Detox PAWS! Day 32.

[F4KT]

Good day everyone! I've been using this site for years as a way to gather info and experiences as a means for harm reduction, but I've never posted anything, and it never occurred to me to use it as a tool for recovery.
I'm currently 32 days into Cold Turkey IV heroin withdrawal. It's been one hell of a ride this time around. ROUGH! I started feeling significantly better, but I get these 1-3 day periods where physical symptoms of acute WD manifest, though not as intense. Kinda like random repeats of day 5, 6, and 7 where my legs have this ache at/above the knee, heart rate goes up randomly, and At night I'll wake up a few times sweating. After that I'll feel OK for 3-4 days, then back to these few symptoms. Is that normal? My last experience with cold Turkey detox was about 6 years ago coming off of sniffing 240mg of oxycodone, daily. Followed by 3.5 years of sobriety and heavy involvement in AA/NA. Complacency set in, and I slipped up and visited a friend who had recently gotten clean. As it turns out, he wasn't clean anymore. He's oldschool and doesn't get the whole "there is no 'just once'" thing, so he through me a bag, and I dove in with this astonishing sense of shame. Continued sniffing it up until about 9 months ago when I switch ROA to IV. I worked in a hospital and clean rugs were available, so in an attempt to maximize effectiveness from a financial standpoint, it bit me in the ass, and in the first two months of IV went from a $50/day habit, to a $300/day habit.

Life caught up with me about 60 days ago, and got into an accident. My truck is finally in the repair shop now after jumping through hoops to get it there, but without a truck, I don't have a job. I proceeded to use public transportation to go cop, turning a 1 hour round trip drive into a 5 hour walk/bus/multi train trip. Eventually, I was tapped out on cash. Had I found something within the first 24 hours, I'd probably still be going, but after about hour 28, I was laid up in bed for two full days. I could barely make it to the toilet. Getting water 10 steps away was a mission. Never experienced anything like it, aside from maybe precipitated WD.

My head is in the right place, and I'm not really all that depressed, but these rebounding symtoms that go away and come back has never happened before . Even at 240mg oxy cold Turkey, my PAWs was just a light fatigue and minor anxiety. No random back and forth. Is this normal due to the amounts, strength, and ROA?

 

[Shortec Stublue!!]

It’s sometimes as if our body forgets to put us through the ringer for a few hours, and then thinks HEY!! Let’s get that punishment back on track and you wake up in impending doom land again ????

 

[Shortec Stublue!!]

I think you need to switch to truffles!!

 

[Hylight]

I think you need to switch to truffles!!

Okay i definitely will do that !

edit: iv'e been on them a long long time LONG LONG time everyday and every night a long time. very long. brain does'nt like the temporary situ.

 

[F4KT]

It’s sometimes as if our body forgets to put us through the ringer for a few hours, and then thinks HEY!! Let’s get that punishment back on track and you wake up in impending doom land again ????

Yeah. I'll be like "Awesome, I'm starting to feel much better." The next day: " What the F**K is this"
So I guess it's normal. I was fairly certain it was. Aside from that, I really can't complain. I'm full disclosure, I can't say that I've been 100% clean. On the 4th day It occurred to me that I had a can of herb from Colorado. I take two hits, and it definitely helps me. That's where I'm also kinda torn.
I have a lot of respect for AA/NA and even though there are plenty of holes, and hypocrites in the program, I know it does work if you actually work a program. I'd like to become involved again, but I'm also realizing all of the medical aspects of cannabis, even though I've been smoking it for years, it has an honest medicinal place in my life. I've suffered from general anxiety disorder for a long time. Never had a panic or anxiety attack, I'm pretty good at managing it, but it's still there...for no reason at all. I was also in a bad accident about a year into my sobriety. Just like with the anxiety, I managed, and toughed it out. Part of me wants to go back to toughing it out, the other part to Medical herb.

I have a lot of thinking to do. Just trying to remain grateful and give myself some credit. I've accomplished quite a few things in life that are celebratory, non of which were anywhere close to this hard.

Hope everyone is having a great day. I'll probably be on a lot until I get my vehicle back so I'm also here if anyone needs.

 

[Shortec Stublue!!]

Yeah don’t worry it’s certainly not abnormal. Receptor downregulation and general plasticity issues coming off a strong opiate/Opioid is challenging to say the least. Plus it is individual and we all seem to think all paths are the same for fellow abstained (it’s not).

If you can find comfort in some weed or whatever your remedy maybe don’t second guess yourself just do it. Regarding PAWS the acute may keep tearing its ugly head, but cerebrally it will twist and turn until your road straightens and hell turns to discomfort and finally to a few bumps in that road. You are not alone and are not the first or last to be figuring shit out. You got this!!

