Trying to cope, failing
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Location: Rochester NY
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Trying to cope, failing
Well, my addiction started like many others. 8 years ago I fractured a vertebrae, but it took over a year for the doctors to actually find it. Ironically, the day it happened was also the day I got my first kidney stone, so initially I kept feeling like I pulled a muscle in my side, but the pain got so bad I was on my knees in tears, so I went to the ED and a subsequent CT scan showed a 5 1/2 millimeter stone in my left side, which I had to have surgically removed because it's shape caused it to stick. I kept having pain for months after any my urologist said something else had to be wrong, and finally a specialist in NYC where my MRI was sent found that the 'wings' on my L5 were fractured off, but they hadn't moved enough to be obvious.
So I was sent to a pain clinic to manage the issue and to try different types of physical therapy to try and get it to heal, which didn't work, so they started me on codeine, which led to vicodin, oxycodone, methadone, dilaudid, and even fentanyl. I had to wait over 4 years before I could get the time off work to have the surgery to try and fix the problem since it required a 6 month sabbatical and with three kids I couldn't afford it.
After the surgery I continued to visit the pain clinic and they kept me on the meds for awhile but intended on tapering me off, but one fateful day I called to have them mail me my refills, waited days, didn't get it, called back, they accused me of stealing my own meds to try and get more, noting this is the FIRST TIME I ever asked for my meds a second time, let alone "early" since they assumed I sold them or something and tried to lie about it. So I was kicked out and sent into severe Methadone and Oxycodone withdrawal, ironically 2 weeks later I found the missing scripts in my daughters room, she took all the mail to play Office in her room, and I still have them to this day for my records. After over a week of the most miserable time of my life I found a new doctor that dealt with patients deemed "Difficult" ... I saw him for several years and he kept steadily increasing my dosage to where I was taking 90mg of Methadone and 360mg of Oxycodone a day. Everything seemed fine and the meds kept 95% of my pain blocked. One day he decides he wants to retire with virtually no warning (less than 2 weeks), as most will probably know thats almost impossible to find a new doctor within that time frame.
So once again I was sent into massive withdrawal while trying to find a new doctor, all his patients going through the same thing so they were filling all the local clinics up fast. Eventually I found a new PCP who has been trying to wean me down since and has gotten me down to 40mg a day of just Oxycodone, but now his office has a new policy, they will not write any narcotic pain meds at all to anyone, that all patients have to go to a pain clinic now, and there are only two around me that offer meds, both of which are completely full and have waiting lists several hundred long ...
As a result of this and the fact that he decided to tell me this the day I went in to get my next refill (I was seeing him every 2 weeks where he took 1 10mg tab a day away), and wouldn't give me a new refill. So here I am now, and I'd like to say I am 4 days into being without any meds, but the truth is I only made it 3 days then yesterday one of my neighbors offered me a couple of 5/325s to take the edge off and I gave in, I haven't been sleeping at all, and as I mentioned before, I have three kids to take care of, so I can't just go into a detox, and I tried all the local suboxone doctors, they ALL have waiting lists. I'm pulling my hair out and going stir crazy. It's not as bad as when I was on the much higher doses, but the reality is it's still horrible. I've tried the baths, the advil/ibuprofen/tylenol/etc, and so forth.
I know this is a rather long and drawn on post but I wanted to state who I am and what my situation is. One of the big issues is I get kidney stones a lot, I've had over 150 of them in the last 8 years since that first one, 5 of which I've had to have surgery for, so completely ignoring pain meds for the rest of my life is impossible as anyone that has ever had a 3-4-5mm+ (I've had them as big as 12mm) stone can attest (usually a 1mm stone is enough to put someone on their knees) .. I've never taken my meds just to get high, I never shot them up or anything, I took them as prescribed, but unfortunately I've had a horrible bit of luck with these local doctors (street-based pain meds has become a big problem here to the point of doctors being afraid to even write them) ...
If anyone is in the local Rochester NY area and knows a doc they think can help finish my weaning, or any other help please let me know. I'm supposed to be starting a new job next week and can't be sweating profusely and have virtually no energy while trying to learn the new job and support my kids.
So I was sent to a pain clinic to manage the issue and to try different types of physical therapy to try and get it to heal, which didn't work, so they started me on codeine, which led to vicodin, oxycodone, methadone, dilaudid, and even fentanyl. I had to wait over 4 years before I could get the time off work to have the surgery to try and fix the problem since it required a 6 month sabbatical and with three kids I couldn't afford it.
