Questions about Opiate W/D Aches & Pains

[Munky]

Hmmm, it looks like I have another addiction......forum posting (currently a member of about 4 boards or so that I post in regularly). Well I suppose this could at least be a positive addiction.....anyway....

I'd just like to know how long I can expect the withdrawal aches and pains to last. I'm on day seven now, and I'm still feeling leg weakness, middle back pain, and joint pain in my right hip. I wonder if at this point I'm still feeling physical w/d's or if my hobbies that involve lots of sitting have started to cause some actual back problems. Not looking for medical advise here, just curious how long after day 7 can I be sure I'm ready to go back to work.....

[bvaljalo]

Aches and pains are part of life, my friend. I'm a year out, I still get 'em. Not nearly as bad as when i was withdrawing, but they are there pretty regularly. I'm also an avid PC gamer, plus I'm a programmer for a living, so I do a LOT of sitting in front of a screen. I don't think that should cause you any actual damage (aside from the fact that carpal tunnel is a real risk), but it can make you achey after awhile.

One week out, still being sore, that's really common. It really takes about a month to *totally* get back to normal. The symptoms that tend to 'hang in there' are the dull pains, the insomnia, the chattiness, and the runs, in my experience. I wouldn't worry too much about it. Take advil or naproxen or aspirin, that usually starts working pretty good after the first week. If it really bugs you, see a doctor. Neurontin, available by prescription, is a non-narcotic nerve-pain blocker, works really excellent for w/d pain.

Getting back to work? I would make it contingent upon your feeling mentally ready more than anything else...

[ccgirl2]

First off hey Munky; I used to spend my summers up in your neck of the woods. My grandpa had a farm there.


As far as a week out, yeah, BV's got it all right. The trickiest part for me, was the diarrhea. It lasted two months.

[exjunky]

The only way you can feel achy after seven days is if you detoxed from a very long acting opiate like methadone. If you detoxed from pills or street drugs (oxy, heroin, etc.) it's almost impossible for it to last that long unless you're talking about a positively enormous habit.

There is a psychological component that can last for weeks or even months depending on how bad you were hooked. This is letting go of the opiate security blanket: from now on, if you don't feel so hot, then you rough it out like the rest of the human race.

[wenchris]

I tend to agree that what you are withdrawing from, the drug, the amount and the length of use, all have some say as to what the length and severity of your symptoms will be. My sons doc was Methadone for six years, His doctor told him to expect two weeks of "absolute crud" and them some remaining "try to get throught it for a month" lighter stuff. Pretty technical, huh? But in the end, he was right.

[ShutupScott]

after about 2-3 weeks you can do mind over matter and go back to work.. but it could still be tough, try laying in a warm bath for a couple hours each day, helps the aches in pains

[ksos]

My suggestion is to also try as much as you can to not focus on the sickness symptoms. I know how hard it is, but you are at a crucial juncture--I mean any day is crucial, but I remember that all I focused on when I kicked CT, were the feelings of muscle aches, back pain flu-symptoms, etc. That made it worse.

I went to my first N/A meeting when I stopped shooting, and it was day 5, and I was freaking throwing up nothing-as I was eventually just wretching, and just as I started to walk away from the meeting hall door, this dude asked me why I wasn't coming in. I just said to him that I was afraid of puking on the floor.

He took me in and showed me where a mop and a bucket were. "Just clean it up, if it happens," he said. He introduced me to a few people, and took a blue book from a table and gave it me. He walked to a row of seats and we sat together for an hour and a half.

It was better than being alone in my house.

[BigB4Sobriety78]

I have chronic neck pain and that was one of the reasons I got so hooked on opiates, so as you could imagine when I stopped taking them the pain got worse. I have to live with the pain probably for the rest of my life and I have to treat it with non narcotic methods because I can't just take one vicodin or one percocet because if I take one my addiction is back and im down again. After a while the pain does get less because your brain will get back to normal and will not crave the pain meds like it once did because the addiction can amplify normal pain and make it seem much worse than it really is.