd imagine that your sleep would be fully back to normal within a few days, up to 1 week maximum.

If possible, I'd try various things like getting up as early as possible on the day of the night you're due to quit, and try do as much outdoors physical exercise or labour as possible, and completely avoid caffeine and nicotine, and any other stimulants, after midday.
 
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Ive never gotten wd's off zopiclone. Rebound insomnia yes but not wd's and i take a higher dose then you. You should be fine
 
Thanks for the replies all. Is it true that the rebound insomnia for zops is fairly short lived at low doses? If that's the case, where do all the horror stories come from?
 
SilentRoller said:
Thanks for the replies all. Is it true that the rebound insomnia for zops is fairly short lived at low doses? If that's the case, where do all the horror stories come from?
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Ya it doesent last long. As for the horror stories i think there from people who really over do it. I doubt a 30 pill script every month would do it
 
SilentRoller said:
If that's the case, where do all the horror stories come from?
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Mainly from people that have been taking ever-increasing doses of benzos (rather than Z drugs) for prolonged time periods, years, decades, multiple decades.

This is where the true horror stories come from.

Btw it's been emerging that 'the new safer alternative to benzos' in the form of SSRIs, and long term use, also have their own awful w/d syndromes, reportedly, in some cases that are just as bad, or even worse than benzos.
 
Alright sweet. I'm considering resorting to 100mg pregablin on days 3/4 of the opiate WD if things get grim enough, just to give me some respite/sleep as I have work.

My understanding is pregablin isn't cross tolerant to benzos. Can 100mg once a day for a few days be used safety without issues? Obviously I rather not but it's the only comfort med I have
 
Why would you have withdrawals from such a low dose of codeine? As for the zopiclone, you might find falling asleep or staying asleep, or a combination of the two to be slightly annoying for a few days.

Time to put your big boy pants on sunshine!
 
LoginNotSecure said:
Why would you have withdrawals from such a low dose of codeine? As for the zopiclone, you might find falling asleep or staying asleep, or a combination of the two to be slightly annoying for a few days.

Time to put your big boy pants on sunshine!
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Well I most definitely am having codeine withdrawal, as I've been through opiate WD before. Kindling is a bitch, so I'm getting the whole VIP treatment in that regard (aches, RLS etc). I too would have hoped that I could have escaped. But no.
 
SilentRoller said:
My understanding is pregablin isn't cross tolerant to benzos.
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Correct, it isn't.
SilentRoller said:
Can 100mg once a day for a few days be used safety without issues?
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More than likely, yes. If you've never previously used pregab regularly enough to develop a habit, you could probably dose 100mg every 5 or 6 hours (look up the recommended dosage intervals for therapeutic dosing for pain treatment) throughout the daytime, for 2 or 3 days with no issues. I wouldn't dose round the clock though, not all through the night as well as the day.

I've used pregabs 2 days running dozens of times without issue, and although I've rarely done 3 days, I can't really see a 3rd day making much difference to anything, (in terms of issues with pregabs) other than probably raising your tolerance to pregabs by day 3.
 
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Once you've gotten serious opioid withdrawals it's normal to even get them again from relatively low doses, don't listen to this clown calling you a whiny toad.

About the Zopiclone I'd go from 10mg then 5mg one night, 2,5 mg next night, next night 1mg and the last night 0,5mg then quit completely. You probably wont even "feel" the 1mg and 0,5mg dose but it gives your system a chance to slowly wean off the drug and not unnecessarily stress your body.

I found this the best way to stop zolpidem/zopiclone and reduce the chance of kindling should you ever find yourself in a situation where you'd take it again for bit. Although I recommend you stay off it if you can.
 
Yup I am seeing what we would call "Overlapping behavioral patterns" in what I am going to call the 'cognitive dissonance business'

Always best to taper as low as possible. Everyone's metabolism and body chemistry is different -- if you feeling w/d's dont listen to the internets self-loathing folk -- take care of yourself.

Recommending parkinsons drugs to ppl in codeine w/d --- SO FUCKING DANK!
 
notsmokeymcpot42088 said:
Yup I am seeing what we would call "Overlapping behavioral patterns" in what I am going to call the 'cognitive dissonance business'

Always best to taper as low as possible. Everyone's metabolism and body chemistry is different -- if you feeling w/d's dont listen to the internets self-loathing folk -- take care of yourself.

Recommending parkinsons drugs to ppl in codeine w/d --- SO FUCKING DANK!
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You are aware medications have more than one use case, right?

 
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