sooners

Thanks for the update "ItComesAnd Goes"! It is appriciated and keep up the good work. You can find support on here that you are lacking in your life, I do hope you are able to reach out to your parents and I hope they will have compassion and understanding. This addiction is horrid and very, very hard to break and I don't know of a single person that has really been addicted ever succeed quiting for good on the first try, so I hope your parents will understand how hard you have been fighting this and even though you have fallen back on the pill before, it's par for the course and you are getting better and further along each time you try.

Please don't give up my friend, I don't know you, but I am proud of you knowing you must stop this, that you are smart enough to realize you are blessed to be in one of the top 25 schools/universities in the country and that you are attacking this and taking care of it. I know how you feel, I am in my 3rd and final year of my Master's Degree (M.Div) at Huron University (UWO affilate) in Ontario, Canada and I had to back off and go part time to finish my 3rd year in a two year span because I got mixed up in this after abusing this pill prescribed by my doctor. I am unlike you, I have decided to follow the Dr.'s orders and taper off, I am now down to 50 mg of Oxycodone a day which I was like you, I was perscribe 60 mg Oxycodone a day (20mg X3) and was using upward of 120 - 200 mg a day when it was all said and done and I knew I had to quit period, this drug sucks you in, even if you don't plan on abusing it, after using it longer than a month you start to need/want more and more and I fell victom to it. My Dr. filled out my Medical Marijuana paper work before she put me on Oxycodone, she told me then she would rather me use Canabis instead of opiods, but it took the government almost 6 months to complete my paper work and get me my license and in that time the plan was to use Oxycodone until the paper work came in and then taper off, but it got addicted waiting for 6 months and using the Oxy. My story anyway.

Keep up the good work, know in your heart you are doing the right thing. I struggle with depression, have for most of my life and this drug messes with it terrible, and as far as sex drive, well I have a double wammy, I am a type 1 diabetic with horrible blood flow to begin with, now coming off this stuff I no longer have any sex drive at all to go along with other problems in that area, and I worry about my wife sometimes, she tells me she's ok, but I haven't been able to perform for a while now and it's frustrating for sure, but I keep puting one foot infront of the other, taking it day by day hoping, like you, I have not ruined myself mentally and physically, praying I will get back or at least close to normal in the future.

Good luck to you and post when ever you need to and I will try to respond as will others, sometimes WE are all we have on here for support in our lives and we need to help each other when ever we can, even if to just acknowledge someone else's struggles and pains and let them know they have been heard and listened to.

ItComesAndGoes

Hello all, just thought I'd update my progress.

This is Day 16 for me. I started feeling 'normal' again on about the 14th day, so I think I'm back to bassline. I feel exactly the same as I did before abusing opiates daily. A little less happy throughout the day, a little more aware of my goals, and more worrisome about life's problems. I guess I'm back to reality.

I drank a little bit on the weekend...but it only made me want to take opiates. I may just go entirely sober, as I now have a new-found appreciation for opiates as special entities rather than just drugs. Rather then mindlessly abusing drugs just to get "high," I know the only synthetic high I will ever want again is that from opiates. I guess this is the only good thing to come out of abusing them for so long (not wanting to use other drugs). It's sort of bittersweet.

I'd recommend going to the gym/running and eating a healthy diet full of vitamins as soon as physical withdrawals dissipate. It really helped me with the whole mental aspect quitting. Life isn't great yet, and I don't think it ever was for me. But hopefully with time it will be!

Trossi3389

Whats up guys.. where to begin.... well, i've been on oxycontin since '99' ( hope all your eyeballs are still in your head's.. lol ) during these years i might have had 9 weeks total being clean from this drug.. i have maneuvered taking this drug much better then most who have been addicted to it. up to about 1.5 yrs ago i probably averaged 120 mg per day ( 40 OC's orally ) but since this drug went from OC's To OP's my addiction has turned for the worse.. around a year and a half ago i starting snorting heroin along with the OP's.. now it's getting to the point where i'm thinking about shooting it.. Enough is enough with this **** !! i'm now at the stage to where i'm eating 6 - 60's of OP'S and snorting up to a bundle a day.. i'm sick and tired of feeling like **** and chasing the nod thats been getting harder and harder to achieve.. i've abused my body so bad i'm scared to go to the docter feeling the way that i do -> that things will just get worse... so here i go - 6 pm est, jan 17th 2012 - i'm going to try to wing myself down to the point where i can cold turkey this nightmare TO THE POINT I WON'T DIE from the process.. then go from there... wish me luck i'm going to need it !! lol

Dan

Dees

First off Trossi, congrats on deciding to get clean. It will be a hard road (I won't sugarcoat it), but the end will be worth it.

