teapot: My experience is this. The opiates left my body in about seven days. During the detoxing. I sneezed a whole lot. Couldn't sleep. Didn't want to eat. Smells were extremely strong. I couldn't stand the smell of anything. (My shampoo, deodorant, Jethro's shower soap, all foods, etc. I didn't dare buy anything new though. Because once I got past this? Things returned to smelling normal again. LOL) I ran a little bit of fever and it really kicked in about dark thirty. I'd chew up 4 baby aspirins to control the fever. I also had absolutely no energy the first couple of weeks.
My RLS, that I was born with, would go absolutely bonkers the first two weeks. I'd also get these symptons in my arms too. This was really the worst part of the physical w/d's. I have a prescribed med, "Carbidopa" that I can take any time, day or night. It helps to relieve the RLS and also works on the dopamine in my brain. So this medication is a true life saver in the first month coming off the opiates.
Your painful areas are going to really be hurting in the beginning. Your brain is telling you - tricking you into believing you need the opiates. The opiates numb your nerves throughout your body. It really doesn't go to the source of the pain. I take four Advil for my pain. It goes to the source of the pain to relieve it. I also use a 5% Lidocain patch on my lower back. I get a prescribed med called, "Meloxicam" too. OTC - Potassium helps with Charlie Horses and nerve pain. OTC - L-Lysin works on the muscles and also stops me from getting fever blisters.
The hard part though is the mental part of it. You already know you can't go w/o the opiates? So once you get past the physical dependancy of it. The mental part of it will be the next step. I watched a "Dr Phil" show earlier this morning, that explained it really well. It was a show from 2009 called: "How to stay sober". It was about two different men. One was a former police officer - taking 2,000 pills a month. Yikes! The other was a man that was an alcoholic. You might be able to search around the web in order to watch it.
These are my detoxing - withdrawal symptons that I go thru when I go CT off the opiates. The opiates are Hydrocodone 10 mg that I CT'ed off of. This is my, NO BS, story.
There used to be another individual on here that had a hard time believing all these addiction stories. He kept claiming he wasn't an addict. He was given this sh1t due to having back surgery. So he was totally against being called an addict. I tried to explain to him. No he wasn't an addict. But he was addicted to the opiates. So for everything that he was reading in these threads was testimonials from others using the opiates and trying to stay clean in order to live a life w/o the opiates in their body. It's the same thing for people that can't do w/o their cigarettes, coffee, milk, cokes, etc. Our bodies have become dependent on them and our bodies go into withdrawals when we aren't providing the substance for our bodies needs. He was also an Army man!
So no matter how you view these stories throughout the threads here. You've already experienced what it's like to not have the opiates. You're going to experience it again when you make a date for quitting them.
TOD