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  • TDS Moderators: AlphaMethylPhenyl | paranoid android

16 months on pods - Tapering completely in 4 weeks (log)

Bo just curious but if you were using a clondine patch or the pills, would this WD/tapering have been easier on you? How would it have been different?
 
Yes absolutely /\
One of the main things that aggravates withdrawal symptoms is when you stop opiates your adrenaline levels shoot through the roof. That adrenaline is exactly what causes hyperhydrosis (intense sweating), cold flashes/hot flashes, restlessness and insomnia. I remember taking clonidine once before it kills the sweats and gives you a somewhat sedating feeling (at least sedating in comparison to how hyped up wds make you) and basically fixes most of the issues I mentioned above as well as the high blood pressure and headaches.

I was given actual pain killers once before to combat withdrawals and believe it or not I found the clonidine way more effective than even a mild opiate. It is absolutely a godsend for wds but I started taking my inderal again and basically just don't let it wear off (I redose as it wears off so I don't get a headache) as inderal also blocks adrenaline but its just to a much lesser extent. It does a good job keeping my blood pressure down and keeping me overall calm but it doesn't do anything really for the sweats/hot flashes.

My only real complaint right now is mainly sleep as this was day 3 and I only got 4 hours again last night. Its always 4 hours to the minute it seems and my body just wakes up stimulated and theres no chance of going back to bed. I was able to workout early today so I'm glad I got that out of the way. I'm basically just killing time right now waiting to see if wds are ever gonna show their face. But I'm thinking my sleep may actually get worse now that I'm not dosing today or tommorow.. and hopefully I'll be strong enough to get through it.

I'll be back a little later to respond to quasi and jay I just may need to lay down for a few hours I'm feeling like a zombie right now. And forget sleeping pills lol I took 75mg diphenhydramine to sleep last night and it didn't do a single thing. I have seroquel which is much stronger but then I'll just be a well slept zombie tommorow with how groggy it makes me. ok bbl!
 
Bo, can you call the doctor and get a script for the clonidine then? With your normal high BP I'm sure they would do it. I don't want to see you hurting Bo! WD/tapering is not a "no pain, no gain" thing. That's body building and exercise only but you know that Mr Muscles :) I am so proud of you in how far you have come!
 
Thanks HMP I already kinda considered the clonidine route a few weeks ago and just kind of lost motivation really. I don't have insurance and even though I could just pay I'd rather spend that money on food and other stuff lol.

But let me try and do an update as I'm a bit out of it today
UPDATE TIME!!!!

Ok so I'm not sure what to say for the first time in my life I mean I got what I was hoping for but at the same time the sleep issues are getting too severe for my taste. I had said I got 4 hours of sleep the night before last, and was a walking zombie for most of the day. I felt like I could go to bed at 11am in the morning thats how tired I was.
Well midnight rolled around and I STILL couldn't fall asleep.

I basically sat in my bed last night with my eyes open the entire night and didn't sleep for 1 single minute. This pissed me off as I obviously was expecting my body would be so tired it needed like 16 hours of sleep... but not even 1 minute lol.

I mean thats the worst thing I can logically complain about right now and I remember just a few days ago I was saying "if I can get through the jump off feeling no worse than a common cold I'd be blessed" and even in my frame of mind right now I DO think I got blessed. For the most part no pain, hot flashes are very very inconsistent and mild, and besides that I just have some lethargy, RLS and wobbly legs from not sleeping.

I mean I shouldn't really complain as I haven't even dosed pods in 48 hours now. And I get to have a few gms of kratom this morning so maybe that'll get me through the day somehow. Although theres no way in hell I'm working out today. I'm most likely taking an inday and just sitting home all day. Maybe I'll try to nap in a few more hours but it seems like sleep is still not gonna happen.

I've considered the idea of redosing the pods but I'm curious about hour 72 the most. And if I get to hour 72 tommorow morning theres really no reason to turn back at that point. For the most part it seems the taper has reduced wds for the jump off about 90%. Thats just my estimate. So the taper was absolutely worth doing in my opinion. I'm honestly too foggy headed right now to really organize my thoughts in an appropriate way so I think I'll leave off here for now.
I'll prob be back like 10 more times to post considering I'll be home all day and most likely wanting to bitch about something. So I'm gonna go have some kratom and lay back down now. Thanks all for the support!
 