I may not be much help as I was only on 40 mgs a day (I say 'only', but it felt like so much!). However, I can tell you at 40 mgs, the detox was really hard for me. I was on them for 5 years. I am only on Day 9 of recovery and the the battle is not nearly over.

With that said, you can do this! However, I really recommend going to see a doctor. The amount you are on, along with the Heroin, seems quite large. You need to get a doctor's advice on this.

I know that there are others on this message board who can give much better advice than I can.

Please keep us posted and please know that you are not alone.

ItComesAndGoes

Trossi-

Congrats on choosing a new life. Thought I'd give some advice...

-Tapering is really really really hard...probably harder than cold turkey. I've tried to taper hundreds of times (literally) and I just find that I do not have nearly enough willpower to leave "extra" pills around. If there is a pill in my presence, I will without hesitation consume it. If you are the same way, I would recommend cold turkey.

-Have you considered Suboxone? The first week of cold turkey is really rough, and it takes a lot of willpower and motivation... I luckily feel OKAY at about 17 days but it seems that the majority of people take months to fully recover, which is not ideal.

Good luck!

Trossi3389

Thanks Dees.. yeah i should go to the docter but my mind is so far into the dumpster i'm afraid to.. i'd rather walk in there with the spirits up.. i know the hardest part will be staying off them once i'm clean.. i'm soooo looking forward to this..

ItComesAndGoes.. yeah i bought 8mg/2mg strips off the street ( got 3 packets ) which i have never tried.. i have quit a few times for a week using the winging down method.. but relapsed after that.. so i was thinking thats my window before getting on the strips, then entering outpatiant ect.. this is my plan anyways.. lol

Luweez

Good luck trossi.

Trossi3389

OMG.... Somebody shoot me.

FT

Why?

sooners

You can do this Trossi! Most people do not have success tapering, I happen to be blessed with a Wife and understanding doctor. I told my doctor after talking to others I would just do it cold turkey, she did not recommend it and wanted me to try tapering to begin with, my wife was with me in the doctor's office. My doctor has me on a schedule with prescriptions set at one week intervals for refills, so I really never have enough on me at one time to really abuse unless I want to spend the next 6 days in agony, and my wife keeps the pills to boot and gives me my daily dose and hides the rest, most the time she has them on her person, so I can't even go hunting for them if she's gone. I have gone down from 150 - 200 mg a day to 40 mg a day now, I have not been sick once and the worst think I have experienced besides the mental craving for the drug is RLS, I have wicked RLS in the mornings and nights, my doctor just called to check on me yesterday so I was telling her about the RLS and she said for me to go out and get some magnesium from the health store, suppose to help, so I went out today and got some, we'll see tonight.

I have found by being open with my loved ones that they have really stepped up in supporting me and I know I am one of the lucky ones, as we all don't have that type of support, but I wish everyone did.

I would have to say my story is unique, all of ours are in some ways, but as most people will tell you on here, it is better to go cold turkey than tapering because it is just to hard with pills in your possession and if you don't have a support system like I do, I would have to say that going Cold Turkey probably will be the best way.

You will have to learn to live again Trossi, in my opinion, that's what it boils down to, your so used to having this drug and depending on this drug to make you feel better, to make you happy, to make everything seem ok, that you really have to learn to live again, learn to find peace and happiness in sobriety, because once you've been hooked on these little devils, nothing else compares, weeds not the same, alcohol is not the same, nothing compares to these pills, so you won't be able to hide in another drug, because it doesn't give you what the oxy did or does. In my experience anyway, I have not got my paper work in and am on medical marijuana and not even that takes my mind off oxy even if I take more hits than I am suppose to, actually I don't even like it anymore, but it does help with the pain a bit, but I thought it would help me get off the oxy, make me not think of it, but NOOOOO it doesn't help in that area at all. These things (oxy) are poison and deadly, and can change your life for the worse before you even know it.

Good Luck with your journey and just keep putting one step in front of the other, one day at a time, knowing that each day is a success towards sobriety and learning to live again.