After the surgery I continued to visit the pain clinic and they kept me on the meds for awhile but intended on tapering me off, but one fateful day I called to have them mail me my refills, waited days, didn't get it, called back, they accused me of stealing my own meds to try and get more, noting this is the FIRST TIME I ever asked for my meds a second time, let alone "early" since they assumed I sold them or something and tried to lie about it. So I was kicked out and sent into severe Methadone and Oxycodone withdrawal, ironically 2 weeks later I found the missing scripts in my daughters room, she took all the mail to play Office in her room, and I still have them to this day for my records. After over a week of the most miserable time of my life I found a new doctor that dealt with patients deemed "Difficult" ... I saw him for several years and he kept steadily increasing my dosage to where I was taking 90mg of Methadone and 360mg of Oxycodone a day. Everything seemed fine and the meds kept 95% of my pain blocked. One day he decides he wants to retire with virtually no warning (less than 2 weeks), as most will probably know thats almost impossible to find a new doctor within that time frame.
So once again I was sent into massive withdrawal while trying to find a new doctor, all his patients going through the same thing so they were filling all the local clinics up fast. Eventually I found a new PCP who has been trying to wean me down since and has gotten me down to 40mg a day of just Oxycodone, but now his office has a new policy, they will not write any narcotic pain meds at all to anyone, that all patients have to go to a pain clinic now, and there are only two around me that offer meds, both of which are completely full and have waiting lists several hundred long ...
As a result of this and the fact that he decided to tell me this the day I went in to get my next refill (I was seeing him every 2 weeks where he took 1 10mg tab a day away), and wouldn't give me a new refill. So here I am now, and I'd like to say I am 4 days into being without any meds, but the truth is I only made it 3 days then yesterday one of my neighbors offered me a couple of 5/325s to take the edge off and I gave in, I haven't been sleeping at all, and as I mentioned before, I have three kids to take care of, so I can't just go into a detox, and I tried all the local suboxone doctors, they ALL have waiting lists. I'm pulling my hair out and going stir crazy. It's not as bad as when I was on the much higher doses, but the reality is it's still horrible. I've tried the baths, the advil/ibuprofen/tylenol/etc, and so forth.
I know this is a rather long and drawn on post but I wanted to state who I am and what my situation is. One of the big issues is I get kidney stones a lot, I've had over 150 of them in the last 8 years since that first one, 5 of which I've had to have surgery for, so completely ignoring pain meds for the rest of my life is impossible as anyone that has ever had a 3-4-5mm+ (I've had them as big as 12mm) stone can attest (usually a 1mm stone is enough to put someone on their knees) .. I've never taken my meds just to get high, I never shot them up or anything, I took them as prescribed, but unfortunately I've had a horrible bit of luck with these local doctors (street-based pain meds has become a big problem here to the point of doctors being afraid to even write them) ...
If anyone is in the local Rochester NY area and knows a doc they think can help finish my weaning, or any other help please let me know. I'm supposed to be starting a new job next week and can't be sweating profusely and have virtually no energy while trying to learn the new job and support my kids.
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Join Date: Dec 2010
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Hi BKR:
Crap. I just wrote a huge long post and lost it. Sorry. I'm not in NY.
My advice was this: You CAN get your life back. You CAN get off opiates. No matter whether you find a doc to wean you or not, you are going to feel like crap when you withdraw.
The best thing would be to postpone the job a couple of weeks to detox. At home or otherwise. No matter where you do it, you'll feel really sick for a week with extreme lethargy, stomach upset, hot and cold sweats, crazy racing thoughts, insomnia, body aches, body restlessness, just bad stuff.
Hey, detox is necessary to get off opiates. Either cold turkey, weaning, or substituting another drug for the opiates. I couldn't wean, and I didn't want another drug to get off later, so I did CT 9 months ago.
Good luck. I feel so sorry for your situation. Why not just get this overwith. A lot of success in detox depends on your willingness to do the "work" of recovery. If you aren't ready to get sick and have no energy for awhile, it isn't going to work.
FT
Crap. I just wrote a huge long post and lost it. Sorry. I'm not in NY.
My advice was this: You CAN get your life back. You CAN get off opiates. No matter whether you find a doc to wean you or not, you are going to feel like crap when you withdraw.
The best thing would be to postpone the job a couple of weeks to detox. At home or otherwise. No matter where you do it, you'll feel really sick for a week with extreme lethargy, stomach upset, hot and cold sweats, crazy racing thoughts, insomnia, body aches, body restlessness, just bad stuff.
