Tramadol WD help

[Direwolf131]

Second time posting this, not one fucking reply first time around, I really would like to hear some advice about this. I was prescribed 300 mg daily of tramadol for 11 years, then in last year they closed the pain clinic and threw me to the mercy of my health carrier, which immediately began forcing me off of tramadol via a taper. In last two months I have reduced dosing down to 150 mg daily, just three tabs, but not taken 1 x 3 but rather quartered up into 12 doses of 12.5 mg a day, taken roughly one every two hours.

Should this moderate WD when cutting it cold this week or not, or is the only important thing its still 150 mg a day and it will still suck despite the micro-dosing spread out over the whole day? Thank you for your replies.

 

[Vastness]

Hm, interesting question. Curious why you decided to do things exactly like that though rather than a "chunkier" taper, so to speak, with less doses per day? Also if you were taking 12 doses per day, it seems like you could have given yourself an easier ride than most by gradually increasing the time between doses, take 11 per day, 10, 9 etc to a pretty soft landing?

Actually I'm not sure if you're asking after the fact, like, how much do I need to brace myself for pain, or you're trying to judge whether or not to keep on bothering to quarter your pills. I actually think tbh that if you continued with this method you would have an easier time. The peaks and troughs in substance highs and lows have a significant impact on substance addictivity and withdrawal because, bluntly, skipping any neuropharmaspeak that I'm not qualified to speak in anyway, it's just obviously more disruptive when your brain is constantly trying to manage big ups and downs and maintain that homeostasis that made sense to evolve but actually fucks us all when it comes to powerful drugs in the present day... but also, psychologically, if you take a bigger dose at once it's also a more memorable event and every time you do it you reinforce that positive association you have with the addictive drug, making you crave it more and the sufferring of withdrawal harder to bear.

It sounds kinda like the way you've been doing it, you wouldn't have been getting that big spike for a while anyway... so... you MIGHT have an easier time. Then again, tramadol is a weird one and doesn't typically have such a rush, as far as I recall, been a while since I took any, so probably you were building up a good feeling over the day even so. I think it probably will suck a bit. BUT there might be reason to be optimistic also, probably you already weren't feeling that great for the first few hours at least of each day so you can think of it as having given yourself a little practice in enduring the sufferring, so to speak, now you just gotta get used to the shittiness of the morning dragging out a bit longer while you properly withdraw...

Honestly I don't really know but this is an interesting method of tapering, you probably did already smooth out some unpleasantness doing it like this. I am curious about what it felt like while you were doing it though, like did taking 12.5mg in the morning do anything for you? Did it suck already, or was it kinda OK? Did it get better? Why did you decide to do it like that? Sorry haha, so many questions, but just not heard of anyone tapering quite like this before. I hope it's not terrible, anyway, I think you definitely could have done worse.

 

[Direwolf131]

Hm, interesting question. Curious why you decided to do things exactly like that though rather than a "chunkier" taper, so to speak, with less doses per day? Also if you were taking 12 doses per day, it seems like you could have given yourself an easier ride than most by gradually increasing the time between doses, take 11 per day, 10, 9 etc to a pretty soft landing?

Actually I'm not sure if you're asking after the fact, like, how much do I need to brace myself for pain, or you're trying to judge whether or not to keep on bothering to quarter your pills. I actually think tbh that if you continued with this method you would have an easier time. The peaks and troughs in substance highs and lows have a significant impact on substance addictivity and withdrawal because, bluntly, skipping any neuropharmaspeak that I'm not qualified to speak in anyway, it's just obviously more disruptive when your brain is constantly trying to manage big ups and downs and maintain that homeostasis that made sense to evolve but actually fucks us all when it comes to powerful drugs in the present day... but also, psychologically, if you take a bigger dose at once it's also a more memorable event and every time you do it you reinforce that positive association you have with the addictive drug, making you crave it more and the sufferring of withdrawal harder to bear.