Trossi3389

In the past where i cleaned myself up for a week the first day was NEVER like this.. i need a bridge !!! 24 hrs in i've done 2 60's and a bag.. didn't do a thing for me.. i slept maybe 2 hrs last night and i'm sure you all know the rest of the symptoms.

i've got to do much better with the food & fluids but it's tuff.. my goal right now is getting the -H- out of my system first.. i only did a bag first 24 hrs so i'm happy about that.

Guys thank you so much for the replys and this forum as a whole.. it really means alot at the beginning stage. in the future i'm praying i can do the same for an addict.. besides my wife i'm keeping my family & freinds in the dark about this.. i just don't want to be around anybody right now and i know this is going to be a looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong road !!

DRJ9487

Hey, I'm on day one of semi-forced cold turkey withdrawls from oxycodone. I've always had a high tolerence to everything, alcohol, pain killer, both OTC and perscribed, ect., so when I had my ankle surgery to fix a 16 year long issue (i'm 24) I full expected to be needing higher doses of whatever the doctor gave me. I informed him of this from the start. It started out with the surgery, the anesthetist gave me a nerve block for the surgery which wore of aproximately the time I was being wheeled out of surgery, about 4 hours later, when they said it would last 12-24 hours. I remember waking up screaming and the administered another nerve block, then I promptly passed back out. I woke up a little while later in my recovery room with pretty bad pain in my ankle which only increased. They gave me morphine, which did nothing. They alternated percocet, and started to increase the dose. It wasn't until right before they released me the next day that thy actually got me on a dose strong enough to take the edge of the pain. They gave me percocet to take home.


It was a long road, 2 months without any walking and another month before i could return to work, though, admittedly, that was sooner than my doctor had liked, but I didn't have a choice. Through the 3 months, my doe slowly increased from 20 to 30 mg a dose twice a day, then a sudden jump to 40, sometimes 50 for the extreme pains per dose twice a day. I was muscling through the pain in the middle of the day and taking it only in the morning and at night. It was a system. I should have talked to my doctor a little more directly about fixing this problem, but I didn't. instead he just gave me a slightly higher does so i didn't have to take as many, since he couldn't phone in prescriptions and I was recovering at my parents 3 hours away from his offices. At one point he scheduled me for a 3 week interval instead of the usual 2 and gave me the lesser dose by accident. I burned through those in a week and had no way of getting any more for 2 weeks. I went through withdrawls, at first, but slowly I started to feel like my old self. It wasn't easy, but I didn't have a choice, and while I was alone during the day, at night and on the weekends, I had my family thereto distract and support me. I never told them what I was going through, not really.

When it came time for my next appointment, I didn't tell my doctor about the withdrawls, but got a new prescription because I was still having issues with the pain. I had started walking without the assistance of crutches and was still in a boot until then. That appointment he took me out of the boot, so I was having pretty heavy pain again. I got back into taking them. The cycle went on til I returned back to work. I work in the food industry at a large chain restaurant doing a very demanding job at their busiest location (impressive, when they are international with over 500 locations). The pain intensified back to levels I had before the surgery, I would take pain killers at work to keep working and when I got home I wouldn't take anything for the rest of the day, but it hurt so bad I could barely walk. This has continued for a month without getting any better.

My doctor has supplied me with pain killers up until now, despite the fact I have increased to 200mg daily, but he has told me that he will not fill my prescriptions anymore and had referred me to a pain management specialist. Problem with that is its been 2 weeks and the medical records seem to have gotten lost and I am out of oxycodone. I cant work without it, the pain is just too intense, and I am going through intense withdrawls. I have to go o work tomorrow, but I've been thinking about quitting anyway, simply because i am underpaid and extremely over worked on top of being under appreciated. I ave a good prospect f another job but I didn't want to leave my old one til it was secured. I feel I have no choice at this point. My parents are very supportive, they know I have issues with the withdrawls, though maybe not to the extent that I have had them, but they are hours away. I don't have a lot of friends, and none close enough that I feel comfortable talking to them about his kind of thing. My doctor is pretty much inaccessible for anything at this point, and am tempted to go down to the local centra care and try to get some anti anxiety drugs to help me through this,seeing as everything I have experienced in the past will tell me this will get worse from here and I'm already freaking out and having suicidal thoughts (not going to act on them, just having them) . I know I can't ask for medical advice, but I really don't know what I can do to even help myself through this.

FT

Hi DRJ,

I'm sorry no one has been on here yet to say hello to you.