Hey, detox is necessary to get off opiates. Either cold turkey, weaning, or substituting another drug for the opiates. I couldn't wean, and I didn't want another drug to get off later, so I did CT 9 months ago.
Good luck. I feel so sorry for your situation. Why not just get this overwith. A lot of success in detox depends on your willingness to do the "work" of recovery. If you aren't ready to get sick and have no energy for awhile, it isn't going to work.
FT
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I am all for just getting it over with, the problem is that with having my kids, I don't have the luxury of the extreme lethargy and what not ... If I could find someone to watch or help with them for a week or so, I'd tolerate the worst of the W/D, but with HAVING to get up every day and do massive amounts of stuff, it's killing me, that is the number 1 reason why this is so hard ... I find myself constantly thinking about who I could call for some, where I can find some money to try and find it the street way, etc, which I have no desire to do, I like not being in jail too much, but right now I have no money, and I can't postpone starting this job otherwise I will lose my house. This is just one of those cases where I keeping asking myself "Why me!" ...
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Originally Posted by BKRochester 
I am all for just getting it over with, the problem is that with having my kids, I don't have the luxury of the extreme lethargy and what not ... If I could find someone to watch or help with them for a week or so, I'd tolerate the worst of the W/D, but with HAVING to get up every day and do massive amounts of stuff, it's killing me, that is the number 1 reason why this is so hard ... I find myself constantly thinking about who I could call for some, where I can find some money to try and find it the street way, etc, which I have no desire to do, I like not being in jail too much, but right now I have no money, and I can't postpone starting this job otherwise I will lose my house. This is just one of those cases where I keeping asking myself "Why me!" ...
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Yeah, I've been trying to keep busy as best I can, it's just the lack of energy is really killing me, well that and the fact that my legs constantly feel like I've run a huge marathon ... It's odd, my upper body is fine aside from pins and needles from time to time, but my legs are absolutely horrid ... I have tried everything I can think of to at least calm the leg pains down but honestly the only thing that even took a little of the edge off was when my neighbor gave me those yesterday, and I hate myself for giving in but I just had that overwhelming urge to get a break from the worst of the W/D
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Originally Posted by BKRochester
Yeah, I've been trying to keep busy as best I can, it's just the lack of energy is really killing me, well that and the fact that my legs constantly feel like I've run a huge marathon ... It's odd, my upper body is fine aside from pins and needles from time to time, but my legs are absolutely horrid ... I have tried everything I can think of to at least calm the leg pains down but honestly the only thing that even took a little of the edge off was when my neighbor gave me those yesterday, and I hate myself for giving in but I just had that overwhelming urge to get a break from the worst of the W/D
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Yeah, I've tried the hot bath thing with tylenol and ibuprofen and what not, they didn't help in the least so unfortunately it seems like I am stuck with the leg pain for the moment until either I find a new doc or simply get through this ... It's just amazing how much the body rebels when it doesn't get what it's used too, even with a dosage as low as 40mg a day ...
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BKR,
It doesn't seem to matter how low the jump off dose was (40 mg is pretty low), most people still get sick and stay sick for a week before starting to really feel much better. Except the first 3-4 days are the worst.
You've really got to commit to detox or it won't work. Thinking of all the ways you can make it go away is just mental gymnastics, because the reality is that detox means you deprive your receptor site of what they want, and they talk back to you. That means the whole array of symptoms of withdrawal.
Even people who do subox generally have to find their jump off point there, and it seems their withdrawal is just as bad if they had just gone CT to start with.
Wouldn't be it be nice to just be DONE with this? It only takes a few days of real misery, then a few weeks of lethargy, and then you have the rest of your life to get your act together without the drugs. It's worth it, but no amount of me or anyone else telling you that is going to make any difference if you aren't prepared to just hit it.
FT
It doesn't seem to matter how low the jump off dose was (40 mg is pretty low), most people still get sick and stay sick for a week before starting to really feel much better. Except the first 3-4 days are the worst.
You've really got to commit to detox or it won't work. Thinking of all the ways you can make it go away is just mental gymnastics, because the reality is that detox means you deprive your receptor site of what they want, and they talk back to you. That means the whole array of symptoms of withdrawal.
Even people who do subox generally have to find their jump off point there, and it seems their withdrawal is just as bad if they had just gone CT to start with.