The lack of sleep is a bitch! I only went through it for three nights with the first being mild. The day after I started the patch I slept like 12 hours and that was with waking to dose the Morphine and then right back to sleep.

None of those OTC allergy/cold pills knock you out? This scares the shit out of me Bo. I don't want to go through bad WD as I taper down.
 
The insomnia, although extremely common, is probably one of the most disconcerting aspects of opiate withdrawal. There probably isn't a whole lot that you can do to eliminate this symptom except ride it out. After a few days of no sleep, you will start to sleep again. Your body can only go so long without sleep before it will literally force it.

I say just keep pushing forward. Make it to that 72 hour mark, and then keep on going. I know you don't feel like it, but do some exercising to burn some energy and make sleep more likely. Take some diphenhydramine and smoke some pot. Even if you can't go to sleep, just lay there and relax. I have found that when I can't sleep it's best not to get stressed about it, just try to lay there and relax. It may not be as restful as real sleep, but it helps.

I bet that very soon you will start to sleep again, and then it will improve from then on out. I had sleep issues after my first week clean, which lasted about another week. I don't recall having sleep issues during my first week of withdrawal, but I was using phenazepam and don't remember much of anything during that time :\ I don't think your insomnia will persist for very long thanks to your tapering.
 
Yeh I think your right Quasi about the insomnia not lasting long. Because the insomnia actually started before I even jumped off. It was about 4 days actually before. The first night it happened I got like 6 hours sleep, then it slowly kept getting worse and worse untill last night which was the first night I didn't sleep at all.

The oddest aspect of it is I somehow DO get a little bit of energy towards the end of the day. Like yesterday I worked out in the morning and was dead tired. I did that because I was expecting my energy to plummit by noon. But then around 2-3pm I felt pretty awake. Today was the same thing where as soon as I stood up I felt like a zombie, but now I feel awake again.
At any rate I actually do want to keep pushing forward. Its really not as difficult as I think I'm making it seem. Like yeh its annoying but for the most part the RLS has really moderated almost to nothing now. I'm not feeling any real hot flashes or chills. I have no body pains. I just feel a tiny bit "off" I guess. But absolutely nothing to make me feel like I need to dose.

I'm nearing around 60 hours since my last dose and I'm really thinking I SHOULD have absolutely felt some sort of crash by now. I was getting more and more worried in my head just about the idea of approaching hour 72, but at this point that fear has largely faded. I don't think I'm gonna get sick, and I think the taper worked exactly how it was suppose to.

At this point I feel like I'm officially done with this crap. I'm so excited to get my natural energy back and really dedicate myself now to diet and working out. I'll always have pot around so if I need to "escape" I'll just toke a bowl. I'm not getting cravings, I don't really remember getting them at all during this taper. And I think its because my mind has somehow managed to associate pods as a BAD thing lol. Almost the way I look at alcohol now I just am never tempted to drink because of the hangovers. Same thing with pods theres no point getting high if its going to completely hijack my brain and throw me into hell anytime I wanna stop.

Its just really not worth it anymore. The most important thing now is just keeping that mindset.
 
THANK YOU!!!
I was actually thinking about mixing the pods with potassium nitrate, putting them in a cardboard tube and blowing it into a million pieces. I could even waterproof the tube and throw it in the ocean for added effect.
I have so many left over pyro chems from my youth and I can really leave this habit behind with a BANG!!

Either way I will surely videotape it for you all.

Well its 11pm, we are somewhere around 64-65 hours. I feel almost perfectly fine its odd that I'm STILL not tired. Around 2pmish today most of the fatigue went away and I feel pretty stimulated right now. But that might be a sign of another sleepless night to come.

Whatever the case to be honest I don't really give a shit. As annoying as not getting sleep is I'm starting to think my body knows whats best and maybe I really just don't need it. It makes absolutely 0 sense to me how I can feel so energized right now... especially considering the fact that fatigue/lethargy is a known wd symptom and I haven't slept in like 40hours. I can honestly say the last thing I was expecting tonight was to be 100% wide eyed and awake.

But like I said nothing matters anymore cause I have too much to be thankful for right now. Hopefully you'll get to have a similar experience or better getting off opiates HMP. Alright time to go have a cig, bbl!
 
