oxycodone withdrawal help please, could use a hand

[flike]

hello everyone,
i wish you all the best, and the fortitude to get through this stuff, if you
are going through it, because i know its hell, but you can do it and you'll have yourself back, and that is really all that matters.

well, so the reason i'm posting is that in mid-july, in a kind of "freak" sort of thing, the "how" of it not really being important, i came across this bottle of
oxycodone and was curious, and thought well, i'll just take one, etc.
but a week and a half later, i finally stopped saying that, and stopped taking them. they were 5mg tabs i'm pretty sure. at first it was maybe two a day,
then as the week went on it was more like 4, and i checked myself, and stopped because i didn't want to have to go through withdrawal.

in my early twenties (i'm 36 now) i was addicted to heroin for a couple of years, but after multiple failed attempts i finally stopped, for good, to this day, by myself, aside from the support of a woman whom i loved at the time,
and loved me, but that's really beside the point i guess.

so the thing is, i thought that was a long enough time, and that my body had changed or something, but i seem to be extremely geared, physically, toward opiates, because after a month after stopping taking this evil, evil stuff, for only a week and a half, which doesn't seem like such a long time really,
i'm still kind of struggling with the withdrawal symptoms that i had hoped to avoid.

it seems to come in waves, the withdrawal, from day to day, and its nothing like what i experienced so many years ago with heroin. with heroin, the physical withdrawal was sort of "fast and furious" and lasted maybe a week, at most, not even really, but the intense craving for it lasted much longer than that.

with this evil damn oxycodone stuff, i have absolutely no craving for it, truly, and i'm being confessional here so why lie, (that stuff is still there even but i want absolutely nothing to do with it at all, there's no temptation, which also seems weird really to me, but i'm grateful for that fact) but the physical withdrawal just goes on and on and on......

one of the other things that amazes me about this miserable experience i've brought on myself, and that i'm really confused by, and is why i'm posting this, is that i was pretty much fine for about a week after stopping, and then the really nasty stuff started,
the minor convulsion type things, the muscle cramping, throwing up, the laying in bed all day and night long and wishing you would die kind of thing.

i got through that, although for some reason yesterday was a little like that,
(really this stuff seems to come in waves) but today is much better, thankfully.

now its mainly a rapid heartbeat that drives me nuts, and general weakness,
shakiness, a little stomache rumbling, lack of appetite, occasional throwing up, or just kind of gagging and the runs sort of thing, which comes and goes.

has anyone else experienced this long drawn out, weird comes in waves kind of withdrawal with oxycodone?
am i nuts or something? is this in my head? is this some freakish psychological mind over matter kind of thing?

i so much want this to just end, its been a MONTH, more like 5 weeks, and to go back to normal, because its still bad enough that its preventing me from taking care of my business, etc, and its starting to have consequences.

i'm really blown away by the fact that this has happened, i mean, it wasn't that long i was taking them, but i guess my body has an exceptional love of
opiates.

i don't know, if anyone could give me any info or advice about this, if they can confirm that they've had a similar experience with this evil stuff,
that would really help to set my mind at ease.

thank you, and blessings and strenght to you all in your own struggles.
j.

[flike]

the funny thing is, 4 days ago i felt good enough that i thought it was totally done, and i actually raised my arms in the air with my fists clenched and
said out loud like a crazy person "you didn't beat me, you can't beat me -
i beat you," and then yesterday, in particular, i was back to saying
"i'm going to beat you, you're not going to beat me" and back in bed and all that kind of thing, with the muscle tremors.

its so weird, i don't understand it, it wasn't a long time that i was using, i should say abusing the oxycodone, and this withdrawal is nothing like what i experienced
with heroin so long ago in my early twenties. it kind of freaks me out and
makes me wonder if i'm nuts, that i'm somehow psychologically doing this
to myself, if that makes any sense, and it would be great to get some info/advice from someone who has experienced this.
its just........ so ........... damn...... long........
thank you again, and blessing and strenght to you all.

[Wolfchild]

Welcome to the Sober Recovery community.

