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  • BDD Moderators: Keif’ Richards | negrogesic

Tramadol Withdrawal

P

popeye.sailor

Greenlighter
Joined
Jan 1, 2013
Messages
13
Hi you all
I’m on 400mg Tramadol per day for serious back pain after an injury. After 10 months I want to get off this drug.
During the last month I tried to quit with no success. I went cold turkey and quit after 3 days, I will never go that route again. Then I tried to scale down from 400mg to 350mg. The withdrawal symptoms kicked in and I quit after 2 days.
Then I started searching the internet and the best I could find was Gabapentin and Clonidine.
This is my plan:
Take 400mg Gabapentin 4 x per day total 1600mg per day for 3 days.
Take Clonidine 0.3mg 4x per day total 1.2mg per day for 3 days.
Then after 3 days start scaling down the Tramadol at 25mg per week and 100mg per month. It will take 4 months to scale down to zero.
What do you think, can this work ?
Any suggestions or advice is welcome.
Keep up the good work !
 
Sounds perfect...l would try tapering at that rate without the other meds. You want your brain chemistry to get back to normal asap. Gabapentin in particular can have some weird side effects.
 
I'm also withdrawing from tramadol. For me the withdrawal doesn't feel that bad, just a runny nose and some bowel activity but the total lack of sleep that kicks in immediately after I quit kills me leads me back to it. Benzos do not help. I guess we just have to taper to be comfortable.

Your plan looks good, I don't have such meds but I have a shorter history than you. Good luck.
 
Yea I agree completely with the gaba. I got up to 400mg a day too, but I was only at that dosage for about a month. I was too afraid of seizures too go any higher. But yea I wish you luck because tramadol is amazing for me only when I use it recreationally. 300mg at bedtime and i start nodding like 3 hours later. I dont get any sleep, but it sure feels good. I have mass amounts of gaba and it was amazing for me. didnt help with the hellish restless legs though. I have had rls ever since i can remember, both of my parents also have it. So add a withdrawal from tramadol to it and i dont get a second of sleep for days. I generally don't like going over 2 grams with the gabapentin in one dose, i just get dizzy and it starts to become unpleasant. I might raise that gaba dosage a little though.
 
Thanks for your reply cook, I will let you know how it works. I'm starting downscaling on Monday 14 Jan.I'm trying to get away with the smallest amount of drugs like 600mg Gabbapentin and .3mg Clonidine per day, will see if it works.

Hi DMTimmyJ I see there is a product in the States called Restfull legs, never tried it.I realy want to get of the Tramadol and I hope my plan will works.I also get dizzy from the Gabapentin therefore I 'm trying to get away on as little as posible.

HI sickofthisschiz, thanks for the reply. I hsave no experience with this. It was the first time using Tramadol. I got a suprize when I tried to quit. That"s the first time I learned of withdrawal and all this shit. I tried to taper and even at 25-50 it was to hard, thats why I'm trying with the drugs. Maybe I'm just a pissy.....
 
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One good thing about tramadol is that it lasts for a long time, so one can taper down off it without feeling too much in the way of w/d. First off, you say you take 8 pills a day. How do you administer the doses? 100mg every 4 hours or what? I would also suggest you reduce your dosage by 1/4 of a pill per week.It's very comfortable that way. Sure, when you get to the lower dosages you'll feel the drop for a few days but it's totally manageable. Also, it's usually a good idea to divide your dosage into AM and PM doses. My strategy was to cut down on the AM dosage first by quarters until I didn't have to take it in the AM anymore. I now just take two trams at night- though I'm having a rather hard time giving that up.....
 
I hated tram withdrawals. rehab I went to used it to taper opioids users to get clean. they tapered off about 25 mg a day. but soon as I came off, RESTLESS LEGS!! also the physical aspect just felt different probably due to its DRI properties. lasted about a week or so then I finally got some sleep wirh elavil and clonidine.
 
I do hope your taper is successful. Opioids (even the pseudo-opiods like tramadol HCl) can really pack a punch after they've been used for an appreciable amount of time.

This thread is asking a question that is better suited for Basic Drug Discussion, rather than The Dark Side. I'm going to go ahead and move it to BDD for you.

Best wishes, and get well soon <3

TDS >>> BDD

~ Vaya
 
Oh man, I went through tram w/d and it was the absolute worst! It felt like I was dying for 2 days, and no sleep for 48 hours. But by day 3, boom was gone. Eat bananas and take vitamins. Look up Thomas recipe for help. Imodium to help with the runs too. Stay hydrated
 
for the effects tramadol had on me, the withdrawal was 10x worse. shitty high (most of the time), but terrible withdrawal. short though.

i wouldnt take clonodine or any comfort meds until you are OFF the tramadol.
 
Combating the depression from an opioid and an NRI together is absolutely hectic. I've found that taking mirtazapine completely eases the NRI withdrawal. I would take it until the acute phase of opioid withdrawal is over. The SRA and NRI withdrawal tend to linger for a few weeks which is the trouble with tramadol.

Utilize the gabapentin as it can relieve you of the temperature fluctuations, the diaphoresis, cravings, and a lot of the anxiety.

If you have clonidine that's also great because it can put you to sleep, ease your nervous system and cardiac output, and also cancel the NRI withdrawal as it's an a2 adrenergic agonist.

