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Opioids The Opioid Withdrawal Megathread and FAQ

^^
opiates/opiods, with regular use, change the circuitry of the brain..
eventually reprogramming it to reward
opiate use the way it rewards survival behaviors.
once these pathways have been changed
many ppl believe these changes are irreversible.

the way it makes sense to my crazy brain is this..
my opiate use is a building..
when i stopped using the first time ..the building was torn down
and i went through w/d.
but the foundation remained there waiting..
with each time i've come back and used again..
my body/brain have become better at setting up shop (tolerance)
but also so much quicker at tearing it all down. (withdrawal)
now that i read this..it probably only make sense to me..
somebody else will do better ;)
 
^^i understand for the most part, except are u saying u go into w.d faster the second time around?

If someone could go into more detail it would be much appreciated
 
from my personal experience and love affair with opiates on and off, i can vouch for the withdrawals becoming worse and worse as you come off again.

i've been through opiate w/d's about 4 times. the first session of w/d was a piece of cake strangely, i was abusing codeine for about a year at doses around 1000mg a day and came off it relatively easily within a week. had diarrhea but not much else really.the second time i noticed fatigue (using codeine/dihydrocodeine @ same doses for about 3 months)

then i ventured into the land of oxycodone and dihydrocodeine for about 5 months - taking up to 200mg oxy and 600mg dihydro a day. i experienced hot flashes, shivers, turkey skin etc. however i was also coming off amphetamines and benzos at the same time too which may have pushed it to extremes. the opiate withdrawal symptoms lasted about a week. i cold turkeyed off everything. i lasted about 6 months and started taking all three once again.

the worst however has been my most recent in which i came off opiates for two weeks and gave up again. i was on the same schedule, dihydrocodeine (which i withdrawed from and was pure agony). i had extreme diarreah, extreme mood swngs, hot and cold flashes it was unbearable. as of now i am abusing opiates again.

i shudder to think about what withdrawal will bring me this time. i use oxy at the moment only as it seems to bring about the least side effects (constipatory wise) and withdrawal wise strangely.

in the space of 6 months my tolerance did not decrease one bit. neither in the space of a year. this is what puzzles me to be honest.
 
i tried high dose kava for my wds once and it turned me off to kava forever i was very anxious and hurt like twice as bad i'm so glad they have subutex in the USA
 
I am in the process of quitting. I've smoked pot for the last few years, so knowing i was running out I went and got some because it helps my withdrawal. I started with Opana, but then quit for a fairly extended period of time, this time I picked up a-methyl fentanyl (china white) and have been using for the past 2 months or so off an on. Over the last few weeks I have used for 5-6 days and then get suboxone and quit for a few days and then picked it up again.

Last night around 7pm I took 30mg of Oxycodone, it perked me up and I felt it for a little while. Its almost 5, so I am coming up on the 24th hour with little to no symptoms. Tomorrow morning I will feel them. The last time I quit cold turkey it took about 8-9 days before all symptoms of withdrawal were gone, that time I had the first two days off work, so it was alot easier, this time the first days I work a 10 hour shift.

How bad should I expect it to be?
 
Hey guys, I am going to quit my Tilidin habit (2-3x 100mg/day) tomorrow and just want to write this down. I know that this very short acting opioid is not available in the USA and many other countries, so I don't expect specific answers regarding that but I would appreciate any input on my plan:

I have got a few Benzos (Lorazepam & Clonazepam) and Gabapentin which I intend to use for the first 3 days to soften the fall. Maybe the Gaba a little longer but only if I feel really uncomfortable. Exercise, healthy food and distraction via social contacts shall ease the PAWS after that.

I know that this habit may seem very minor compared to others but in my current situation it will be hard.
Oh I forgot: I have 100mg AH-7921 left which I will take this evening because it lasts long and doesn't let me crash after 4 hours...
 
I've been trying a lot of stuff a lot of times and what even comes close is Imodium in mega massive doses 400mg and more.
Dxm in 45-60mg doses every 4-6 hrs.
Benadryl in 45-60mg nightly.
Massive amounts of ephedra in it day.
And coffee a pot or two.
Nicotine twice as much if your a user or 14 mg patch if non-user.
 