There's lots of information and support here.
Please feel free to read thru the threads about this
problem and to find out how people have gotten through it.

i hope you will seek medical advice from a qualified professional
as this site has guidelines regarding the asking & the giving of it.

[flike]

thank you for your response. i'm right at the end of tunnel with this, its
90% over, and i'll be doing it myself. its not that i'm seeking medical advice here, its just that i was hoping someone could confirm for me that yes,
oxycodone withdrawal can be like that, it can last a ridiculously long time, and its not some weird psychological
thing that you're doing to yourself you know? that's all.
as far as medical advice though, maybe the silver lining in this is that i think
i need to seek counseling, therapy, that sort of thing, to get to the root issues
of why i took heroin in my early twenties, and why i messed with this stuff
now, after all this time, after being clean for like 12 years.

i didn't think this would happen though. i thought i stopped messing around with in soon enough

[pillzrbadd]

I have to give you congrats on being able to walk away from the oxycodone, your body may be taking its time to get back to normal, but then again you had not used all that much, i had been using for years and it took my body a good couple of months to feel normal again. Hang in there, hope you are feeling better soon.

[meditation]

Sounds to me like you've got something else going on like a flu. Something doesn't ring right to me. Please see a doctor. Does not sound like a normal withdrawl to me after the dose and amounts and time you were on it.

Are you sure it was oxycodone and not something else in the bottle?

[tommyk]

Your body has had in intimate relationship with opiates.

It will never, ever, 'forget' or change back to the state prior to opiate use.

My own opinion is that your body is 'screaming' and yearning for MORE.

Best bet - stay completely away from it, and perhaps seek the knowledge of some people in NA.

[flike]

thank you for everyone's replies. pillzrbad, thank you for what you said.
that helps actually, and makes me feel better. my god, for years?
CONGRATULATIONS TO YOU, because i can not even imagine what that
must have been like. its kind of surprising really, i have absolutely no inclination toward it, i just want this "business" to completely end, 100% you know?

meditation:

yes, it said oxycodone on the bottle. i know it sounds a little weird, and i understand why you feel like something doesn't ring right, believe me, but i have read on these forums that it can take about a month with this stuff, or even more, but i guess i felt the need for a little personal communication and support/info etc, because i'm SO tired of this and really want it to completely go away. i think its got something to do with that whole thing that in my twenties i was addicted to heroin for a few years there, and my body, like tommyk said, has had an intimate relationship with opiates/downers, etc, and that i seem to be very much geared that way. years ago i tried cocaine a couple of times and i absolutely HATED it. made me feel like i was going to completely freak out. i think that's related to this in some way, physically.

then again, i'm in ny, and maybe i have swine flu or something, on top of this
nastiness

really though, i recognize the symptoms of this, from way back when, when i had the problem with heroin. its just that i'm so very suprised that its lasted this long, and its kind of "freaking me out" i guess you could say.

i actually feel kind of guilty taking up your time with this situation,
because its really just about done, and i really am ok, and will most certainly be ok, but its just the length of time of it that like i said, has kind of freaked me out, and prodded me to seek some support you know?

thank you all again for responding to me.

[MRPHREEZ]

congrats on walkign away from oxy's!~ i will say again "walking away"


ive know first hand what your going through i was a iv user/ i just recently had a relapse(im over 2 weeks clean) anywayz i have a thread you should check out maybe it will help ya man!` what i do know is your in the right place! this community is awsome!~ again good job! keep it up i wanna follow your progress! welcome to the bourds! keep coming back!

[bvaljalo]

Aside from the part where an opioid addict indulged (after X amount of clean-time) in what was supposed to be a one-time opioid-popping event, that then turned into a week and a half bender, none of what you're describing seems remotely 'normal'. It's like nothing I've ever heard of happening in the 2+ years I've been coming to this forum practically every day, nor in any of the many rooms of NA I've been in.

Oxy withdrawal sets in usually within 12-18 hours after your last dose. Esp. given your past history with opioid addiction, it would not have been remotely surprising had you felt under the weather for a good few days after your minor bender there, but any residual effects should have completely cleared up after 5-7 days at the absolute maximum. Again, the crap feeling would've started in < 24 hours from your last dose, for sure, if it was going to happen.

