me and my wifes 2nd day of oxy's...help?

[OCBGone]

Today is day 2 of sobriety for me and my wife. We have a 15 month old son. We have been doing roxy’s and oxy’s for a couple years now. We were up to a few a day, starting first thing when we got out of bed until we went to sleep at night. We ran out of money and pawned our DVD’s and jewelry. We are behind on bills. We decided enough was enough. Yesterday was pretty bad. Our first day sober. My wife didn’t have to work but I did. I was in the bathroom every hour. Today is even worse. My stomach is in so much pain. We couldn’t sleep last night. I think I could handle it, but I don’t know about my wife. I did a one week detox for alcohol a year ago, but my wife is new to feeling this horrible. She keeps calling me crying, asking if we could just get a couple vicodin to get by. I keep telling her no, but it’s getting pretty hard to be strong for the both of us. It’s the second day, so in my opinion it’s a little late to try weaning off. I just signed up to this forum today. Does anyone have any advice as to what to do to keep her mind off of detoxing? We just didn’t want to do anything last night. Nothing seemed fun. Also, does anyone know any remedies for oxy withdrawal? Sleeplessness, stomach pain, diareah, depression, etc…. Any help would be very appreciated. I want this to work for me and my wife. I feel we’ll be lost if we cant stick to it.
-Justin

[cookconfay]

Try to get to a meeting somewhere....hot baths are good for aching and chills.....take it easy...stay hydrated.....pray.....and last but certainly not LEAST....DON'T USE NO MATTER WHAT!!!! But, it is highly beneficial to get in touch with other people who have been there...locally....people who could come hang out with you...who could help by telephone, talking you through it too.....hang in there...it will pass.

[bvaljalo]

Man, oh man...

First of all, welcome to the forum. Keep coming back and keep us updated.

Second of all ... wow. You actually went to WORK in day two of oxy withdrawals? You are friggin superman dude.

My best advice to both of you is:
1) See a doctor who specializes in drug addiction issues. There are non-addictive meds you can take to help take the edge off. Clonidine and Neurontin are what I took, and they were pretty dang helpful. You should also stock up on ibuprofen or aspirin, and I would recommend some unisom because you're going to be having a VERY difficult time getting to sleep for a while here (tylenol pm/benadryl are not strong enough to get you to sleep in my experience)
2) You should also stock up on food you normally like to eat. You'll probably crave sugar, that's okay, have some. It's going to be hard to make yourself eat, so whatever you can get down is going to be good as long as it's not pure crap-food. I survived on soup and peanut butter/jelly on toast for a solid week myself. That was all I could bring myself to eat.
3) You're going to need to just bite the bullet and clear your schedules for the next week. If you can get away with asking grandma or someone to watch the baby, do it. This is NOT the kinda thing where you're going to be able to just go along with life as you normally live it. It pretty much is going to get worse before it gets better, I hate to say it, but there it is. Takes a good week MINIMUM before you're going to be able to deal with stress and responsibility. Tell everyone you have both have contracted the worst flu you've ever had if you need to make up a story. Fact is, it does *feel* almost exactly like just that, so ...
4) If you feel like you just can't make it through it right now, rather than screw up by going back onto the oxy's, find yourself a doctor that prescribes buprenorphine and go onto that instead. There's a number of recent threads here where me and exjunky are talking about bupe/subutex/suboxone (same stuff basically) if you wanna poke around the forum.

The reason I suggest bupe is that it's a harm-reduction strategy for people who would like to get off opiates but their lives simply don't allow for 'checking out' for a week to 10 days for them to recover from withdrawals. Also, it's very easy to wean down off bupe and quit at a very low level, and the withdrawals are not as acutely painful as getting off of oxys. They last a bit longer, but they're much more tolerable.

In closing, I simply wouldn't try to do this the way you're doing it. No weaning, trying to work, taking care of a baby, and apparently not much of a clue about the magnitude of what you're really facing here (not saying that to be mean, consider yourself lucky!) or how to handle it? NOT a recipe for success IMHO.

There's a reason people have to go to rehab to quit this stuff my friend. You appear to be taking it way too lightly. By the way, how many milligrams would you average in a day of oxycodone?

Good luck in any case. Whatever you do, if you just can't make it through, try to get to a bupe doctor. They can be located online. Don't go back to the oxys ...

[OCBGone]

We both average 2-3 OC 40's a day. I think i might have to check out that bupe docter your talking about. I cannot call of work even if i had to. I just keep going to the restroom constantly (for more than one reason). It's gotten even worse since the day has progressed. My wife was off yesterday but tried going in today. I had to call and make something up to get them to let her leave. How much worse than this can it get? The only reason I'm still at work is because i'm consious (which seems borderline at times). Is it a week before we'll be back on an upward slope? By the way, thank you for your response. We are feeling pretty hopeless right now.

