4 years of rx hydrocodone - no withdrawals??

[God Particle]

Hey all. Swim has been a long time lurker but this is swims first post. Swim has a serious question because he is confused as to what is going on. Swim started taking rx hydrocodone for his back injuries about 4 years ago. He has never really had any time off of the drug except one time a year ago. It was quite a rough time with withdrawaling. Swim had moved cross country and had to find a new doctor and went a month with out anything and the anxiety part of the first withdrawal was so so tough. It was the worst part for him, while the rls and sleepless nights also sucked. He was on x4 10mg Norco a day. Stopped cold turkey.

Fast forward to a month after his withdrawal. He found a new primary care Dr and also got his medical Marijuana card. He has cut his Norco down to x3 7.5mg a day and x2 tramadol a day when needed. And he smokes at bed time.

We'll, about 2 weeks ago, his Dr had to cancel his monthly appointment for med checks. Luckily swim had some meds left for a week, but then the appointment was cancelled again.

Swim dreaded going through withdrawals again because he already deals with anxiety and he remembers his first and only detox was really rough and full of panic attacks.

It's been 3 full days, starting the fourth day now, and swim has not had any serious withdrawal symptoms. The first night was hard to sleep, so swim took a xanax. He then fell asleep. That is the 1 and only pill swim has taken besides 2 tramadol a day and smoking some bud at bed time. Swim hasn't had too much diarrhea, slept fine the last two nights, no cold sweats and has been more active the last 3 days then in months.

Wtf is going on? Why is swim so functional and not feeling any issues?! Swim is seriously perplexed.

 

[ggg8282]

That was a fairly low dosage so im gonna assume the tramadal is keeping the W/D away. Buts its hard to say.

 

[DuckieMan]

That was a fairly low dosage so im gonna assume the tramadal is keeping the W/D away. Buts its hard to say.

Yeah, the tramadol and weed will keep wds at bay for now. Tell the doctor whats up, he shouldn't be able to push you off like that, even if he writes your script and you come pick it up, sounds like bullshit to make a patient wait a month to pick up his meds.

 

[God Particle]

I was thinking the tramadol could be helping a lot too ggg and duckie. Last time when I moved and had the really bad withdrawal I didn't have anything except the weed, and I also was taking ambien for a couple years for my sleep disturbances. I wonder if not having the ambien made it worse, because it was a terrible withdrawal. I forgot until now that I used to take ambien, but the weed has taken care of the need to take those anymore. My dose of hydrocodone was also a lot more at the time, about 2x as much as I take now. But I was still fearing the worst this time around. I am starting to get some diarrhea now which sucks but I'm still in good spirits and haven't had the bad anxiety yet, tomorrow at 6 pm marks 4 full days of no Norco, I'm hoping I keep feeling okay. Mh doctor appointment is Wednesday.

It was really messed up that the doctor did this appointment canceling. She said she was moving to another clinic (which I scheduled an appointment way in advance to see her at the new clinic) but the receptionist said that she would still be at the old clinic for my next appointment. Then less than 24 hrs before the appointment they called and said I need to reschedule. So I did for the following week at the new clinic, and then they called and cancelled that appointment saying she wasn't working there yet. Now the earliest appointment is Wednesday, luckily they were able to move it up from the 27 of this month, because that would be a full month without pain control. It's been a rough couple weeks and I'm just happy the withdrawal hasn't been killing me but my pain is back to out of control levels, but I still keep pushing on trying to keep myself busy to not think about it. I just don't understand how the clinic can cancel the appointments twice and not give me my meds without seeing my own doctor. They said no other doctors can write my rx. It's pretty dumb if you ask me.