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Withdrawing from opiates starting today

F

Fascination

Bluelighter
Joined
Jan 21, 2012
Messages
59
So today is my first day of my home detox. I used to be heavily addicted to opiates. I went on methadone maintenance for 5 years (dose was 120 mgs split). I weaned off of it 2 years ago. It was VERY difficult (that's an understatement). I was doing well until I had some medical problems which were very painful and I had to take prescribed opiates for the pain. I tried non narcotic pain relievers first but they didn't work.
Anyway, I was on percocet 10 mg 6 times a day. I weaned myself down to norco (10 mg hydrocodone) 5 to 6 times daily. I've made up my mind to go cold turkey even though my dr wants me to taper. I feel like I can't taper because I just want to take more all the time, KWIM. I posted my story in the Other Drugs forum looking for advice on comfort meds. I decided to make a thread here detailing any WD symptoms I feel and what helped to relieve them. Maybe it could help someone else in my situation. This morning I took 20 mg of loperamide and that seems to have helped. Haven't had to take the clonopin , Clonidine or neurotinin yet. I will keep everyone posted. Except for a headache, I don't feel too bad yet.
 
You'll feel discomfort, but getting off of 50-60mg of hydrocodone is going to be a lot easier than when you got yourself off of 120mg methadone. Good luck with getting off :)
 
Hi Fascination,
My sister also struggles with an opiate addiction. It sounds like you've made tons of progress towards moving forward in your life already over the years. Thanks for sharing.

I don't know how much of an issue anxiety is for you during withdrawal, but I've found phosphatidylserine to be very effective at reducing stress. Several legitimate clinical studies have shown that it's effective at reducing excessive cortisol levels. If you decide to take it, just be sure not to take more than 400mg a day, as one of the studies showed that it becomes ineffective entirely if more than 400mg are taken in a day.

Best,
J G
 
I found DXM and pircetam to be extreme useful tools when going cold turkey. In fact, I cold turkey'd my heroin habit by taking 2-3g piracetam and 230-690mg DXM for five days. Then again, I had the luxury of not having to go to work for that week, which made all the difference.

Given that you have Neurontin, Clonazepam (seems like you mentioned you had k-pins), Clonidine and Loperamide, this detox should be a walk in the park. Really, you should experience minimal discomfort with all these aids. Adding DXM or Naproxen or whatever might not even be necessary really.

What I'm interested in though, is...


What are your plans for after you've detoxed? What are your plans for when you're three days clean? A week clean?

Good Luck OP! You got this thing!!!
 
Kratom can help with getting off a low to moderate addiction. With the amounts of opiates you were taking you may have no withdrawl if you use kratom. Once you get the synth opiates out of your system the kratom is a breeze to get off of. When my back acts up I take an average of about 40mg-60mg of hydrocodone a day for anywhere from a week to a couple months. That's long enough for me to have mild wd's. I take kratom for a few days to a couple weeks after I stop the opiates and have no wd's at all and I have no wd's when I stop the kratom. I think kratom is a god send.
 
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Thank you for all the support and advice. It's been almost 24 hours since I've taken any opiates and... I really don't feel too bad yet. Slight hot and cold feelings on my skin, headache, some intestinal issues before I took the loperamide, etc. I'll keep updating. Excedrin helped my headache somewhat. I know caffiene isn't recommended while WDing but I'm a big caffiene addict and not having any would make me feel worse (excedrin contains caffiene).
One thing that's helped my cravings (because I have a whole bottle of Norco here , I'm not doing this because I'm forced to but because my health issues are better and I recognise that I've started taking them "to help me get through the day") is keeping busy. I adopted a puppy from a local rescue shelter last week and caring for him (and lots of cuddles) has helped. I'll try the DXM if it gets worse. Thanks for the tip!
To answer toothpastedog..to be completely honest, I guess I haven't thought about a long term plan. That's a great suggestion. Although, Im not too fond of NA. Some groups are okay but a lot of them rub me the wrong way. I'm an Atheist so the higher power steps were always difficult for me too.
 
You are very welcome! Thanks for the thanks, as they say ;)

Yea, I hear yea about NA. I loath that stuff. But then again, my mom is in Al-Anon, and she's an atheist. She manages. Haha, but shit, I'm gonna let her do her own thing, whilst I do mine.