[windysan]

If you and she can get through to day 4 then it'll be much easier. Y'all are right in the middle of the worst of the worst. Hang in there and try to see a doctor for some help. It is very difficult but worth it.

[bvaljalo]

Man, do I feel for you guys. I have SOOOOO been there, done ALL that.

Wow, though, only 2-3 40's a day? That is actually good news for y'all. I was doing 3-5 80's a day (typically 3 though) so at least double what you're talking here. And how long have you continuously been on oxys?

Just as my best guess, I'm going to say your worst days in withdrawals are going to be days 2-5, the worst probably being day 3 or 4. It's not that you objectively feel that much worse on those days than you do in day 2, it's that the effects of w/d's really start WEARING on you bad after about 48 hours of experiencing them.

The constantly crushing depression and cravings for the drug, lack of food, the running to the bathroom (try to drink water to combat dehydration, btw), and perhaps most infuriating of all - the inability to sleep - just really starts to drive one bats*it crazy after awhile.

So it's not that you're going to get that much worse in the absolute sense, it's that you still have a couple/three really tough days ahead of you. That's because these symptoms aren't going to let up really at all until at least day 5, and though they won't really get any worse, their severity (and how SLOWLY time passes right now) can really start getting to you psychologically.

Not saying this to scare you, just to prepare you. By day 7-10 at the latest, I can guarantee you will be out of the worst of it. Keep up the good work, and remember, once it's DONE, it's DONE FOREVER. Time seems like it's dragging so bad right now, I know, but it's STILL only a WEEK or so. Can you suffer one week in exchange for basically saving your life?

I know you can do it...

And if you can't ... there's bupe to tide you over until you can.

[exjunky]

Originally Posted by OCBGone

We both average 2-3 OC 40's a day.

That's a great time to quit. You woulnd't believe how quickly 2-3 OC40's can turn into so much more serious of a habit. And the way opiates work, there is no limit. I thought I was bad taking 600mg of oxy a day, but I talked to people who literally did 1200mg a day and more. I saw them eat 400mg at once and apparently not even get high. Sick sick stuff!!

People with enormous habits have a much more acute and obvious pain from stopping. At your stage of addiction I imagine you don't even get the dry-heaves when you withdrawal? If your idea of withdrawal is just "cravings, sleepnessness, and depression" consider yourself lucky -- other people go through all of that, then add "vomiting, shaking, and hallucination" to that list.

My advice: if you have the willpower to cold-turkey, do it. You have to eat a big slice of pain-pie, but once thats over, it's over. And it's really over fairly quick.

If you are unable to go cold-turkey, don't be ashamed, it's not a lack of moral of character or anything like that. You just need to reach out for help. In that case I recommend finding a bupe doctor and getting on the stuff. It will stop those cravings and make you feel 100 times better, and what's more, you will be truly sober and clear-headed.

[bvaljalo]

A couple more things ...

1. I'll try to be around as much as I can to help you out over the next few days. Keep posting!
2. When I said 10 days, I meant that as an absolute maximum. There is a decent chance that you'll start feeling better on day 5, a really good chance this thing will break on day 6 or 7, and only a slight possiblity it will last any longer than 7 days.
3. When it finally does break, you are going to experience a natural high quite unlike anything you can imagine. Something to look forward to
4. Just to keep it real, it does take somewhere around 3-4 weeks before you will be *totally* back to normal ... the symptoms that tend to hang around are the insomnia, the dull aches and pains (esp. the back pain), the nervous energy, the 'runs', and the general fatigue. But these are very manageable when compared to the full-blown withdrawals you are going through now. The later part of withdrawals vs. the early part is very much 'night and day' overall, but I just thought you should know what to expect.

You will certainly be much improved by the time you have to hit work Monday morning, put it like that...

[kelsh]

Hi OCBegone,

Everyone here has given you very good advice. I am an alcoholic in recovery for 19 years. I never did get addicted to drugs.

My husband takes Oxycodone for Chronic Pain and right now is on 80 mg every six hours. He basically takes three a day. In the past he would take an extra one now and then and end up on the short end waiting for his prescription to come through the mail.

This always worried me because he would get irritable and angry at me because he was in a mood of denial about how much he really was taking. He does need this med due to the fact he is an amputee and had a bone infection in his stub and eventually had to have part of his pelvis removed.

After we were able to discuss it like two adults without screaming and yelling, he did admit to taking extra and has stopped doing this now. He couldn't figure out how I knew he was doing it and I told him his behaviors were pretty obvious when he did.

He has a lung problem and too much of the Oxy compromises his breathing and then he isn't getting enough oxygen to his brain and becomes delusional to say the least.

He was hospitalized several times for what they kinda thought was pneumonia but after last hospitalization came up with the lung problem and not getting enough oxygen.