Sounds to me like you actually did 'dodge the bullet' in regards to what you did there. Which is REALLY lucky, because dabbling in that way with opioids is VERY friggin dangerous for people who've been addicted to opioids in the past. Your brain never goes back to 'normal', and you could have very easily ended up back in the downward spiral of active addiction and very soon ended back up on the smack. Happens ALL the time, in fact.

Now, back to whats going on now ... if all you were talking about was having cravings after 30 days, that would not be surprising either. But to NOT have cravings, but rather to have noticeable physical effects (throwing up, even!?!), still, 5 WEEKS later? And these effects were NOT there in the days immediately after you stopped taking the oxys?

Naw, what you're talking about is not normal. There is/was something else going on. The flu, for example feels almost exactly like withdrawals. I'd say ... you should go get yourself checked out by a doctor. Maybe you have something like a thyroid imbalance ... which is very common in opioid addicts.

Other than that, I dunno what to tell you. I don't see how what you've been going through could be from the opioids, not when it's this much later, and especially not when you were NOT dopesick when you maybe should have been, right after you stopped takin' the things.

BTW I'm not a doctor, so please don't construe anything I've said as being 'advice' in a medical direction ... other than the part about seeing a doctor.

[lostbutterfly]

Sounds like swineflu!! I had it a month ago, and it was like flu, but in waves after the initial flu - everytime I thought I was better, I got floored again. The stomach thing too and being sick. I had stuff coming out of me that I shouldn't have been alive having in me in the first place - sorry to be graphic!!

That's not medical advise, just my experience, strength and hope, lol! It will be over soon if it is flu. If not, go see your doctor.

[flike]

again, thank you to everyone who responded.

lostbutterfly, that's, well..... interesting for sure. i'm going to look up the symptoms of swine flu and see if they resonate with what i've been experiencing.

i am in new york city, and apparently we are the swine flu capital of the usa now, unfortunately, and i'm on the subway and such all the time, so......

i feel it may be combination of what tommyk said, because these things
are different for everyone, and possibly something like that, maybe swine flu even, because multiple people have mentioned the flu in response to me.

i'm a self employed musician with no insurance, and not much money, so i am extremely reluctant to go to a doctor, but i will if i'm not 100% shortly.

seriously though, i feel it leaving me, and i think i just need to suck it up
just a little bit more you know?

thanks again.

[flike]

also, the funny thing is, i started having the nasty stuff, the muscle tremors
and all of that, that i recognized from my long ago heroin addiction, after
reading some posts from these forums (maybe it was a different but similar forum, sorry) about oxy withdrawal, and how it can last for a month or even more. i was feeling anxious about what i had done, and wanted to get some info. i remember a particular thread from a woman asking about her husband, who was withdrawing from oxy and still throwing up once in a while after a month, and she was asking if that was normal. people responded saying that
it was different for everyone, and that it could, in fact, be like that.

the thing about the flu, i hear what you're saying lostbutterfly, but i don't think i ever had any fever. at least i don't think so. and that muscle type thing, that weird periodic "ding ding ding" sort of little tremor, that you can actually see, in your muscles, particularly in your arm for some reason, that i remember, and that everyone here who has withdrawn from opiates nows what i'm talking about, i'm sure, i've never experienced anything like that from the flu, never.

its really weird. i almost kind of feel like it may, at least in part, be kind of psychological, because of the intense horrible trauma of ending my 12 years ago heroin addiction, because, as i mentioned, the nasty stuff started immediately after reading about how long oxy withdrawal can take, and that it can kind of get worse as it goes along, before its done. i don't know, the coincidence of it kind of put the idea of the possibility of that in my head you know?

i actually feel pretty strongly that it has something to do with what
tommyk said, and that my body is just extraordinarily geared toward opiates.

there is also a history of alcoholism and anxiety/psychological "issues" on both sides of my family. my grandmother, so i was told, in italy during WW2,
would have these kind of freak out "sessions" and when this crazy old world
italian remedy of covering her face with a cloth soaked in vinager didn't work,
they would call the village doctor and he'd come puttering along in this
ancient type car and give her a shot of morphine to calm her down.
i'm sorry, i don't know why i'm saying all this stuff to you all.