Long term wise, therapy, cognative behavioral (focusing on the here and now) and psychoanalytic (unraveling and dealing with past/trauma/childhood to see why you are the way you are), has helped me immensely. But just having a support group that has the same goals and expectations as yourself is KEY. For me, honestly, BL is my main support group. Here I feel like I can be 100% honest and myself. As my problems revolved around my own deceptiveness and conformity, being able to be honest and creatively my own person here is what will keep me healthy and away from that shit.

Also, long term, you could plan a hobby, exactly as you have with the doggy. That's awesome mate! Great idear. Glad to hear you're doing well!!!!
 
I'm a recovering opiate/heroin junkie myself, it;s been 12/10/11 since I've used, and after a fifteen year habit, ten of which I shot dope, I KNOW how brutal the W/Ds' can be, the suggestion about kratom is fabulous, I;ve been a long time fan of it, and I never had withdrawls from it either, it makes the shit W/Ds a whole lot easier. You're doing the right thing here, if you susoect you hqve a problem, listen to yourself, the nasty part of the W/D's hits aroubnd day three, so get some kratom, use the k-pins to help with the anxiety and they may help you get some rest. Opiate addiction is a bitch to quit, so if you relapse, you pick yoursekf up,, and you do it again. Most addicts relapse, and it's not the end of the world, it's the power these drugs have. If you need to chat, I'm alwys here. Stay Strong. Fleabag
 
eternalDamnation said:
xanax works great for anxiety associated with opiate w/d
Click to expand...

Any benzo (Fascination, you mentioned having access to Klonopin) can be a godsend for getting through opiate withdrawal, especially to manage the anxiety and the insomnia. The standard advice here is to only take them to get through the primary withdrawal, though, as they are very addictive on their own. As well, don't take too many at once even if they are helping, as too many benzos can lead to some sticky situations if you lose touch with reality.

toothpastedog said:
I found DXM and pircetam to be extreme useful tools when going cold turkey. In fact, I cold turkey'd my heroin habit by taking 2-3g piracetam and 230-690mg DXM for five days. Then again, I had the luxury of not having to go to work for that week, which made all the difference.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't go the DXM route unless you have a very good relationship with it. Back in the day, I took too much NyQuil once trying to sleep through precipitated withdrawal, and IME opiate withdrawal and DXM is one of the worst combinations out there. I tend to get very dark, satanical, fatalistic thoughts when I am at the worst of a withdrawal, and the DXM took this and ran with it to places I NEVER want to go to ever again.

So ya, just be careful with taking (or not) enough DXM to where it gets intense.

J G Quiggin said:
I don't know how much of an issue anxiety is for you during withdrawal, but I've found phosphatidylserine to be very effective at reducing stress. Several legitimate clinical studies have shown that it's effective at reducing excessive cortisol levels. If you decide to take it, just be sure not to take more than 400mg a day, as one of the studies showed that it becomes ineffective entirely if more than 400mg are taken in a day.
Click to expand...

Interesting. Is that OTC? Worthy of interest outside of opiate WD? I'm going to have to look it up. Thanks for throwing this out there!
 
So I screwed up big time. Last night to make myself feel better, I had some margaritas at a Mexican restaurant I went to with my husband. Apparently, I got really drunk and my husband had a good time (if I know what I mean) but I feel horrible today! I have a very low tolerance to alcohol (never really liked the drug for some reason).
Anyway, so now I have a wicked migraine and all I want to do is take a couple of Norcos to make it go away. Sigh..I don't know. Should I just try a taper? My father would be willing to control my meds for me so I stick to the taper schedule. Should I do that or just cold turkey it?
 
BTW, if I used Kratom for the WDs, how much should I use and how should I take it? I tried the capsules once from a well advertised vendor and they didn't do anything,
 
^ Kratom's the kind of thing that you've got to almost trial-and-error to find what works for you. It's getting popular these days in the "legal high" community, which is notorious for being spotty with respect to quality, potency, etc. of its products. My local headshop's strongest kratom does not work at all on me, however some of the stuff available online is really potent (we're not allowed to link you to specific online vendors on BL, sorry...you gotta figure that out on your own).

I'm sorry to hear about your drinking last night. Alcohol's notorious for screwing with our other bad habits, isn't it? However, it was one night and it's over, so you've got to try and move forward. Honestly, I'd wait a little bit before I'd make the taper vs. cold-turkey decision. Let your hangover fade away and see where you are this afternoon/evening. You can always move toward something of a taper if you decide you cannot take the total abstinence, but ideally less opiates is better and if you've got some momentum going, I wouldn't kill it just because you've made up your mind on a taper.