It sounds kinda like the way you've been doing it, you wouldn't have been getting that big spike for a while anyway... so... you MIGHT have an easier time. Then again, tramadol is a weird one and doesn't typically have such a rush, as far as I recall, been a while since I took any, so probably you were building up a good feeling over the day even so. I think it probably will suck a bit. BUT there might be reason to be optimistic also, probably you already weren't feeling that great for the first few hours at least of each day so you can think of it as having given yourself a little practice in enduring the sufferring, so to speak, now you just gotta get used to the shittiness of the morning dragging out a bit longer while you properly withdraw...

Honestly I don't really know but this is an interesting method of tapering, you probably did already smooth out some unpleasantness doing it like this. I am curious about what it felt like while you were doing it though, like did taking 12.5mg in the morning do anything for you? Did it suck already, or was it kinda OK? Did it get better? Why did you decide to do it like that? Sorry haha, so many questions, but just not heard of anyone tapering quite like this before. I hope it's not terrible, anyway, I think you definitely could have done worse.

What I did, was on three separate occasions stop cold, because I was not caught up to the taper, meaning when the prescription called for 4 x 50 a day I was at 4.5 x 50 a day, then 3.5 x 50 and so on. So I continually came up short over a three month period, resulting in for me, significant WD, which in order was from 300 mg a day, 250 mg a day, 200 mg a day to the current 150 mg a day.

My thinking was fuck this, why not micro dose the shit out of this and see if it helps reduce cessation syndrome down to nothing, if you look at the math, you are taking less than a 50 mg dose every six hours, normally I'd take that 50 mg every three to four hours all in one tablet, by spacing it out over six hours in tiny doses my thinking was to metabolize it much faster and reduce its impact on me at total cessation!

To answer your question, after a three to five day cold stop, yes just 12.5 mg was surprisingly potent, you felt it, and it was significantly more potent (12.5 mg) than two grams of red maenga da kratom (four capsules), the latter which I hate so much I intend to never use it again to cope with tramadol wd syndrome!

 

[Vastness]

Hm well I'd say it kinda sounds like you've answered your own question then, 12.5mg IIRC would not be a massively noticeable dose even in completely opiate-naive people - not taking into account that they wouldn't necessarily be aware of what they should be feeling, obv - so I think you'll have a much easier time than if you'd just jumped from 3 x 50mg a day. Which is kinda surprising in a way although it does make some kind of sense also.

 

[Direwolf131]

Hm well I'd say it kinda sounds like you've answered your own question then, 12.5mg IIRC would not be a massively noticeable dose even in completely opiate-naive people - not taking into account that they wouldn't necessarily be aware of what they should be feeling, obv - so I think you'll have a much easier time than if you'd just jumped from 3 x 50mg a day. Which is kinda surprising in a way although it does make some kind of sense also.

I don't know, but I'm gonna find out because today I'm out by end of day, and that is for good, there is no more pain clinic, all are gone, but today my last two tramadol tabs get chopped up into 8 little ones and then taken as described above, after that I am out entirely with no chance of ever replacing them!

The doctors did not give one shit about my well being in this, it was pure corporatism, but today is the last day, after this I am permanently on my own, my plan is to go back to alcohol within four to five days after stopping again, and I am hoping that this time WD isn't ten fucking days of horror!

 

[Vastness]

Yeah... that sucks man. Capitalism is a cancer on the human soul, and where medicine and corporate interests collide is a special kind of evil.

No judgement obviously regarding the alcohol and I dunno where you are or what you have access to but you should be aware there are other options that aren't opiates like kratom (which I also developed an intense dislike for, although hell saying that I'd probably take some if I had any lying around right now), but might do something for your pain issues. Gabapentinoids are pretty mild and non-addicting for people who have actually dealt with truly addicting substances, you might look into gabapentin, mostly prescription but not very tightly controlled most places, ie, obtainable via normal channels, not interacting with any shady individuals, if you catch my drift... you can buy the stuff. Phenibut is not really pain oriented and can be a bit sketchier but surely less so than developing an alcohol problem, also fairly available. I'm not a doctor obviously though and know nothing about your condition really so this could be bad advice.