Wouldn't be it be nice to just be DONE with this? It only takes a few days of real misery, then a few weeks of lethargy, and then you have the rest of your life to get your act together without the drugs. It's worth it, but no amount of me or anyone else telling you that is going to make any difference if you aren't prepared to just hit it.
FT
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FT, Here's the thing, this isn't the first time I tried to get off these things ... About 2 months ago I decided I wanted nothing more to do with the oxy, I got tired of taking them, tired of waiting for my next appointment, etc, so I went CT, but in this instance I had a lot of help with my kids and with keeping busy, so I didn't have to worry about their well being or anything like that ... I went 8 1/2 days with nothing and felt perfectly fine, didn't want one, didn't think about how to get one, nothing, then bam, once again I got hit with kidney stones, a 7mm and a 7 1/2mm stone both stuck in my left ureter requiring a long surgery which in turn meant pain killers (as I said, it's pretty much impossible to have a stone and the surgery without them, with the surgery they leave a stent in that goes from your kidney to your bladder which in itself feels like an 18 inch long kidney stone for two weeks, it's absolutely horrible) ... So once again I got sucked back into the routine ... This time it was forced on me which I know is playing a huge role in the mental aspect of it, but I also have no help with the kids, the housework, the yardwork, nothing ... I may be a full grown man in decent shape, but even I have my limits ... As of right now a friend of mine gave me a bunch of Tramadol which I'm sure you know is an extremely mild opiate ... I am using these to take the edge off it, I have no illusions about it being easy, or that the T will take all the pain away but if it at least allows me to sleep even a little, and takes away even a small percentage of the lethargy then it'll greatly increase my chances ... I have the mental want to get off these things, I just do not have the capability to deal with my children and the full blown CT withdrawal symptoms at the same time. Call me a coward or a failure, but I think in the long run using the T is a far better choice than selling everything I own to find some O on the street to make it through day to day life .. I don't know how my symptoms compare to anyone elses, but I literally have slept a grand combined total of 2 hours in the last 4 days, I haven't gotten any housework done, is not for a laptop I probably wouldn't even be writing this because I have literally felt like I couldn't even get out of bed. I know that may sound like I'm exaggerating but I'm not, I don't know how to describe it beyond what I already have, and I'm sure others have made it through without giving in but I guess I'm just too weak to do the full blown Cold Turkey.
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Well, I took two of the Tramadol last night before bed and I was actually able to grab a good 4 hours of sleep before waking up with the sweats (lately it had been every 10-20 minutes I'd wake up soaked) .. Haven't taken one at all today and feeling alright, legs are still a bit sore but not nearly as bad .. Going to fight it out as best I can and only take a T right before bed so at least with some sleep I'm able to function a bit, was even able to get some of the house work done.
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Hi BKR,
I see nothing cowardly about your situation. Far from it. I understand the pain of kidney stones, and I also understand the pain of surgery.
Hey, pain medications are there for legitimate reasons as well as the other side of it, which is aberrant drug behaviors. When you have an overlap of the two, it becomes complicated. We who are prone to addiction still have surgery, still have acute pain, and I'm personally not going to do those things without pain medication. Nor should anyone else who feels they have pain over and above their tolerance level. I mean real tolerance level, because I know that WHILE I was using, my tolerance level was at a lower threshold than it is now.
Having said that, tapering is just too tough for me. It had nothing to do with success or failure, I just couldn't control my doses if I had a whole bottle of pills. I've thought about what I will do when I need surgery again. I have two fake titanium knees that are going to need a "tune-up" at some point, and that means surgery. I also have some dental work to get done. I'm not going to tough it out for those things.
But what will I do? Lordy, I'm not sure. I suppose I could have my husband hold my pills for me and put him in charge. I have also thought about pain patches since I have never bought my drugs from the street anyway, and I think I would be less likely to abuse them.
For you, it's a tough call. I am "lucky" that stuff like tramadol just makes me sick. And I didn't want to replace one drug with another. I want nothing to do with suboxone after reading about people trying to get off of it.
If you don't think you would abuse pain patches, you might want to ask for those to be prescribed for the periods of time you need something for pain. I hope you can discuss this with your doctor, because often they will work with you on medication control when you need it.
I don't think it's weak not to want to do cold turkey. It's just a necessity for some of us who can't taper. And I think most of us can't. All tapering did to me was put me through slow torture, because each increment downward sent me into a new set of withdrawals. Weeks of that while tapering down were horrible. I always felt sick, and then I couldn't seem to drop my dose below 30 mg/day. So I'd stay there and gradually go back sky high.
