Opioids Is it normal to take a longer time to recover from brutal w/d sickness?

[Bomb319]

With my methadone, missing 2 straight days has me feeling like death. and is already as bad as heroin withdrawal. Hot flashes and uncontrollable sweating followed by goosebumps, nausea etc. I can't eat nor sleep, and not eating alone seems to be responsible for much of the symptoms since low-blood-sugar always makes me shaky, sweaty, anxious etc. by itself. The longer or worse the opioid withdrawal sickness is, the longer recovery seems. I had my last dose on Friday, and none until 8:30 this morning. I was desperately checking the clock every few minutes, my stomach was completely empty, but I just couldn't swallow food without feeling like I'd puke, I was freezing cold, yet turning up the heat made me uncomfortably hot right away, nd all of this was brutally compounded by anxiety.

Even though I had my dose over 5 hours ago now, I still feel a bit nauseated, and flu-like. Do you find this to be the case for you too? That is, it takes longer to recover from an episode of withdrawal that is severe?

 

[SS373dOH]

For me it doesn't take longer, however sometimes I need to take a larger dose than normal, to punch through wds. . Did you take your normal dose? You may need to take a bit more than usual. Were you able to eat something yet? ? If not, you should force yourself to eat. This is most likely the cause of your nausea. Start with something light, like fruit. Also imo, methadone wd is worse than any other opiate, but to each their own.. hope you feel better soon bud!


- Hopeless Soul

 

[Bomb319]

Yeah, I have, thanks. I think at least part of it may be related to severe dehydration. Even though I had a glass of water that I was sipping while sick, I never felt very thirsty although I felt very dehydrated at times, even though my urine was pale yellow. I only had to go to the bathroom once or twice max in the 20 hours of the worst sickness. I also was down ten whole pounds measured on my scale between Saturday and today. While/after recovering today, I was drinking like crazy and even so, urine was deep yellow :/ The sweating alone must have caused substantial water loss - it was just so hard to eat or drink anything including water. You know how the acute phase of withdrawal makes your body temperature so wacky, flying up and down with no relief even possible? Later if I still haven't had anything, the sweating and heat typically die down to be replaced by a constant, bone-chilling cold combined with a deep sense of malaise and sickness. At this point, my limbs and "deep" muscles begin to feel agitated and RLS begins shortly thereafter.

My nose also "wakes up" and gets itchy around this point, and full-blown sneezing attacks begin to occur as a mid to late w/d symptom. I've heard that methadone w/d is much more mild than that of heroin or other shorter acting opioids, but it just lasts longer. I honestly don't know if I can agree with that; I felt like absolute death, however my dose is very high, I sometimes take more than even that (220), so essentially cold-turkeying 300 mg methadone can't be expected to be much fun. The sickness was just as powerful as that from H, although I did not throw up despite becoming very nauseated toward the end. I'm sure I would have if it had gone on much longer.

I just can't stand opiate w/d any more and I would do anything to avoid it. Anticipating the coming withdrawal makes it that much worse pychologically, and worse still is watching the clock knowing how much worse it's about to get while my next dose is still 20 hours away :/ The anxiety of knowing what's likely coming, knowing I will have to get up and get to the clinic while sick and attempting not to puke, and swallowing it without puking from that and losing the dose, is always on my mind.

 

[SS373dOH]

Your body temperature fluctuating is a result of your blood pressure. Look into clonidine, its a easily obtainable blood pressure medication, that will help with those symptoms. And yes, many addicts psyche themselves up about the incoming wd. I'm guilty of this too, and it seems to make wd that much worse! Good luck bud.


- Hopeless Soul

 

[cjh1221]

Your body temperature fluctuation is due to the fact that your hypothalamus has been basically dormant while you have been supplying your body with artificial dopamine. It's now re-learning how to regulate the chemicals itself and, because of this, it's sotra "freaking out" trying to re-learn homeostasis and trying to figure out a proper balance in function. One minute it turns itself down to control symptoms, then over-compensates to make up for the reaction to its lowered function by ramping-up function. It will take a while for it to learn the proper balance. In the mean-time, the best thing you can do is focus on making youself as comfortable as possible, resign yourself to the fact that's it's going to happen regardless, and know that it won't last forever. Your hypothalamus will eventually find the right balance and slowly return to normal function, it's just going through a period of trial an error, and will figure it out eventually. Knowing the inner workings and whys doesn't make it any easier to deal with but knowing it will eventually even itself out and it's not forever can sometimes make it easier to deal with psychologically. Comfort methods (warm baths, ibuprofen, relaxation techniques, and positive self-talk only make it more bearable to deal with but there is little you can do to make it happen faster. A positive outlook is the best way to cope. I know, easier said than done sometimes but in the end, there is little you can do to stop it so doing your best to accept it is the easiest way to cope.