Like others have said, this isn't going to be anything like coming off of methadone. It's not going to be easy, no, but it's going to be manageable. When I went through smaller WDs, honestly I was more bothered by the vivid memories of the big withdrawals from my past that some of the symptoms brought about than the actual acute WD from the new use. If you stick with it, the worst will be over by the weekend.
 
RedLeader, thanks for the reply. You're spot on about the psychological aspect of WDs. I think I'm making myself feel worse because of my fear of going through the HORRIBLE and LONG WDs I had from methadone. I'm refilling a script for Imitrex today (my migraine medicine), maybe that will help the headache. I just feel like such an idiot for drinking last night.
 
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Whatever you do, pamper yourself. There is no reason this has to be a horrible or painful process. As you mention yourself, it will be as bad as you make it, essentially. Take your time. Gather your resources. Make a plan. Tweak your plan. Engage it. Struggle. Overcome. Shit, that makes it sounds worse than it will be even then... Take it with a grain of salt, a day at a time, as they say. Good ole cliches...

The more you focus on pampering yourself, the more bearable, dare I say even pleasant, the process of detoxing will be.

@RedLeader: Yes, I wouldn't use a psychedelic drug to detox myself off opioids unless I had a pretty good feeling for what I was doing to myself.

Given my situation, having already established my generally positive relationship to DXM, I was able to use it carefully and intentionally to aid in my withdrawal from heroin. In my case, it was a fucking godsend, but I understand this will not hold for everyone. William White's thing about the rule of thirds, as in 1/3 of people who try it will hate it, 1/3 will be indifferent but won't do it again, and 1/3 will love it and seek it out again, well, I guess I'm part of that lucky 33.33% ;) I mean, I certainly never would have thought DXM would become such a useful tool, not in a long shot. My, how things can change...
 
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Okay I fucked up guys. I'm sorry. My migraine script wasn't going to be filled by the pharmacy for 3 hours. My migraine got so bad that I gave in and took 2 norcos. I wasn't even feeling that bad from WDs, it was just the pain of my migraine. I had to get up the courage to post this because I feel so ashamed about taking them.
Am I back to square one now? Or is 2 norcos not a big deal? Again..I'm sorry, I was just in a lot of pain. I couldn't wait 3 hours and advil and excedrin weren't working.
 
BTW, another reason why I feel ashamed and stupid is because I KNOW alcohol is a migraine trigger for me and yet I drank last night anyway out of fear of WDs. The 2 norcos didn't give me a buzz or anything. They just helped with my migraine. Sigh..I feel like all my progress is gone down the tubes. Very depressed right now.
 
All is not lost!!! No, far from it. Use this experience as a tool, don't let it get you down. Remember in the future what drinking will lead to under these circumstances (i.e. it will lead to you not doing what you want to do). Don't beat yourself up over the two norcos. Just take it easy and relax for the rest of the day. Reassess the situation tomorrow and try to get back on track. Just don't use this as an excuse to go all out and get wasted, although it doesn't seem like you would do so given what you've posted. Just try to treat this, albeit negative, experience as a learning experience. Make it a tool you can use to arrive at your ideal destination :)

You got this thing. Now just chill and be good to yourself. I'd get some sorbet if I were you. Specifically, strawberry ;)

At the end of the day, assuming you don't go out and get all blasted, you've still taken more steps forwards then you have back. You, nonetheless, have a lot to be proud of and happy about.

A nap might be in order, perhaps? I'd still try to take it easy, vegetate, or if you like exercising go get some exercise, and try to all around be good to and pamper yourself. Take it easy, my friend. That's the name of the game for now.
 
Toothpastedog, you are so sweet! Thank you for the kind words..they really do make a difference. It's strange..I don't feel that bad from WDs but I've been having intense cravings, you know? I know that they will fade but it sucks. I'm trying to keep busy. I'm playing Saints Row 3 right now, lol. I'm a huge gamer and video games help me escape reality without drugs.
May I ask about your user name? It's very unique.
 
BTW, did the piracetam help with PAWs? I googled it because I hadn't heard of that drug before and from what I understand of it's effects, it sounds like it could be helpful for PAWS.
 
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