Good luck.
 
sickofthisshiz said:
Sounds perfect...l would try tapering at that rate without the other meds. You want your brain chemistry to get back to normal asap. Gabapentin in particular can have some weird side effects.
Click to expand...

I have been searching the net during the last week, can you please tel me about the side effects or direct me to the apropiate link or site ?

Thanks
Popeye

Thanks Viya, I'm not too clued up on forums and blogs. Sorry for screwing it up.

Thanks for the kind words.

Popeye
 
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Most common side effects from the neurontin data sheet:

Back Pain
Fatigue
Fever
Viral Infection
Peripheral Oedema
Weight Increase
Cardiovascular Vasodilation
Abdominal Pain
Constipation
Dental Abnormalities
Diarrhoea
Dyspepsia
Increased Appetite
Mouth or Throat Dry
Nausea and/or Vomiting
Hematologic and Lymphatic Leukopenia
WBC Decreased
Fracture Myalgia
Nervous System Amnesia
Ataxia
Confusion
Depression
Dizziness
Dysarthria
Emotional Lability
Headache
Insomnia
Nervousness
Nystagmus
Somnolence
Thinking Abnormal
Tremor
Twitching
Coughing
Pharyngitis
Rhinitis
Abrasion
Acne
Pruritus
Rash
Click to expand...

For more side effects scroll to page 11-12 on the data sheet:

http://www.medsafe.govt.nz/profs/datasheet/n/Neurontincaptab.pdf
 
Thanks Chromophobia
Looks like I shouldn't use Gabapentin. I did notice my allergic rhinitis is worse and it is difficult to breathe. I don’t know what else to use for the Tramadol withdrawal symptoms, the Clonidine makes me extremely tired and sleepy, which is ok for the evening but not for the day. I only took it once in the morning and I couldn't function for the rest of the day. The anxiety and depression is still bad.
 
Unfortunately the anxiety and depression are the symptoms that stick around the longest during tramadol withdrawal due to the antidepressant portion of the drug. Many people cannot deal with the side effects of gabapentin even though they reverse when you stop using it.

Try using pregabalin to tide you over the 3-5 days of acute withdrawal but chances are if you can't tolerate gabapentin you won't tolerate pregabalin.

Patience is your only friend during withdrawal. Utilize the clonidine as it will ease your nervous system, cardiac output, and help you sleep.
 
I started tapering 25mg on the Tramadol on Monday 14 Jan. It looks like this is not going to work. The withdrawal is really bad .No sleep for 2 nights now. There is no way that I can take this withdrawal for 4 months (this is how long it will take at this rate ).
I only have one option left – cold turkey. I’m scared to shit by just thinking of it. I went through serious withdrawal from 800mg / day to 400mg / day 6 weeks ago and nearly died. There is no way I can do this again without the help of other drugs.
I did extensive research on this and the only drugs that came up were:
Clonidine (0.1 mg x 3 per day)
Loperamide (20 pills 2 x per day) Scaled down at 2x pills per day for 10 days.
Neorontin. (800mg x 3 per day = 2400mg / day.
My plan is to take the Neurontin and Clonidine as from today to see how it goes. If everything is okay by Sat 19 Jan I will drop the Tramadol and add the Loperamide. Hopefully in 10 days it’s all over !
Is there any advice that anyone can add ? Any support will be appreciated .
I hope that someone can learn from this.
 
I was taking 250-300mgtramadol a day for two years for chronic pain. I came off it using codeine, 60mg 4x a day for two weeks and tapering down from the codeine over two weeks,it dealt with most of the WDs except for a bit of anxiety and fatigue. As a poster above said mirtazapine should help. It will help you sleep and make up for the NRI effects of tramadol. I found a little bit of diazepam useful as well to deal with ny anxiety spikes and muscle spasms. Moderation with this stuff though is key or you will have a bigger monkey in your back when you kick the tramadol. Keep the withdrawal schedule to the 2-4 weeks and you should be fine. Good luck and I assure you it can be done.
 
I went C/T off a ~2y 800mg/day habit about a year ago while tapering benzos way too fast at the same time. Needless to say I felt like absolute shit for the next month. Then it started to get a little better.

For sleep I used diphenhydramine for a while and I also took magnesium every day for muscle relaxation. It didn't help alot, but atleast I had a "daily pill" to take to "relieve" some symptoms.

The thing I noticed was that it didn't matter if I dropped ~10% of my dose or all of it, I'd still get terrible withdrawals. That's not to say the 800mg c/t wasn't harder than the -100mg/week taper I tried first. But it was the only thing that worked for me.

I still use tramadol, but not for long periods of time as to avoid withdrawal. Same with benzos.

Good luck!
 
Whow
I tapered 25 mg Tramadol on Monday and on Thursday I couldn’t take it anymore. I went back to 400mg taken in 4x100mg doses.
I’m not used to drugs and addiction, it just happened by accident .I was on 800-1000mg last year and managed to get it down to 400mg in one week. It was absolute hell and scared the shit out of me .There is no way I will try that again. The only way for me is tapering. Some of you might think I’m exaggerating but tapering 25mg brings on a full scale withdrawal as if I’m dropping 400mg again. I’m so desperate please help!!

Now my question : Is there any way Loperamide can be used in a Tramadol tapering program ?
 
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