Sooners,
Detox is not going to work for you if you are not prepared to be uncomfortable. And I mean REALLY uncomfortable. Including insomnia and RLS, plus a lot more.
Yes, indeedy, your tolerance level is building rapidly if you can't even keep the RLS away while taking your CURRENT dose of oxys. That you went UP on your dose is a reflection on how bad this situation really is. You are on your way to a really full blown addiction.
For detox to be successful, you need to prepare to be sick and have RLS big time for at LEAST a solid week. Detox often begins with RLS, restless body, and then builds to stomach cramps, bowel issues (both ways), cold sweats, crazy racing thoughts, EXTREME fatigue, and terrible insomnia. Plus body aches all over. I had bad joint aches, not the least of which was my severe arthritis talking to me.
One good reason NOT to wait for reading week is that you WON"T be able to read in detox if you are like many people. You just won't feel focused enough the first week to be able to retain anything you read. The next week seems ideal if you have no classes. You could stay home and BE SICK. EMBRACE IT. That may sound weird, but every minute of cold sweats and bowel problems means you are successfully detoxing, and the restlessness is just your body being deprived of the opiates. Feeling like crap is an unfortunately necessary part of getting off oxycodone.
My advice would be to stock up on juices and soups, probably yogurt and other easy to eat and digest things. LOTS of fluids are necessary in detox. Second, prepare to do NOTHING else but detox the first week. You not only won' t want to do anything, you probably won't be ABLE to do anything. If your first week isn't so bad, count your blessings.
Last, get RID of the pills. You can't use what you don't have. NO ACCESS is key to your success, especially in the first week when you will reach for more oxycodone, just like you did last night. Enlist the help of your loved ones to keep you from bailing on your plan, which you will probably do if you detox in secret.
Some doctors will give you something for the RLS, but nothing worked for mine. I was prescribed clonidine, which is a blood pressure medicine some docs use for detox, but it only made me feel weird. It helped me sleep a little, but not for very long. I just quit taking anything except lomotil for bowel issues (OTC Immodium). I can't tell you what to take, since that is not allowed. Those were just things my doctor told ME to take. You should ask your own doctor what YOU should take, if anything.
Time moves slowly when you are detoxing, so expect to feel like it will never end. It does end, though, and you will be so much better for it. I personally found going through withdrawal to be frightening and horrible, and coming here helped me a lot. I found comfort in knowing that other people had done this before I had and succeeded.
I am so much happier and better functioning off oxycodone. And I have severe osteoarthritis. My pain threshold is actually much improved OFF oxycodone. I didn't even realize it was making my pain worse until I had stopped for a few weeks. That's the other part of detox -- if you starting taking opiates for pain, you may fear increased pain off the drug. For the first few weeks that is true, as opiates cause you to feel pain more intensely when you don't take them, but only at first. That simmers down, and many people find they have less pain off the opiates than on them.
Good luck.
FT