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  • BDD Moderators: Keif’ Richards

Almost off pain meds-need advice

R

roscobob

Greenlighter
Joined
Apr 26, 2012
Messages
5
Location
Los Angeles
Been ramping down for weeks after a year or so on hydro/oxy/ms contin,etc. after heart surgery.
Today I am at 20 mg oxy, 2-10mg doses .
I have read a lot of info from those that are "almost there", but nothing from anyone who completely made it,
and what to expect/look out for etc.
I want completely off this slavery wheel!
Please advise from YOUR REAL experience only.http://i.bluelight.ru/s/eek.gif
 
Well, I am about three weeks off of my pain meds...tapered down from high doses for back issues over the course of about four months.

I was very scared to "jump off" but honestly, it was a bit anticlimactic. Every time I dropped my dose significantly I had pretty bad withdraw symptoms. When I jumped off, they were there, but were not as severe and did not last as long.

Honestly, I am so relieved not be be reliant on these drugs to make me feel "right". I have more energy and I have not had any depression or anything. However, my dependency was physical in nature and not to get a high, which would have made things harder.

I guess it would be helpful to know how long you have been taking the meds, what was your highest dose, how long have you been tapering? All that stuff makes a difference.

Edit...duh, I went back and re read, I see how long you have been taking, etc.
 
Beachcat said:
Well, I am about three weeks off of my pain meds...tapered down from high doses for back issues over the course of about four months.

I was very scared to "jump off" but honestly, it was a bit anticlimactic. Every time I dropped my dose significantly I had pretty bad withdraw symptoms. When I jumped off, they were there, but were not as severe and did not last as long.

Honestly, I am so relieved not be be reliant on these drugs to make me feel "right". I have more energy and I have not had any depression or anything. However, my dependency was physical in nature and not to get a high, which would have made things harder.

I guess it would be helpful to know how long you have been taking the meds, what was your highest dose, how long have you been tapering? All that stuff makes a difference.

Edit...duh, I went back and re read, I see how long you have been taking, etc.
Click to expand...

Which meds and how specifically did you taper ?
 
Beachcat said:
I was very scared to "jump off" but honestly, it was a bit anticlimactic. Every time I dropped my dose significantly I had pretty bad withdraw symptoms. When I jumped off, they were there, but were not as severe and did not last as long.
Click to expand...

This is hopeful :). I am tapering off methadone right now, which is taking me forever, and I am almost constantly in mild withdrawals (absolutely no energy, depression/anhedonia, anxiety, mild nausea, diarrhea every day, sniffles/yawning/etc, sensitive ticky/crawly skin, sore muscles/bones/joints, etc), no matter how I long I go between dose cuts, so I keep thinking about just speeding up the taper or jumping to zero, but I am terrified if I just jump off completely the WDs will still get a lot worse. I can't handle constant heart palpitations/fluttering/etc, choking, severe RLS and constant suicidal thoughts, in particular. I don't know how bad it will get if I just quit at this point (I'm now down to 3.5mg every 12 hrs from 100mg/day), will the withdrawals be like your's and not really much worse than the withdrawals from dose cuts, or will they be as terrible as withdrawals I've had in the past? Fear of the unknown I guess. What meds were you taking and how long did you take them for?

I hear horror stories of people saying they never felt "normal" again after quitting methadone after being on it for a long time and it worries me. I've been on it for 10 years. It's really hard to keep up hope :(. But I keep going because, as roscobob said, I don't want to be controlled/limited by a drug, I want to feel free.
 
I was shot in the face in 1985 and went through many surgeries and prescribed lots of pain meds. I was on Levorphanol 16mg qd for years.Switched over to 30mg roxicodone qid in 2005. I got tired of running out early and to tell you the truth I didn't need the meds. I dropped 15mg every 5 days till I was to 15mg then switched to hydrocodone and down to zero. I had a rough week but it wasn't as bad as being dependent on the drugs. You can do it if you really want it. Best of luck!!
 
roscobob said:
Which meds and how specifically did you taper ?
Click to expand...


Let's see...at my peak I was taking MS Contin 60 mgs twice a day, oxycodone 30 mgs 6 times a day and dilaudid 8 mgs as needed. I took the MS Contin as prescribed, but would often take 150 to 200 mgs of oxy in one dose and redose. I took these meds at these doses for maybe two years.

I was able to stop taking the oxy and dilaudid cold turkey because I had the MS Contin to keep me steady....because I took my breakthrough meds in such high doses, I would usually run out two weeks early...I think my body had adjusted to not having them.

The morphine was a different story. My back doc supervised the taper. He specializes in pain management as well. Anyway, the first month he kept my morphine the same and dropped me to oxy 10 mgs twice a day
Month two: dropped me to MS Contin 30 mgs twice a day. Got horrible withdraw symptom which lasted about a week.
Month three : dropped me to MS Contin 15 mgs twice a day. Same amount of withdraw.
Month four: gave me the option to do what I wanted. I cut my self to one 15 mg per day ( I cut it in half actually and took it twice a day) but then I said fuck it....I was tired of the withdraw and did not want to go through it yet again so I just stopped it altogether. Instead of a week, I only felt withdraw for maybe three days and it was not as bad. Now I feel great!

Swimmingdancer....I don't know how methadone compares to the drugs I was taking. What happened to me was I forgot to take my morning dose (which believe me, that is not something I forget) and happened to be traveling out of town that day and had none with me. I panicked, but as the day went on I realized that I did not really feel too bad at all. That gave me the courage to jump off. I really could not face the idea of withdrawing again.

It felt good to take control like that. Maybe with the methadone you could try spacing out the doses more than twelve hours? The key for me, however, was giving my body a month to stabilize on the new dose...after week one, it felt pretty much the same as when I was dosing way higher.

It was scary for sure...I wish good luck to everyone else facing this...
 
Well I have a opiate addiction myself, and thankfully as embarrassing as it was yesterday I called my doctor scared as hell to let my long time doctor know that im an addict,(she was very proud of me to open up, don't be ashamed.) yea I looked into methadone clinics but to come in everyday to get a dose is a waste of gas and time. So long story short I have an appointment October 2nd for a prescription for suboxone plus counseling eh what ever it take best luck to you. *MIND OVER MATTER* <3
 
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