Why would you use stimulants like ephedra or coffee when your body is already under a lot of stress due to opioid withdrawal? Adrenaline and noradrenaline secretion is suppressed by opioid use and thus there's a flood of fight-or-flight neurotransmitters and hormones during opioid withdrawal. I don't think adding to it is healthy and helping mentally or physically in any way. I always tried to calm my body. And I even couldn't smoke cigarettes like I was rebuffed from any stimulants.
 
I've been a chronic pain patient for more than a decade, and have been on moderately high dose morphine since 2004, and some type of around the clock opiate/opioid since 2001. I was at 180mg a day in 2005-2011, which has since been cut to a prescribed 90mg a day plus other pain meds so rougly 120mg morphine a day. I went on an experimental treatment for the underlying disease, and over about 5 years it made some fairly substantial improvements in the disease itself. I'm not completely cured, though it did cure one of the problems as far as I can tell; the other problem is substantially less. I went from being suicidal from the pain even with the 180mg of morphine to where I could get by with 45mg a day and just be okay most of the time, but still a pain flare here and there that needed more. The underlying problem has improved beyond that, its just not completely gone.

Unfortunately, I discovered that since I was no longer having to take 180mg a day even though I could get by with 45mg or 60mg a day and be comfortable... Well, you can guess how that goes. I started taking more to cope with just the general unhappiness of the things the disease cost me. Never a good idea to drown your sorrows in substances, but I did it anyway. I had huge reserves saved up, and well, you can guess how that went... At first it was just averaging about 100mg a day, and then suddenly it was 2-3x that to get high, and some days beyond that. I probably can manage the pain symptoms I have on lyrica, naproxen, tylenol sometimes, and the occasional dose of oxycodone/hydrocodone for flares. I'm going to ask my doc on the 22nd to write me the lyrica and see how it goes, but I can't get in before then.

I've managed to taper down to 30mg a day with Ms contin from around 120mg a day over a month and a half, but that still leaves several hours a day that are uncomfortable. On the 3rd or so I'll get 50 tablets of oxycodone 5mg and it probably will be a lot easier to taper off with that. I need to do this fairly quickly as the semester starts on the 14th. That gives me roughly 10 days to do what I need to do at the absolute max, and I would like to do it a little faster than that in case my pain levels are still high after the taper (I know they will be during).

I need to get this monkey off of my back. The morphine is just clouding my head, and I can't get through school and have my head fuzzy anymore. Undergrad stuff was one thing, but I'm in graduate school now, and I can't screw this up, you know?

I know if I have it around I'll be tempted to use it. At the same time, I'm terrified of going to my pain doc for help in case I don't get off or find that I am forced to still take some type of opioid intermittently for pain (which is likely to be the case). I know the guys personality enough to know that if I come clean with him, he wont be writing out my pain meds anymore if I find I have to change it around to even something far lesser for pain.

Here is what I have to work with, and I could definitely use some advice on how best to employ it from someone who has a decade of taking opiates around the clock under their belt. I do NOT expect this to be incredibly comfortable, but I have to be able to sleep during. I tried going cold turkey during winter break, and I could deal with pain, the nausea, the diarrhea (immodium helped, but did not stop it for me), but the restless legs issue kept me up for days and drove me back to taking something. I lasted 3 days, and had to take something just to get it to stop. That led me back to 30mg a day just to keep symptoms at bay. I'm naive on this stuff as I never expected to get well enough to even have it be an option to come down on the dose, much less quit, but the time has come to try.

60 tablets of carisoprodol 350mg
30 tablets of 5mg valium
8 tablets of 2mg ativan
50 tablets 5mg oxycodone
180 tablets of MSC 15mg -- but I want to avoid this beyond maybe day 1 as even cutting them up, they don't release predictable for me.
I can get immodium in abundance, and prior experience suggests I'll need a lot of it. So maybe 200 tablets of that.
Sodium Naproxen
Tylenol
Loratidine (I can't take dyphenhydramine)
2 doses of propoxyphene (old but probably still good)

Compared to what I have seen some of you have to do this with I should be in a pretty enviable position. I have the support of a loving girlfriend during who knows I'm tapering off, but truly doesn't understand that this has become more than pain management for me, and really is into the realm of addiction now, and not just physical dependence. Given what I have, how should I best employ it? Thanks!
 