I'm a little confused about loperamide and how to use it. I'm lowering poppy doses every two days, but some days my schedule doesn't permit eating grounds. On those days I take loperamide, anywhere from 6mg to 12mg, either once or twice daily. I'm wondering if these "as needed" erratic dosages will fuck up my taper. For example, will dosing 12mg lope when I'm down to 1.7g pods (but didn't take the pods that day) actually increase my tolerance. How does this stuff work in conjunction with the taper?


Edit:
bojangs, thanks for that thoughtful response, I have to gather my thoughts but I will respond
 
Last edited:
leiphos said:
I'm a little confused about loperamide and how to use it. I'm lowering poppy doses every two days, but some days my schedule doesn't permit eating grounds. On those days I take loperamide, anywhere from 6mg to 12mg, either once or twice daily. I'm wondering if these "as needed" erratic dosages will fuck up my taper. For example, will dosing 12mg lope when I'm down to 1.7g pods (but didn't take the pods that day) actually increase my tolerance. How does this stuff work in conjunction with the taper?


Edit:
bojangs, thanks for that thoughtful response, I have to gather my thoughts but I will respond
Click to expand...

YES it will absolutely delay wds but in a different way then most opiates.

First thing you should realize about lope is this. When you take lope in about
3-4 hours it will fill up every opiate receptor in your body. And it will leave the receptors in your brain about 90% unoccupied (just an estimate based on experience and research).

Whats important to understand is when you take your pods, it will go to your body and see the lope as occupied those receptors, so it will only bond in your body at lower amounts whereever needed. BUT what happens is most of your pod dose will go straight to your head and the lope winds up potentiating the shit out of the pods (if you've ever taken it with higher doses of pods or any opiate you'll notice you get much higher than your avg opiate dose).

The second thing with lope is dose matching. If you are taking too much lope you're gonna have a cumalative build up in your body. Which will absolutely delay wds. But lope is super easy to match doses with it just takes a few days to calibrate. The 12mg you're taking now believe it or not sounds spot on to what I would estimate you should be taking. I would have said 10-12mg. But you can tell if its delaying wds simply by the amount of wds you're experiencing now.
If you feel "normal", theres a good chance theres too much lope in your blood. So if you took 12mg today try dropping to 10mg tommorow and see if it still holds you. If you STILL feel normal just drop again the next day. The idea is to just keep dropping the lope till you feel a little bit "off". I remember you mentioning something about still feeling you pod doses and you may have been taking too much lope back then and all the pods were going to your brain making you high.

But what you can do is basically try to make yourself feel a little off, and continue tapering BOTH the pods and loperamide. You will get to a point where you're off the pods, and still on a mild dose of lope. Then just drop the lope for another 1-2 weeks after you stop the pods (if thats your plan). As you drop the lope those next couple of weeks you will very slowly experience minor wds. But I believe the wds are much easier on you at that point because you're not being slammed with head & body wds at once, you're only really getting minor body wds like hotflashes and possibly RLS. But you should barely feel it if you do it at the right pace.

Lope is great though and it seems you're at a good dose now. If you think its working too good I'd def drop a couple mg tommorow and see how you feel. G/luck!
 
Bojangles69 said:
I personally have nothing left to abuse besides pot (as in nothing left psychologically). I don't drink and never really enjoyed even having just 1 beer. Even now the idea of drinking makes me sick as I personally hate the taste of alcohol (although in earlier years I did binge a bit).
Stimulants deteriorate your mental health and self esteem faster than any drug I've ever taken in my life, they were a bout all on their own like 10 years ago, but I have absolutely no temptation to take anything more than a cup of coffee right now.

If you want ME to be 100% honest with you, I believe you are purposely sabatoging your recovery because subconsiously you DO NOT want to quit opiates in the first place and you most likely felt more socially forced to stop than actually having a self will to do it.
If I was tapering off pods right now, and using meph or adderal or really any of that shit I would have honestly stopped the taper weeks ago and just gone back to using to be HONEST with my own self if nothing more.
You have a well of lies you can use now to go back to pods just because you're using other stuff.
"The adderal strings me out and pods will help me calm down"... "if Im just gonna catch an addiction to something else WELL I MIGHT AS WELL JUST GO BACK TO PODS AND FEEL STABLE"

comeon, you don't sound like someone who wants to quit. I'm barely even trying to take immodium through this taper because I'm actually afraid immodium is gonna start hiding wds for later. It is NOT hard to fuck yourself up in this process and tbo it sounds like you are trying pretty hard at this point to fuck yourself up.
I don't want you to feel bad, or like you're not doing things right.