Oh... christ I almost hate to say it coz IMO ketamine is little better than lightly psychedelic heroin but if the medical system isn't completely closed to you now, it is an effective pain medicine, recently approved in certain parts of the world... also you didn't mention anything about actually having a problem at any point beyond the problem of no longer having access to a medicine you needed to manage pain, so I don't feel like these suggestions are ethically sketchy in a way that they could be in some cases... anyway good luck whatever you choose to do.

 

[Direwolf131]

Yeah... that sucks man. Capitalism is a cancer on the human soul, and where medicine and corporate interests collide is a special kind of evil.

No judgement obviously regarding the alcohol and I dunno where you are or what you have access to but you should be aware there are other options that aren't opiates like kratom (which I also developed an intense dislike for, although hell saying that I'd probably take some if I had any lying around right now), but might do something for your pain issues. Gabapentinoids are pretty mild and non-addicting for people who have actually dealt with truly addicting substances, you might look into gabapentin, mostly prescription but not very tightly controlled most places, ie, obtainable via normal channels, not interacting with any shady individuals, if you catch my drift... you can buy the stuff. Phenibut is not really pain oriented and can be a bit sketchier but surely less so than developing an alcohol problem, also fairly available. I'm not a doctor obviously though and know nothing about your condition really so this could be bad advice.

Oh... christ I almost hate to say it coz IMO ketamine is little better than lightly psychedelic heroin but if the medical system isn't completely closed to you now, it is an effective pain medicine, recently approved in certain parts of the world... also you didn't mention anything about actually having a problem at any point beyond the problem of no longer having access to a medicine you needed to manage pain, so I don't feel like these suggestions are ethically sketchy in a way that they could be in some cases... anyway good luck whatever you choose to do.

I have 300 caps of gabapentin, I despise kratom, its effect being all but gone within 40-70 minutes resulting in a near compulsion to keep eating the shit, and if I eat anything at all while using it, I experience an immediate, and devastating crash, like its actually working in the exact opposite and instigating radical onset of depression and dysphoria, I hate that shit! I don't like gabapentin much either, its to damn sedating, but its far better than the kratom. I mean just 150 mg a day cut from tramadol, all dispersed in tiny little micro-doses, how bad can that be?

 

[Vastness]

So IYO, did tramadol fit your specific needs perfectly? Did you experience issues with escalating dosage or anything? I mean you were on it for 11 years, would you describe yourself as "functional" in that time?

Just trying to get a sense of your relationship with the drug, yknow. I don't personally find gabapentin that sedating but I've only taken it to manage seizure risk after benzo stints for anxiety and mental health issues, actually I rarely find it does much of anything... I know some people just feel it more though. Of course there is a vast pharmaceutical array of options that should be available to you, and if tramadol fit your needs (which it kinda sounds like it did, 11 years and not, IMO, a sky high dose, ever really, even if naturally higher than you probably started at)... then it's fucking sad and unjust that it was taken away from you because of the upside down clown house society that is human culture right now. But... there still are options, or at least I hope there are, maybe there aren't in your specific circumstances...

Anyway in answer to your last sentence, how bad, certainly not as bad as it could have been but worse than it needs to be, if we lived in a sane world. Please do report how it goes, for science and the benefit of others, if you can!

 

[Direwolf131]

The first two years the daily dose was 400 mg, they then forced it down to 300 mg and there I stayed, it worked very well, periodically I'd cheat and the daily dose would increase slightly to 350 mg, but beyond that I maintained very well at 300 mg a day. I am already in WD from just 150 mg a day cold cut, just as intense as every other time, its now been 14 hours since last dose, chopping them up seems to have done nothing to mitigate the WD, God I hate this shit, blood pressure is through the roof, terrible headache, no difference between a 300 mg cut and the 150 mg cold cut, same exact shit....