again, i'm almost 100% now, and kind of feel guilty bothering people with this, but the whole thing has really kind of confused me, if that makes any sense, and again, i'm just hoping to get some feedback from people
who have gone through this too.

thanks again, and again though i'm not religious, blessings to you all

[flike]

btw, something that has really helped me to cope with this
is this song, by king britt 'new world in my view"
it has this amazing quality to it, like the best blues ever,
there's just this sense of reckoning and redemption to it, in the music,
in the lyrics "i got a new world in my view, on my journey i presume"
and something about "revelation time" that really helped me to stay
strong and comforted me, and i guess i want to just share that with
you all, because that's the thing right? we got a new world in our view.

yes. for sure.

[lostbutterfly]

You have to have a fever for swine flu. At least it sounds like it's nearly over, whatever it was. The main thing is, NOT to take oxy's again.

[flike]

hey all, just wanted to say before i run out do some chores and errands and such, that i'm feeling, finally much better today, so that i'm able to do these things i've been wanting to do but not feeling capable of. i'm even happy to do them, even though most of this stuff i'm running out to do involves paying bills,
or some other kind of bland thing, because i feel good enough to do it,
and i haven't felt that way in a while.

its a beautiful thing really

its a funny kind of coincidence that i feel so much better after talking to
you all here and reading your responses. kind of "mysterious" or something
like that i think, but this whole damn thing has been pretty mysterious to me.

well, i'm off!

best wishes to you all.

and thank you

[change4penny]

Hi, I'm a recovering opiate/cocaine addict, 11 months clean.
My doctor had told me once that if you take opiate pain meds for two weeks steady and as prescribed, your body will become physically dependent and may suffer withdraws when stopping the meds. I wish I'd have stopped then, but I continued and by the end of my ten year addiction, I was swallowing 30, 10mg of oxycodones or hydrocodones per day just to avoid being 'dope sick'.
I believe some of your lingering symptoms may not be all physical...maybe some mental.
Could be that after kicking a 2 year heroin addiction, you may be feeling a little guilty about 'slipping' and using the oxycodones. Try to forgive yourself, and dust yourself off, and beging again.
Hope you're feeling better,

Penny

[flike]

hi penny,
that is a triumph, and a testament to your strength, and i shudder, literally,
to think of what you had to go through. 11 months. that's a beautiful thing.
truly.

i'm not actually sure how long i was messing around with it, the oxy, a week
and a half or two weeks. i kind of put myself in a daze. i think it was actually
two weeks, and again, i think my body is just very geared toward opiates,
as it runs in my family even, but that's no excuse. i do also think that maybe
a certain degree of it, has/was, i'm not quite sure which tense to use really,
been a little bit..... ah..... mental.

i'm just so grateful that there was no craving for it (what i went through with
heroin in my early twenties was a very different story), i just wanted/want
all of the poison to get out me and to get back to normal.

you know how it is, when this stuff has taken you over, and then you kick it back to oblivion where it belongs, and you come back, its the most incredible thing. i think this experience most definitely changes you, for the better i hope, because its like dying and being reborn really you know?

i never thought after 12 years i would go through that again.

i should have known better but i thought i was all "tough" and that kind of thing, and i had this thought in my head, this thing i read somewhere once, which i'm actually not sure is even true, that your body chemistry changes
every 7 years, and that it would just be a "harmless" little indulgence, but boy was i wrong.

this stuff is so bad, so insidious in the way it gets its claws into your body
and your mind. luckily though, again, i've had no craving for it, the mind part
of the withdrawal just made me feel really anxiety ridden, like this sense of impending doom, but i knew it would go away, and that it wasn't real, and i just needed to stick it out, and it was just that poison stuff acting on me, doing all of the "wonderful" things that it does, hah, like the wizard of oz, to make a really bad joke.

i'm really rambling now, but my cat actually also helped me a lot with this,
ridiculous as that might sound to some people. he was abandoned by his mother (i guess he was kind of a 'runt') as a kitten and would have died, for sure, if i hadn't taken him in, brought him to the vet, (he had all these things wrong with him) took care of him, and all that. i remember when he was getting better he would just lay on my chest, this tiny little life, and look at me with, i swear, these sad, soulful eyes.