I just think you need to really contemplate more time using. 2,3.. 5 more years of this lifestyle... does it bother you? How much so? Is it enough to completely stop you now?

Is it not enough to stop you now? Thats really all you need to know. If that desire is there its there, I think people complicate shit because they just tried to pretend a desire was there when it never really was.
If I'm wrong I apologize but it has to be obvious at the rate you're going, once the price of pods drop, that will be the last excuse you need to go back to that lifestyle.
Click to expand...

it's a bit more complicated, as I had been on stimulant medicines for most of my life before opiates, and now am completely incapable of doing anything it seems. at the same time, I know rationalization is a slippery slope as you alluded to.

with regards to the loperamide, I haven't ever taken it in combination with the pods, but the dose matching advice is useful. it seemed like it would be counterproductive to take 10-12mg loperamide even alone, but it works. my plan is to jump back and forth as needed, but basically remain on the pod taper; after that, I'm going to use only loperamide, and taper over another two weeks. I'll finish on the day I move out in fact
 
Yeh I think I was definitely wding during most of that post tbo. I remember after I posted that I was like "damn I am irritable as fuck" lol.

But good luck with moving out and getting on with things. I had a strong stimulant addiction years before opiates I think stimulants can definitely move you towards opiates.
 
Alright so I guess we "made it" at this point its beyond hour 72 and I'm pretty much maintaining off the pods.

I had a weird night last night I was pretty much drifting in and out of consciousness for most of the night. But I remember being up more than I was asleep so I still didn't really get a whole lot of rest.
There was annoying RLS going on this morning before I took my kratom and in a weird way it did kind of feel like my "peak". I just know it was a bit more intense than yesterday in terms of how much I was moving my legs around.
After I took my morning kratom mostly everything subsided but I'm definitely not stimulated today like yesterday. I should have actually worked out yesterday because today I feel like I can fall asleep on the treadmill.

Tommorow will be day 4 off the pods and I'm REALLY hoping I can wake up and feel somewhat normal. I just wanna stop taking kratom and have my natural energy back so I can start working out again and hopefully find a job for once.
Thats it for now though I'll update a little later today but for the most part I'm surviving.
 
Bojangles69 said:
Tommorow will be day 4 off the pods and I'm REALLY hoping I can wake up and feel somewhat normal. I just wanna stop taking kratom and have my natural energy back so I can start working out again and hopefully find a job for once.
Thats it for now though I'll update a little later today but for the most part I'm surviving.
Click to expand...

Awesome job man! :) You've made some amazing progress!

Just don't lose your patience! Right now it seems like you might be quite drained and fatigued from this constant battle, and I know you must want to return to normal very badly at this point, but I think you should prepare yourself that the next few days might still suck.

They'll probably suck less than right now, which is important to keep in mind, but energy and mood levels take a little while to level off and return to a more 'normal' setting. Just don't feel frustrated if you don't feel too great yet in the next day or two.

And if you do feel good then go out and have fun living life! =D
 
Way to go Bo! I think each day you should be feeling better and better. You are at the point where I started taking the suboxone I had - which was way overkill obviously. Hopefully you'll start sleeping better and that will make a big difference. Damn dude, your at the finish line - it's cool to hear!
 
Bo, I just want to congratulate you on 4 days clean and also thank you for this thread. It is a great resource for anyone who needs to know the process of coming off opiates. Keep it up man you're doing great! <3
 
Right ON!

Good job- hang tough!

I've followed your taper all along. I start mine in three days. Thanks for clearing a path.

Peace.
 
Wow it looks like you guys threw a suprise party when I was gone lol so nice to see all the positive kharma.

Its getting close to hour 80 something I'm doing pretty good. Theres not much of anything going on and I took a little kratom like 6 hours ago.

HamClamp there has been a high success rate getting off pods lately look at me, jay, and quasi. We gladly toss the torch to you. Get off that shit if thats what you're trying to do.
 
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