LeftAndLeft
Greenlighter
- Joined
- Feb 25, 2014
- Messages
- 17
Okay, so. I tried searching to figure out the answers to my questions, but I can't really find anything perfectly relevant, so I'm just gonna post. Trying to be concise, but I am naturally a windbag, so apologies if I go off-track. Or if I overcompensate and leave too much out, for that matter.
Bit of background: I'd been chipping with hydrocodone for about four months. Very small doses (3.75-11.25mg), taken at intervals of around 5-15 days. Naturally, the dosing frequency increased over time. It started at once-a-week as a maximum, with occasional breaks up to two weeks long. At that point, I was basically just taking it whenever I wanted it. Then I found myself wanting it more, and made a hard rule about taking it no more than once-per-week. This lasted maybe a month before things got fuzzy, and I started allowing myself my micro-doses in addition to another, larger dose, within one week. So I was dosing twice a week, at varying levels, erratically, for a while (most weeks, there were six day breaks between those doses, and it never got lower than four days between doses).
My understanding is that this practice really shouldn't produce any level of dependence, and it certainly did keep my tolerance to infantile levels. I can still feel 3.75mg in the same way I always have. It doesn't get me high, but it smooths out my anxiety and keeps me chipper for hours on end, which, given my generally anxious temperament, is lovely. And the other doses, likewise, have failed to vary or disappoint in their effects.
On the other hand, I have noticed more, shall we say, discomfort between doses as things have progressed. The first three or four times I took hydrocodone, there were no negative repercussions at all. Perfectly fine the next day. After that point, I started noticing that I had more generalized body aches, the parts of my body that consistently hurt were more painful, and my anxiety and irritability were higher than my baseline for the first day after dosing. Then the first two days after dosing. Then the first three (though this only happened if I dosed at 7.5mg or higher). Each time, these symptoms seemed to get minutely more intense.
Mind you: These were not issues in any significant sense. I pay a lot of attention to my body and mind, and tend to notice more than most people. It was enough to convince me that it was definitely an active correlation, and most likely causal, after about a month and a half of noticing the pattern infallibly, but if I were someone other than myself, I might not have noticed at all.
I just presumed this was a fairly natural reaction to the drug. I didn't feel any discomfort at all, mental or physical, for hours at a time, while I was on them. It made enough sense that my body would overcompensate a bit on all fronts in an attempt to get back to normal. That's just how drugs of any sort -- certainly the legal ones -- tend to work.
Last bit of background before I go on to what I really wanted to ask about: I am physically dependent on alcohol, and have been for years. Fairly recently, I decided to cut down how much, and how frequently, I drink. I was a bit overzealous -- as I tend to be -- and would up giving myself mild convulsions (significant other informed me that I should work on consuming more thiamine to counter that, and doing so has prevented that problem repeating), and pretty massive levels of disorientation and confusion lasting about a week and a half. To illustrate the level of mental disruption: I was having trouble comprehending anything I was reading; my speech patterns had been reduced almost exclusively to monosyllabic, short sentences; and I was having trouble typing and forming coherent sentences in text. And I'm a nerd, so that's notable.
During this period of cutting back, with the attendant delirium, I decided it'd be a good idea to take more hydro than usual. Specifically, I took my previously-described maximum dose all in one morning. Previously, if I took that much in a day, I spaced it out more. Then I did the same thing 48 hours later. Which was lovely. And had me lolling on my couch for four hours in both cases, quite disconnected from time and place.
Have I mentioned that my tolerance is very, very low?
Yeah.
And that was fine. The day between was perfectly normal, nothing exceptional as far as my body trying to get itself back to an opioid-free state. The day after the second dose, likewise, perfectly normal. Emotionally, particularly after the second dose, I actually felt better than normal for a post-dose-day.
Then around 30 hours after the last dose, I started noticing the physical pains increasing. It felt like my muscles were being pulled out of my body by hooks. Or, at least, that's how I described it in my notes. There was a lot of pain all through them, but the feeling of my muscles being stretched and pulled was marked. Was also starting to get notable cramping in my abdominal region. Emotionally, I was shockingly very calm and happy, but had developed a trigger-temper. I was very easy to set off, in spite of settling back into a calm and happy state very quickly after being set off. This is very odd for me. I'm very anxious, but it's usually difficult to provoke me into reacting in a marked way to anything specific. And I certainly didn't usually calm down that fast if my being irritated did get accomplished.