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if you want to get off you gotta toss the opiates man. ive learned you just gotta plow thru hell to do it. im on day 4 of sober-ness after 3 years of suboxone at least not to mention whatever else i used for years before that. its pretty fucking bad and what i find helps most is hot baths. hot baths and night time flu medicine. that immodium will just extend your withdrawal. basically it wont help at all. if you take it, take small amounts. good luck.
 
Yeah, basically anything that's opiate based, even lope, will prolong withdrawal some . It doesn't help much anyway.
In my experience (one year clean) you'll one day realize the PAWS has eased up and you'll appreciate the mental relief. It took me right at 3 months.
 
If you want to be clean of opioids, it's best to go turkey in my experience. It's definitely not healthy but it's hard to control tapering down with the opioids you have (morphine or oxycodone). Use naproxen for headache and boneache, and use Ativan for sleeping (and start with 1mg, you don't want to end up addicted to benzodiazepines because getting off them is a lot worse than getting off opioids). As for loperamide, I have never experienced anything more than anti-diarrhoea effects and if I used it every day for like a week, then as needed, I didn't notice diarrhoea to be prolonged.

If you know you can't do it, think what you want to do and what is important to you. I can tell you that it's going to be hard studying and trying to stay at some low dose and tapering down is going to be almost impossible. You may be in a weak withdrawal all the time and that's bad when you need to concentrate and learn. I would choose from 2 options, both drastic but opioid addiction is no play. You may go to a detox and you should taper down without pain with a longer lasting methadone or buprenorphine (depending where you live), but that needs more time. You may also try to get on a temporary Suboxone maintenance programme, you could stay on a low dose until you've got time to taper it down. I don't advise getting on methadone because it will suck you in, besides it makes reactions slower, can be depressing, and generally I found learning on it harder, harder than when I was on morphine or levorphanol.

I wouldn't write about maintenance but you've been taking opioids for a lot of time. I'm sure your psychological addiction is deep, that's why it's going to be hard going cold turkey and you might try again and break after 3 days a few more times before you make it. But no matter how you stop taking it, the problem persists because it's in your head. I remember when I thought I was ready to stop only to relapse numerous times.

In my experience (one year clean) you'll one day realize the PAWS has eased up and you'll appreciate the mental relief. It took me right at 3 months.
Click to expand...

That's true. You may even not realize how opioids changed your thinking and you can see it after some time passes once you're clean.
 
That's true. You may even not realize how opioids changed your thinking and you can see it after some time passes once you're clean.[/QUOTE]
adder, Thanks for the confirmation. But yeah, it wasn't until that relief came that I realized the extent of the mental torment I had previously been in.
I guess that's another way of telling others it can get quite a bit better with time, in my case anyway. Also, I had a friend come out the other side as well and he didn't do anything special as far as temporary comfort meds, supplements, herbs, etc. He just sort of waited it out with a basic diet and so forth.
I really think the brain chemistry has a way of getting back to its baseline for most individuals. I know there may be other health circumstances for some.
 
adder said:
If you want to be clean of opioids, it's best to go turkey in my experience. It's definitely not healthy but it's hard to control tapering down with the opioids you have (morphine or oxycodone). Use naproxen for headache and boneache, and use Ativan for sleeping (and start with 1mg, you don't want to end up addicted to benzodiazepines because getting off them is a lot worse than getting off opioids). As for loperamide, I have never experienced anything more than anti-diarrhoea effects and if I used it every day for like a week, then as needed, I didn't notice diarrhoea to be prolonged.

If you know you can't do it, think what you want to do and what is important to you. I can tell you that it's going to be hard studying and trying to stay at some low dose and tapering down is going to be almost impossible. You may be in a weak withdrawal all the time and that's bad when you need to concentrate and learn. I would choose from 2 options, both drastic but opioid addiction is no play. You may go to a detox and you should taper down without pain with a longer lasting methadone or buprenorphine (depending where you live), but that needs more time. You may also try to get on a temporary Suboxone maintenance programme, you could stay on a low dose until you've got time to taper it down. I don't advise getting on methadone because it will suck you in, besides it makes reactions slower, can be depressing, and generally I found learning on it harder, harder than when I was on morphine or levorphanol.

I wouldn't write about maintenance but you've been taking opioids for a lot of time. I'm sure your psychological addiction is deep, that's why it's going to be hard going cold turkey and you might try again and break after 3 days a few more times before you make it. But no matter how you stop taking it, the problem persists because it's in your head. I remember when I thought I was ready to stop only to relapse numerous times.



