Old 04-20-2010, 07:10 AM
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flagulfcoast
Member
 
Join Date: Apr 2010
Location: St. Petersburg, FL
Posts: 3
Exclamation Oxycodone Withdrawal...on day 5. Still not well. Any advice/help??

Hi everyone! This is my first post on here. I just registered a few minutes ago. I really wanted to get on here during the past few days because i knew about this site already, but I haven't felt nearly up to it until just now. So here's my story:
It all started in early 2007, when I had a kidney stone. I was prescribed Percocet 5mg and I took only half by the time the pain was gone. For 6 months, the pills sat in my cabinet until I had another stone. I took what I had left and when the pain didn't go away, I went to the hospital. They gave me more meds and I went through the same routine again. This continued several times...until April of 2009 when my hydrocodone and oxycodone daily regiment began.
I was diagnosed with a painful kidney condition that the doctors are in no hurry to fix. The conditional is totally curable upon surgery, but because of the surgery risk and my young age, the 3 last Urologists I've been to aren't willing to fix me. Finding this out took until December of 2009.
Meanwhile, I started on Lortab 7.5mg/500mg, 4 per day, from 4/09 until 9/09. My family doctor prescribed the Lortab to me for those months, until she cut me off by recommending a pain specialist. I decided to give up in September, which I did. Within 3 days, I was feeling completely better and asymptomatic. On day 9, I had lots of back pain. Of course it turned out to be another kidney stone; only this time, it was stuck and remained stuck until they could get me into surgery a MONTH later. So for that month, I was taking oxycodone prescribed by the ER (5mg/325mg). When they fixed the problem, I was still having daily pain and decided to keep taking the pills until I would have my surgery.
So in the beginning of November, I went to pain management and they started me on Oxydose (20mg/day). A month later, that turned into Percocet 5/325. Then the next visit, a month later, I was given Percocet 10mg/325 and Roxicodone 30mg (4/day). From January until last week, I became accustomed to taking 150-160mg of oxycodone per day.
Ive tried quitting twice already (second time in December). My medical condition tells me that the pills are necessary, as does the doctors. That is what tortures my mind the most. The idea that I can just waltz into any hospital and get pills immediately because a CT scan given will show the obvious sign of pain, no matter when they take the picture.
So why did I decide to quit? Honestly, I want to stop for myself and for my daughter. These pills have taken total control of my life. I was missing work, I would stay up until 2am-3am and have to get up for work at 6:30 because I found myself not wanting to "waste the high" by going to sleep. At first, the high associated with the pills were a 'perk' of the medication to me. It felt like a fun way to deal with the pain I've been in. But as time went on, I became more irresponsible, my bills started to slip, medical bills piled, work stress built up, I was having trouble with spending time with my daughter, and so many other things.
The last straw was when I lost my job a couple of weeks ago from being absent too many times. I was already broke, I had a pain appt coming up, and I had just enough money to seek real help. So I went to my pain appointment and filled the Percocet 10mg script only. I then went out of town the next day to seek the company of my family to help me through this dependency.
The first few days with trying to taper myself off was impossible. I was taking 15 pills per day with only 120 in the bottle originally. I was quickly losing the pill count and I was struggling so hard to drop one less per day. I suddenly dropped from 15 to 10 in one day. Then 8 the next day. Then 6 the following day and so on until I had 5 left and took them on the last day. So I basically went cold turkey from 50mg of oxycodone per day. I take nothing else (no xanax, valium, suboxone, etc). Each day I dropped my pill intake, I suffered. Since I went from 15 to 10, I have been getting an average of 3 hours of sleep. I went from 15 to 10 on 4/13 and it's 4/20 today, so a week.
I took my last dose on 4/16 at 2:30pm. So as of now I've been totally clean for exactly 4 days as of 2:30pm today (96 hours). It's felt like 4 months in reality. The 4th hour into being clean was when it got bad and it hit real hard by the middle of that first night. The weekend was literally hell. I could never imagine hell being any worse than what I went through last weekend. Tossing and turning, weakness, terrible insomnia, chills, goosebumps, night sweats, no appetite, diarrhea, and all the other typical symptoms. Sometimes the symptoms occured a few at a time...during the good part of the day. When the wave came back up, all the symptoms came at once and very intensely. It feels like my nerves have the flu. My side effects remain, but the waves seem to be pulling further apart with time. It's starting to feel like the physical part is starting to come down a bit.
SO HERE'S MY QUESTIONS if anyone can help. Based on my history of taking pills for a year and stopping cold turkey at 50mg per day and I'm about to start day 5, what lies ahead for the next few days? Will things quickly get better or does this take weeks to physically recover from? I've been using the IcyHot patch for my back pain (spine hurts with the w/d) and IcyHot cream for the pain in my legs (also w/d). It's been helping me with the withdrawals. I also took up marijuana on day 1. I've smoked it before, used to all the time, but havent for years. I started smoking weed again because I thought that trying a different and less-harmful substance might help mask some of my withdrawal symptoms. I truly believe it has significantly helped. In fact, I would honestly recommend that method. I've also tried taking walks, driving (believe it or not, I drove from Indpls. to Cincinnati and back yesterday just to help clear my mind. It seemed to help Probably shouldn't drive while withdrawing though lol), listening to music, sitting in my hot car during the daytime because I'm always freezing, and watching hours of television.
I'm proud to say that I've gone 4 days clean. I'm just scared to death as to how much longer this might last, because I really need to get back to work, but I'm in no shape to right now. Anyway I sincerely appreciate you reading my story and I apologize for any typos. I'm a writer on the side and am usually a perfectionist with my grammar, but my nerves are quite shot right now. I'm amazed I typed this much! Anyway wish me the best of luck and please give me any advice you might think that will help me fully recover. and p.s. no doctor knows that I'm trying to stop. I want to do this without getting hooked on methadone or suboxone). Thanks again everyone!!
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