I feel so sorry for your situation. It sounds like you have had a rough time of things. Your postoperative pain sounds like it was really terrible. That actually happened to me when I had knee replacement surgery -- twice. I was under-anesthetized postop after my first knee was replaced, and the pain was so excruciating for about 12 hours I kept moaning and asking for help, and no one answered except to tell me to push the pain button on the PCA. It was not enough. It was so bad, the next knee surgery, I took special care to tell the anesthesiologist what happened the first time. Then they did it again.

And I was not even on high doses of opiates at the time before surgery. Yet, I was on opiates, just off a week, and I don't think that was enough.

As horrible as all this is, there are good reasons for you to get off opiates. Being difficult to anesthetize is only one of them. The opiates stop working well after awhile, which I think you have seen to a degree. As a result, your doses get too high, you get toxic, then you can barely be anesthetized at all. You may be having issues with hyperalgesia.

Docs are sometimes afraid to prescribe these drugs. There is good reason, for they are the most abused drugs in the US.

I'm mainly concerned for how you will do being suddenly cold turkey from such a high dose. It can be done, and if you aren't on anything besides opiates, it isn't going to kill you. But if you have other health issues, or other drugs you are on, that may not be the case. Be careful. You might need to go to ER to get something to help you as you come off these drugs.

I hope you keep us posted with how you are. You'll get through this one way or the other, and my best advice to you is get off this poison and stay off. It may seem daunting now, but it is worth it in the long run.

Read these threads about withdrawal. I think you already know what to expect, form the sounds of it.

I think you need someone to help you deal with your pain without opiates. Maybe they have tried? I wondered why your doctor would suddenly bail. Maybe he doesn't know what to do. Maybe he's wanted you to taper off and you couldn't?

You're too young to be tied to these drugs. There are better ways, even if it doesn't seem so right now.

Good luck. Post soon, okay?

FT

DRJ9487

to say he is bailing isn't quite fair. he is referring me to a pain specialist and i SHOULD have had my appt with hima lready but there has been a snafu with the medical records somewhere.

I'm headed to my parents. I quit my job after I went and tried to do the work but the pain was too extreme. I can get a crappy job with a lot less work for nearly the same pay in a heart beat, so I'm not worried about ti.

I'm going to spend as much time down with my parents as I can until either a dr appt or that prospective job drag me back up here. I'm hoping being around them will help a little with the isolated feelings. the trip down is going to suck what witht he extreme back and muscle pain, but I'll deal.

Currently over the heaviest of the hot/cold flashes, but having mild ones, still. fortunately i'm in florida and the weather is cool but not cold, so I can put on and take of a hoodie as needed.

suicidal thoughts have calmed down for now, but are still there somewhat.

nausea has kicked him, though havent puked. profound lack of sleep, mostly due to the muscle pain.

im not bringing my computer so i may not post. i may use my mom or dads computer tomorrow while they are at work

Trossi3389

Hey i'm still driving down the road guys.. ( took out a few mail boxes but hanging in there ) i havent done -H- in days and today is the first day i havent took anything but the suboxone strips.. i feel like a zombie but i guess it's helping.. i'm never taking Opiates again.. just hope i have enough strips to get me to the next stage.. the withdrawal, depression and anxiety is really bad right now... don't even know what day i'm on cause my mind is in a cload.

Has anyone heard of 5-HTP suppliment.. an all natural anti-depressant and a sleep-aid ? and will it work for me at this early stage ?

Thanks Guys... i've been living in a lie since '99.

Trossi3389

Doing better today but i'm still withdrawing pretty bad at night.. only doing the strips and i tried that HTP along with a very small hit of pot.. man did that do wonders.. helped my depression and suicidal thoughts BIG TIME. still not eating much though and i need to get out more.

one day at a time.

Trossi3389

Yeah if you taper you better do a 3 or 4 day taper only or your screwed !! if you can do this it will help on the torture of early detox.

Really appreciated your post sooners.

Trossi3389

Just read the guidlines.. can someone please edit 2 post's. #95 & #96

Thanks

efftheox

I cant tell you if 5htp will work for you, but I have been taking it and it seems to have helped me. I also take an L tyrosine supplement and a b-12 to get the dopamine goin (thanks Ivan)

How are you feeling now?

Trossi3389

last 20 or so hrs have been tuff.. mostly mental. going to my first meeting tomorrow.