That's true. You may even not realize how opioids changed your thinking and you can see it after some time passes once you're clean.
Click to expand...

No maintenance. If I could ditch the docs entirely I would. After 12 years of seeing them for health issues on a near monthly basis for much of it, I grow tired of seeing a rheumatologist, a neurologoist, a pain doc, and an internist. If it hadn't been for the experimental treatment I pretty much forced them to put me on ... I likely wouldn't be having this conversation today. Everything comes with a cost though, and 5 years of pretty nasty chemotherapy took it toll on me.

That is why I wanted to do a quick taper before classes started. I know this stuff is virtually impossible to do while forcing myself through classes. First few days maybe not such a big deal, but the weeks after that I only get one 5 day break during all of it, and only a week before summer classes start. Its now or not for a long time, and I'm tired of it.

No matter though, I quit cold yesterday after arranging for some gabepentin to try to help the restless legs issue. Other than ginger tea, a few doses of loperamide, tylenol, and naproxen I haven't touched anything. Best side effect of the gabapentin is it makes me tired, and sleep. I still kicked the sheets off in my sleep (as I'm sure some of the dose had worn off by then), but I stayed asleep. Day two is always a bit hard, but I didn't wake up feeling terrible...Just a bit of nausea - easily controlled with ginger tea, and could feel my GI system being a bit unhappy with me -- not major yet. I doubt the loperamide will truly control the diarrhea -- it didn't the last time I tried.

This is my second time doing this, third if I count having a week off in the hospital in misery (with the support of fluids) that was not by choice. I'm determined it will be my last. I failed the first time on my own, which is why I'm here seeking the help of those with more wisdom under their belt than I. I'll defer to that. I only have 2 minor things I have to do between now and the next 7 days. Unfortunately one of them falls tomorrow, but its an hour out when I will probably least feel like it. Nothing to be done for that, its life.
 
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2 month bender

I started out a little ass-backwards compared to most. About 4 years ago I got hooked on suboxone. I always liked the pain killers, but had very little tolerance. 4;10 mg oxycodone a day was usually my max. Maybe a few times a month.

After a few years of chipping away a friend of mine landed a connect with suboxone. Now I had never had it before, nor did I know why you would have it. I started occasionally buying a pill and breaking it into 4 pieces. 2-2mg pieces a day was so much fun.

After a few months of playing I realize that I had been taking them every day for 4 months. Not a complete surprise, but time flew by that 4 months. Well, needless to say, when I realized I needed to stop, it was too late.

First experience with the dreaded withdrawals absolutely sucked and it lasted for about a month and a half total. 2 weeks of physically ill and 4 weeks of depression and lethargy. Suboxone kicked my ass. I spent hours reading about how bad this stuff was. I was shocked and disappointed in myself.

Fast forward 3 years and still completely clean. I hurt my back a year earlier and the pain only got worse, so I decided to see a doctor. He put me on 10mg Percocet 4 times daily. Things went great until I realized I was just getting high off of them.

I went 7 months taking them and the last 2 months I was taking 100mg + per day. I decided to go cold turkey and it was very intense and painful. I had no meds or knowledge of what would help. I stayed clean for 3 months and decided to start chipping away again and here I am now. I am taking around 60-80 mg per day of either hydrocodone or oxy contin.

I have about 8-5mg hydros and 11-3.75 hydros left (7.5s split in half). I also have about a qp of some Bali Kratom along with 20 Xanax and 60-10mg Dexedrine. This is my kit and I am hoping to be done with the worst of it by Tuesday when I go back to work.

This is day one and not do bad yet. Tok 10mg hydro and 1 dose of kratom. It's 6:30pm and that def helped.

Wish me luck
 
If you have a chance to taper it down, why not substitute all your dosage with Kratom? Different structure makes cross-tolerance less (e.g. I needed less than 40mg of levorphanol to substitute 200mg morphine i.v.). Right now you probably don't need Xanax at all if you took some opioids. After lowering the dosage, I would use 0.5 to 1mg of alprazolam when I'd have problems to fall asleep because of anxiety. Stimulants are a bad choice during withdrawal or tapering down opioids as one already has elevated levels of fight-or-flight neurotransmitters.

Good luck!
 
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