 

[bdaver]

Hey, similar story. I'm on day 49 after a five-year prescribed heavy Oxy and benzo regimen... I agree, getting completely clean was very hard. It was like I had to have *something*. I hit booze (wine only but like that matters) as well as on fairly strong joint per night. I was getting incredibly bad anxiety and insomnia until a few days ago when I stopped the wine and weed. Now I'm ok... not all the way there but the anxiety is diminished and I'm sleeping better. I don't think I could have got completely clean (I'm an addict, duh) so like people say, you do you and you'll get there in the end.

 

[Bocaradio]

Hey my fellow B's this is my first time ever posting and hope I have landed it in an ok place. I have found
Good guidance using this resource and I commend ALL who play a part in keeping Bluelight healthy.......thank you immensely from all of us.

My journey is not much different from many but if sharing can be therapeutic for recovery and others can learn, then it would seem ok to invite you along the road I've travelled.

I am a 62 yo baby boomer sage who has traveled the world during my most successful media entertainment years. Always prone to altered states and from my early years I enjoyed experimenting with virtually every substance except "H". After years of back problems beginning in the early 90's after an accident I finally had a lamenectomy at L4-5 and the result was good. Fast forward 10 years to 12/2001 when I collapsed at my home with crippling lower back pain. I was taken by ambulance after the technicians dropped me on the landing of my staircase and was presented to my surgeon with no feeling from the waste down. An emergency spinal surgery was expedited and It would take a year to learn how to walk again. It was during this time that the road to addiction was paved perfectly just 4 me.

I spent the next 17 years battling to be normal, But always would assume there was no other way for me to live. The pain I lived in due to a degenerative spinal column absolutely needed to be suppressed. What started as a few Percocet a day turned into 200 mg ER morphine daily with another 80 mg of Oxycodone daily. I am a big guy but was always told I was on too strong a dose, but even the regiment I was on didn't seem to help.

Fast forward 15 years and I began the morphine taper which was hell at first. Eventually I sukkkkkcceeded in ceasing all morph intake but the long drawn out paws continued for at least a year or more. I was still taking the oxy's for breakthrough pain but the depression and lack of desire for any activity that typically brought me joy was raging. 2 years later and I finally made the decision to make the jump. The medicine no longer helped my pain and I was sick and tired of being leashed to the meds. I loaded up on every supplement one could need to get through my detox. I strategized with a pain specialist to use lofexedine ( lucemyra) along with the OTC support to minimize my hell. I had no idea what to expect other than being aware of how dibilitating it was to titration off daily morphine. It wasn't the high that I craved, it was to be pain free and without taking the jump I would not know if it was possible 4 me to live the balance of my life without this horrible addiction.....

Today is day 7 of my detox and it was and is everything you have ever read. Days 1-3 you will wrestle with your body on fire as your system is resetting without the drugs. Day 4-6 brought horrific muscle spasms and it felt like every cell in my body was crying for relief. I became pretty despondent wondering will it ever get better. Could barely walk to the bathroom but had a caring spouse who tended to my hydration and kept me nourished.

Decided today without consult with a dr that I needed something stronger than my 800 mg Motrin to wrestle the inflammation down. Started on a 5 day steroid regiment and at the moment after a long Epsom bath this am , I am seeing and feeling daylight. Man, you don't know what you don't know. It's the fear of the unknown that made me wait so long I guess. Now I have a shot to get to the other side. I have a new business to build, weddings to attend and a wife and adopted little pup that were my inspiration to do this. I will win. I will beat this and any of you can do this too!!

I leave you with this...... I am not interested in the opiate high. I just can't live in pain. I enjoy vaping weed and if I need to take an occasional drink or even schedule a physcodelic session using ketamine or shrooms to reboot and tackle some depression as a result of so many years of using, then that will now be my continued path. As stated earlier, I always experimented when I was younger and now I am just a veteran at all this who knows the limits and how far you can take things before trouble comes knocking. I have quit cigarettes (5 yrs ago), quit drinking for lengthy spells and know I have good control and driven will to conquer a chronic daily opiate problem.

Here is my closing question...... Has anyone ever gone through hell and come out on the other side and then used a very limited regiment of Percocet to attack pain flare ups as needed without returning to full blown addictive level use?? I believe I have that potential knowing I never want to go through this again.........what say you? Peace and love.......

 

[Crackedout420]

If I understand paws correctly I thought it was an after effect from replacing the hormone in our brain that gives us energy with uppers for so long that our brain stops producing the energy hormone. Am I correct or have I been misinformed? I was told I had paws while in rehab for coke. Yes coke. It seems like qn easy one to kick but wasnt for me.