He also has sleep apnea and if he doesn't have his C-pap on his breathing is very long on holding his breath and then exhaling. Sometimes I can't get him awake..he goes into a very deep sleep and it is scary to me. Then I stay awake all night watching him and listening to his breathing. He told me he doesn't care if he dies this way. He is 70 years old and says if he didn't have this pain medication he would have checked out a long time ago.

I hope both of you realize how dangerous this drug is and get some help. It must be very hard with both of you doing it at the same time. Also comforting to know each of you are trying to get off drugs together. When I quit drinking they put me in the local hospital to Detox for six days. I didn't go through withdrawal or have any symptoms so was very grateful to get to do that. :comfort

I will be sending my thoughts and prayers your way. Good luck and hang in there. It will be worth it, especially with that beautiful baby wanting her Mommy & Daddy.

kelsh

[OCBGone]

No, I haven't been dry heaving. I have been shaking a lot. I think that is because i've had to quit drinking. i tried to drink yesterday with very uncomfortable results, to say the least. I know what to expect with the alcohol detox. I've been thru alcohol withdrawals pretty bad a couple times. I will probably need to check with a Dr. to make sure it's ok to detox from both at the same time. I thank you all for your kind words and support. I will try to get on this board as much as possible.
Thanks again,
Justin

[newsandi]

I know what you guys are going thru, I was there just a few weeks ago. Just hang in there, it is tough but we all stand by what we are saying and it will get better and you will be happier once you get thru this hard time. I am at 30 days and never imagined myself going without my pills, so take it from someone that has been on pain meds for the last 20 years and if I can do it, you can. The bathroom thing sucks but it will go away, I didn't have any shakes but I had alot of night sweats and aches and pains. I just took alot of tylenol. I still take 3 in the morning and I take tylenol pm at nite. Good luck to you guys, you gotta do this for your family and everyone here can tell you, you will be much more happier and productive and expecially free from all of this and that in itself is a wonderful feeling.

[ccgirl]

Everyone's given you really good advice; one thing that helped me was ginger from the health food store. It soothes the stomach.

[hairgirl]

I could never make it past day three, I would use whatever I could.I had to go into outpatient detox and went on suboxone.I have to say there is severe damage mentally and physically that comes with opiate abuse.Get some help/support.

[Jane63]

Welcome OCBGone! I agree with the others who have posted that since your habit was not huge, then it might be alittle easier although I'm sure it doesn't seem that way to either of you right at this moment...Also, that you are already 2-days into this and it will get better!

Some things that helped me were Clonodine that I had in the form of patches worn on my back. These can only be prescribed from a DR and helped greatly with the WDs. Don't be afraid to get your DR involved as most are very understanding and will want to help as much as possible!
Personally, I would hold off on the Suboxone or Buprenorphine unless you cannot make it through this first week or two of recovery on your own, but that is just my opinion.

Don't plan on doing anything much for the first week or so...warm baths, naps, plenty of water, easy to prepare food like oatmeal, soup, crackers, toast, muffins are all very helpful. I used Ibuprofen up to 800-mgs. {with my DRs permission} and occasionally a Tylenol PM to help me get alittle sleep now and then.
I rented movies, played games online and posted here, stayed home and did very little until I was able to get around better. Then I started walking alittle everyday and doing simple exercises until I began to get my strength back.

Keep posting and stay focused! You can do this together! And may I say, what an honorable and loving thing you are doing for your child and for your future as a family! Best wishes!!
~Jane

[dredict]

All I have to say is stick with it and you will be amazed at how you feel when you no longer need drugs. When i was going through methadone withdrawals from just a 10-15mg a day habbit there was no way i could have went to work. trust me i tried. co-workers thought i had the flu. I barely was able to drive home that day. and that was on the first day of not having any of my dones. If you can work while in withdrawal then you can deffinetly overcome the next few days. what got me through was just reminding myself that if i make it through to the other side that i will never have to endure this pain again. never have to waste money just to feel ok. And if you keep on keeping on im sure that will have a big impact on your wifes ability to get through. Remind her that it WILL PASS. whenever you feel hopeless just get on your computer and talk to the people on here. it really helped me when i had no hope.

[bvaljalo]

OCBG:

Where are ya man?

Bet you had yourself one hell of a night last night, eh?

Isn't kicking FUN?!?

Trust me, when it's over with, you'll come to regard it as a valuable learning experience. You don't EVER wanna feel this bad again, right? F**K DRUGS, man. The pleasure you got in the past from their use is NOT WORTH THIS, is it? If it had been easy to get off dope, many of us here would probably still be on it is the truth. So w/d's are truly a blessing in disguise... A VERY well disguised blessing when you're actually IN them, but a blessing nonetheless...