Two hours later, 32 hours after the last dose, I had more symptoms set in. Nausea to the point of actually worrying about vomiting. I have a very strong stomach, almost never feel nauseous, and can count the times I've vomited in my adult life from anything other than overdrinking on one hand, so this was very strange. I felt like I couldn't really eat, and effectively didn't for the rest of the night and the next day, to avoid the problem. I also developed persistent goosebumps, kept vacillating between hot flashes and cold chills, and my feet were clammy and sweaty. I was also sweating in a generalized sense (which, much like nausea, almost never happens to me), but the feet thing is what I noticed most. I actually developed a rash on them over the course of that day, possibly from chafing in moist socks. Over the course of the next few hours, I spent most of my time shivering from cold while wrapped in blankets and sweating. And, of course, the aforementioned pain and cramping didn't go away either (nor did it intensify). I also went through about a box of tissues over the course of that day and the next, but my sinuses are crap to begin with, so that didn't strike me as too irritating.
48 hours after the last dose: The nausea intensified to the point where I found it difficult to move, and I found myself shaking more than I had been previously. Aside from that, it was already beginning to subside. The cramping had mostly gone away, and the physical pain had reduced to a point comparable to what I usually felt in the day immediately after dosing. Still had goosebumps, cold sweats, and felt like I was freezing, but they were all slightly better than the previous day. On the other hand, I had developed diarrhea, and ended up having to spend time on the toilet for that reason four or five times over the next ten hours. Still felt fine emotionally, and wasn't even irritable that day.
Symptoms got worse and better, periodically, through the course of the day, until at about 60 hours from the last dose, at which point only mild nausea and moderately upset intestines remained in any notable sense.
So that's the whole story, and my real question is: Was that dope-sickness? Because I was under the impression that couldn't happen at such low doses, and couldn't happen with a habit as infrequent as mine. I've read about opiate hangovers and slight overdoses potentially making people sick, but from what I can tell by reading, that's usually a quicker turn-around that what I experienced with my timelines, and often with slightly different symptoms. (Unless I'm mistaken, which I may be!)
Is it possible that my withdrawing from alcohol at the same time may have potentiated a proper withdrawal from opiates?
I'm just really confused by the fact that this happened, what on Earth it actually was, and, well, that's all, actually. I find it hard to believe I have enough of a habit to get proper withdrawal. But, well.
What was that?
I know it was much, much milder and shorter than descriptions of opiate withdrawals that I've read, but most withdrawal stories I've read also have much higher, more frequent doses. Speaking logically, if it was going to happen at the level of drugs I was taking, what I described and felt seems about right.
I just didn't think it was possible, am still not sure it is, and. Well, I could use some input from people who know what they're talking about. That's all!
Bit of background: I'd been chipping with hydrocodone for about four months. Very small doses (3.75-11.25mg), taken at intervals of around 5-15 days. Naturally, the dosing frequency increased over time. It started at once-a-week as a maximum, with occasional breaks up to two weeks long. At that point, I was basically just taking it whenever I wanted it. Then I found myself wanting it more, and made a hard rule about taking it no more than once-per-week. This lasted maybe a month before things got fuzzy, and I started allowing myself my micro-doses in addition to another, larger dose, within one week. So I was dosing twice a week, at varying levels, erratically, for a while (most weeks, there were six day breaks between those doses, and it never got lower than four days between doses).
My understanding is that this practice really shouldn't produce any level of dependence, and it certainly did keep my tolerance to infantile levels. I can still feel 3.75mg in the same way I always have. It doesn't get me high, but it smooths out my anxiety and keeps me chipper for hours on end, which, given my generally anxious temperament, is lovely. And the other doses, likewise, have failed to vary or disappoint in their effects.
On the other hand, I have noticed more, shall we say, discomfort between doses as things have progressed. The first three or four times I took hydrocodone, there were no negative repercussions at all. Perfectly fine the next day. After that point, I started noticing that I had more generalized body aches, the parts of my body that consistently hurt were more painful, and my anxiety and irritability were higher than my baseline for the first day after dosing. Then the first two days after dosing. Then the first three (though this only happened if I dosed at 7.5mg or higher). Each time, these symptoms seemed to get minutely more intense.
Mind you: These were not issues in any significant sense. I pay a lot of attention to my body and mind, and tend to notice more than most people. It was enough to convince me that it was definitely an active correlation, and most likely causal, after about a month and a half of noticing the pattern infallibly, but if I were someone other than myself, I might not have noticed at all.
I just presumed this was a fairly natural reaction to the drug. I didn't feel any discomfort at all, mental or physical, for hours at a time, while I was on them. It made enough sense that my body would overcompensate a bit on all fronts in an attempt to get back to normal. That's just how drugs of any sort -- certainly the legal ones -- tend to work.