again, i'm sure this might sound laughable to some people, who knows maybe even offensive some in some way, i don't i know, not everyone has strong feelings about animals, but during this experience, in the midst of the nastiness he would come over and look at me with those same sort of
sad, soulful eyes, and lay his chin on arm (which was kind of tough to do i imagine since i was doing the whole shaking, tremors kind of thing) and i thought, "this is a good thing, this little creature who clearly loves me in his own cat-type way" and it was kind of like he was returning the favor for what
i did for him, weirdly, in a cat-like way

anyway, i've probably lost you and everyone else now at this point, but
its the thoughts of the good things that we have, the affections, basically the good things that we may be lucky enough to have in our lives, whether its family (my close family members have passed away now, except for my brother) or a song, or anything, anything really that you feel is something good, that helps us get through this stuff right? you know? you just
try and think about the good things, and what matters, and maybe it helps to get you through.

well, i've really rambled on, and i'm sure you and everyone else has better things to do then listen to random internet ramblings, but i guess i might still feel a little bit emotionally raw or something from this.

i really appreciate the support that i've found here, i really do.
j.

[flike]

i think what i was really trying to say is that you think "this is a good thing, and i don't want to lose this" or "i'm responsible for this life here, whether its a child,
a cat, a dog, and this life here depends on me and i have to just dig my heels in here and suck it up, because there's nothing else to do here."
you know?

maybe i'm saying this as much to myself as i am to you all.

[change4penny]

j, I totally understand the 'cat thing'....I'm a really huge animal lover.
Congratulations on overcoming the H. Someone in rehab told me if I'd ever tried it, I'd would have had a full blown love affair with it, due to how many opiates I was swallowing on a daily basis. I'm greatful I didn't.
Glad you're here

Penny

[bvaljalo]

i can only type w/1 hand cuz Willie (<---- over there ) is sleeping on my other hand
glad ur feelin better !

[flike]

yes, they're beautiful creatures aren't they? infinitely more affectionate,
loving, and loyal than they often get credit for.

thank you penny, i'm glad you're here too

[flike]

bvaljalo,

hah! yes, i can relate to that

thank you for your kind wishes

[flike]

oh,
and penny, i certainly had a full blown love affair with it, H that is, IV use, the works (i'm lucky i didn't contract any disease or anything like that), crashing cars, all kinds of craziness, but aside from the lack of
craving, which of course is terrible, this oxy stuff has been a real surprise
in how nasty it is, as far as the physical withdrawal, and it actually kind of
beats the H maybe, maybe not, in a weird way, in that there's just this weird, i don't know how to put it, "afterglow" or something to the withdrawal, it seems to kind of linger slightly for too damn long, makes me furious, where as with H, as i mentioned in an earlier post, it was really pretty fast and furious, and the real difficulty that i had to overcome with it was the craving.

anyway though, that doesn't matter, you never went there and you've been all good for 11 months, and again, that's a beautiful thing

[flike]

hmm, i think i'm downplaying how horrible and devastating
the H withdrawal was. it got worse each time i went through it,
trying to quit, and finally i just thought, well you had better quit now
and save your life because this stuff is going to kill you, and maybe you still can, and its obvious its just going to get harder from here, and you might not be able to make it if you don't do it now, so DO IT. that kind of thing.

this oxy poison though, the withdrawal, its really different. its like fireworks kind of, in the sense that, you know, the fireworks get shot up there in the sky, and there's the big explosion of light (the really nasty stuff, metaphorically speaking) but then, in terms of your eyes, there's
kind of an afterglow from the "big light explosion" and the light from it kind of lingers there for a while. i can't believe how long its been lingering, but again, yes, i think there may or may not be a mental element to that. its not at all the "main event" so to speak, the really bad stuff, but its still really, well, what it is. i've read that it can be like this, with oxy, trying to get information, its just...... so damn annoying.
it just goes on too damn long, regardless of how minor it is compared to much worse things.

was it like this for you penny?