Even if you broke down and used last night, don't feel like you have to avoid us or be ashamed. Keep us updated, man. We tend to worry about people in your situation around here

[OCBGone]

I messed up pretty big. I had a buddy pick me up from work yesterday to help me tow my car. He had some vicodin and said that it was hydrocodone instead of oxycodone, so i would still be detoxing from the oxy's, just not feeling as bad. All it took was 10 minutes once they kicked in of feeling just a little better and i headed straight to the phone to call for roxy's. Now i feel worse than i did detoxing. Not in a physical sense. I feel all kinds of guilt. I let my wife down. What scares me is the fact that me and my wife have been talking about quitting for months. We FINALLY do it, get to day 2, and then in the first chance i get to justify using, i do. We decided we would stop today but we both got paid today. I don't know why i dont have the will power. I want to stop so much. I can see how much it's hurting us. This weekend will be the biggest test i guess. I realy want to do this.

[bvaljalo]

I somehow had a feeling ...

I'm telling ya, man, don't feel too bad about this. I don't care HOW LONG you plan on quitting, nothing can prepare you for the reality of how friggin BAD you're going to feel. Or how incredibly slowly time starts to creep by when you're in the middle of it. I remember counting HOURS one at a time, something I can't even fathom now they just go by so quick...

Tell you what, boy, we ALL know how friggin unbearable it can be, so nobody here at least is gonna get down on you. WE understand. Not that I'm encouraging you to f*** up, but I can say that I would NEVER have been able to do what you tried to do, not the way you tried to do it.

Doing it in the middle of the week, trying to go to work. Are you CRAZY, man? Don't answer that

The fact is, as I said before, there's a reason people go to detox for this addiction. Thing you gotta remember is this thing is BIGGER than you, it's more powerful than a person is capable of managing on their own. I myself had to be near rock bottom under my mom's lock and key and her constant supervision for the first 10 days, or I GUARANTEE I would've cracked and used the first opportunity I got.

So, in a nutshell, it's not YOU, its the DRUGS, trust me on this.

Now, I'm going to say this again: find a bupe doctor and go talk to him. If you can't just 'check out' of life for a week to recover from this thing, you're better off on bupe until you CAN do just that. Trust me, it's a MUCH BETTER LIFE than the one you're gonna have on (r)oxys.

BTW, you get those little blue 30's? I used to LOVE them little bad boys ... i remember a whole lotta days at my last (decent) job in SF, calling up the dope man and having him bring me some by, then *sprinting* back to the office, and crushing them up on the toilet lid in the bathroom at work and... well, you probably know the drill...

But I digress, sorry everyone. The point is, life is SO MUCH BETTER now that I switched to, weaned down on, and eventually got off of, buprenorphine. I wouldn't have been able to get off of oxy's I don't think, especially not unless I was LOCKED DOWN somehow.

OCBG, you're expecting too much of yourself, IMHO. At the very least, you gotta take a week off to give yourself even a chance to get this thing licked. What you tried to do ... it simply ... cannot be done. Not by a mere mortal, at least none I've ever known.

Keep posting in any case, the only requirement for membership here is a *desire* to stop using. Actually, I guess that's AA/NA, not SR.COM. Nevermind. Don't even need THAT here is the truth...

By the way, checked out AA/NA yet? I highly recommend it as a program of recovery.

[windysan]

Aw man. Get back off the horse.

[newsandi]

Thats funny Win.

No but in reality, it can take lots of relapses to get to where you need to be. I quit cold turkey but I was on perc and vics more then the oxys. I did alot of adderall also. My philsophy is you got want it with all of your heart and soul and mean it.

[bvaljalo]

Percs, Oxys ... they're the same active ingredient.

Main difference is that Percs are a whole lot worse for you.

Anyways, yes, what Sandi said about wanting it with all of your heart and soul and meaning it is CRITICAL. In fact, it IS A BARE MINIMUM.

And only for a very small percentage of people is it actually ENOUGH.

It appears actually that most people need to be either in detox or jail to quit opiates, if you are one to trust statistics.

And not many people succeed in keeping clean unless they take recovery very seriously, in the form of working some kind of structured recovery program.

[OCBGone]

I am just going to have to make it work the hard way. I already called in last week and I’m salary. I will go out tonight and get all the remedies I could possibly think of and just do it the right way. Something for our stomach, sleep, pains, etc. At least now I know what to expect. I can’t continue to do these any longer. The guilt of all of this kills me. I will just have to stop no matter what. I will just take it as it comes over the weekend. I haven’t done anything yet today. Back to square one I guess. At least come Monday it will be day 4 and hopefully half way over.

To answer your question, yes, the little blue guys are my favorite too. I always joke around and tell my wife that they are my one true love. I’ll miss Roxanne but it’s time to move on. I’ve got way more important things going on in my life that I haven’t lost yet.