Last bit of background before I go on to what I really wanted to ask about: I am physically dependent on alcohol, and have been for years. Fairly recently, I decided to cut down how much, and how frequently, I drink. I was a bit overzealous -- as I tend to be -- and would up giving myself mild convulsions (significant other informed me that I should work on consuming more thiamine to counter that, and doing so has prevented that problem repeating), and pretty massive levels of disorientation and confusion lasting about a week and a half. To illustrate the level of mental disruption: I was having trouble comprehending anything I was reading; my speech patterns had been reduced almost exclusively to monosyllabic, short sentences; and I was having trouble typing and forming coherent sentences in text. And I'm a nerd, so that's notable.
During this period of cutting back, with the attendant delirium, I decided it'd be a good idea to take more hydro than usual. Specifically, I took my previously-described maximum dose all in one morning. Previously, if I took that much in a day, I spaced it out more. Then I did the same thing 48 hours later. Which was lovely. And had me lolling on my couch for four hours in both cases, quite disconnected from time and place.
Have I mentioned that my tolerance is very, very low?
Yeah.
And that was fine. The day between was perfectly normal, nothing exceptional as far as my body trying to get itself back to an opioid-free state. The day after the second dose, likewise, perfectly normal. Emotionally, particularly after the second dose, I actually felt better than normal for a post-dose-day.
Then around 30 hours after the last dose, I started noticing the physical pains increasing. It felt like my muscles were being pulled out of my body by hooks. Or, at least, that's how I described it in my notes. There was a lot of pain all through them, but the feeling of my muscles being stretched and pulled was marked. Was also starting to get notable cramping in my abdominal region. Emotionally, I was shockingly very calm and happy, but had developed a trigger-temper. I was very easy to set off, in spite of settling back into a calm and happy state very quickly after being set off. This is very odd for me. I'm very anxious, but it's usually difficult to provoke me into reacting in a marked way to anything specific. And I certainly didn't usually calm down that fast if my being irritated did get accomplished.
Two hours later, 32 hours after the last dose, I had more symptoms set in. Nausea to the point of actually worrying about vomiting. I have a very strong stomach, almost never feel nauseous, and can count the times I've vomited in my adult life from anything other than overdrinking on one hand, so this was very strange. I felt like I couldn't really eat, and effectively didn't for the rest of the night and the next day, to avoid the problem. I also developed persistent goosebumps, kept vacillating between hot flashes and cold chills, and my feet were clammy and sweaty. I was also sweating in a generalized sense (which, much like nausea, almost never happens to me), but the feet thing is what I noticed most. I actually developed a rash on them over the course of that day, possibly from chafing in moist socks. Over the course of the next few hours, I spent most of my time shivering from cold while wrapped in blankets and sweating. And, of course, the aforementioned pain and cramping didn't go away either (nor did it intensify). I also went through about a box of tissues over the course of that day and the next, but my sinuses are crap to begin with, so that didn't strike me as too irritating.
48 hours after the last dose: The nausea intensified to the point where I found it difficult to move, and I found myself shaking more than I had been previously. Aside from that, it was already beginning to subside. The cramping had mostly gone away, and the physical pain had reduced to a point comparable to what I usually felt in the day immediately after dosing. Still had goosebumps, cold sweats, and felt like I was freezing, but they were all slightly better than the previous day. On the other hand, I had developed diarrhea, and ended up having to spend time on the toilet for that reason four or five times over the next ten hours. Still felt fine emotionally, and wasn't even irritable that day.
Symptoms got worse and better, periodically, through the course of the day, until at about 60 hours from the last dose, at which point only mild nausea and moderately upset intestines remained in any notable sense.
So that's the whole story, and my real question is: Was that dope-sickness? Because I was under the impression that couldn't happen at such low doses, and couldn't happen with a habit as infrequent as mine. I've read about opiate hangovers and slight overdoses potentially making people sick, but from what I can tell by reading, that's usually a quicker turn-around that what I experienced with my timelines, and often with slightly different symptoms. (Unless I'm mistaken, which I may be!)
Is it possible that my withdrawing from alcohol at the same time may have potentiated a proper withdrawal from opiates?
I'm just really confused by the fact that this happened, what on Earth it actually was, and, well, that's all, actually. I find it hard to believe I have enough of a habit to get proper withdrawal. But, well.
What was that?
I know it was much, much milder and shorter than descriptions of opiate withdrawals that I've read, but most withdrawal stories I've read also have much higher, more frequent doses. Speaking logically, if it was going to happen at the level of drugs I was taking, what I described and felt seems about right.
I just didn't think it was possible, am still not sure it is, and. Well, I could use some input from people who know what they're talking about. That's all!
