Hi sooners,
I'd get that doctor appointment, and maybe they can squeeze you in if someone cancels.
Unless you have other health problems, the opiates are safer to withdraw from than benzos are. Benzo withdrawal can cause seizures. Opiates just make you sick. The sickness is actually a good sign the drug has left your system. Many people take things their doctor gives them to make the worst of them less bad (like the bad restlessness and insomnia), and there are OTC stomach aids many people take for stomach cramps. With your short duration of use, you're likely to have them in a more mild form, but everyone is different. The best thing to do is to plan to do NOTHING except watch old movies and drink fluids and eat soft foods for a week. Pretend like you have the worst flu in the world and make everybody leave you alone while you recover. You can PM me if you want, but I think you need more posts first.
As to the pain part, I've tried to help people understand that pain is largely subjective. It doesn't mean it isn't real -- far from it. It's real all right, but people cope with varying degrees of pain, and everyone has their own pain tolerance. Everyone has to decide for themselves what is an "acceptable" amount of pain they can live with. For example, some people live with far more pain than I've ever had to deal with, in the form of chronic migraines, or Crohn's disease, or worse arthritis than I have. Hardly any of those people are ever truly "pain free". They've just learned to cope.
That doesn't mean you have to learn to live in misery. There are lots of methods of pain control, and sometimes we contribute to our pain in ways we don't realize. Women in labor feel more pain when they tense their bodies, for example. There are both psychological and physical things you can do to reduce your pain level, with many kinds of pain. I have severe osteoarthritis, and I discovered while I was on oxys that I was taking pain medication for things I didn't used to find painful enough to use them for. Opiates actually reduce your tolerance to pain, both psychologically and chemically. You will find when you quit them that, AT FIRST, you feel pain more acutely because of this. Later, you'll discover that your pain tolerance improves off the opiates. I don't take anything for my severe joint pain most of the time, and when I do it's an excedrin. I have more potent non-steroidal-antiinflammatories I have been prescribed, but I prefer to defer their use for my most severe pain. I have pain at night when I sleep that awakens me. I have severe sciatica that I could probably have cortisone injections or surgery for, but I am measuring my risks and benefits and deferring that as much as possible, too.
I am no saint, but I am no woos either. I've just gotten old enough, and stupid enough a few times, to discover how much pain is "worth it" and how much deserves attention.
I do know I don't want my bus driver on opiates. Probably not my minister either. How about my doctor? Do I want him/her to be on opiates when I need them at their best? Some people opt out of life in a number of ways to permit their opiate use, or they use them in hiding to avoid public scrutiny. Either way, that's less than I want for my own life. I want to live it fully and unimpaired as much as possible.
I don't know if anything I've said is helpful. Maybe others here have something to say.
So, get in to the doc when you can and discuss this stuff. There's likely a way to make your life more physically comfortable that doesn't risk the use of opiates.
FT