I hope you share what works for you, because sometimes there are no easy answers. Whatever way you decide to go, I would support your choice, as long as it is working for you towards the goal of recovery from opiates.
FT
I see nothing cowardly about your situation. Far from it. I understand the pain of kidney stones, and I also understand the pain of surgery.
Hey, pain medications are there for legitimate reasons as well as the other side of it, which is aberrant drug behaviors. When you have an overlap of the two, it becomes complicated. We who are prone to addiction still have surgery, still have acute pain, and I'm personally not going to do those things without pain medication. Nor should anyone else who feels they have pain over and above their tolerance level. I mean real tolerance level, because I know that WHILE I was using, my tolerance level was at a lower threshold than it is now.
Having said that, tapering is just too tough for me. It had nothing to do with success or failure, I just couldn't control my doses if I had a whole bottle of pills. I've thought about what I will do when I need surgery again. I have two fake titanium knees that are going to need a "tune-up" at some point, and that means surgery. I also have some dental work to get done. I'm not going to tough it out for those things.
But what will I do? Lordy, I'm not sure. I suppose I could have my husband hold my pills for me and put him in charge. I have also thought about pain patches since I have never bought my drugs from the street anyway, and I think I would be less likely to abuse them.
For you, it's a tough call. I am "lucky" that stuff like tramadol just makes me sick. And I didn't want to replace one drug with another. I want nothing to do with suboxone after reading about people trying to get off of it.
If you don't think you would abuse pain patches, you might want to ask for those to be prescribed for the periods of time you need something for pain. I hope you can discuss this with your doctor, because often they will work with you on medication control when you need it.
I don't think it's weak not to want to do cold turkey. It's just a necessity for some of us who can't taper. And I think most of us can't. All tapering did to me was put me through slow torture, because each increment downward sent me into a new set of withdrawals. Weeks of that while tapering down were horrible. I always felt sick, and then I couldn't seem to drop my dose below 30 mg/day. So I'd stay there and gradually go back sky high.
I hope you share what works for you, because sometimes there are no easy answers. Whatever way you decide to go, I would support your choice, as long as it is working for you towards the goal of recovery from opiates.
FT
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Originally Posted by BKRochester
Well, I took two of the Tramadol last night before bed and I was actually able to grab a good 4 hours of sleep before waking up with the sweats (lately it had been every 10-20 minutes I'd wake up soaked) .. Haven't taken one at all today and feeling alright, legs are still a bit sore but not nearly as bad .. Going to fight it out as best I can and only take a T right before bed so at least with some sleep I'm able to function a bit, was even able to get some of the house work done.
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FT,
I appreciate the thoughts ... I guess the difference with me is that I didn't abuse my meds. I'd say within the 8 years I've been on them there is maybe a dozen times where I may have taken one or two extra because I did something physically demanding that caused my back to hurt more than normal, so the next day I would compensate by taking less, but otherwise I never took them to get high, in fact the only times I've ever felt high from a pain med was while in the ED getting IV Dilaudid for Kidney Stones, considering it's literally Synthetic Heroin, it's kind of hard to NOT get high on the IV version.
For me, the tapering my doc was doing was working great, I only felt bad withdrawals initially because he started me off on the taper at 140mg a day, when I had been taking 90mg Methadone AND 360mg Oxycodone every day for a long time, but because I was still taking 140mg a day from him, the W/D weren't NEARLY as bad as if I had gone CT ... I went to see him every two weeks after that where he proceeded to take 10mg a day away, and after several months of that I was down to just 40mg a day when they implemented that new rule, and the irony was that even at 40mg a day I didn't feel any more pain than with I had been taking the Methadone and Oxy in huge doses. I agree about the pain tolerance, before I hurt my back I did weight lifting almost daily, I taught Karate and was in a lot of martial arts tournaments, I used to climb up and down a local gorge to go fishing and in some cases would climb back up the gorge with over 100 pounds of Salmon on my shoulders, etc, now my pain tolerance is shot, which of course is why these body aches are so incredibly debilitating.
I appreciate the thoughts ... I guess the difference with me is that I didn't abuse my meds. I'd say within the 8 years I've been on them there is maybe a dozen times where I may have taken one or two extra because I did something physically demanding that caused my back to hurt more than normal, so the next day I would compensate by taking less, but otherwise I never took them to get high, in fact the only times I've ever felt high from a pain med was while in the ED getting IV Dilaudid for Kidney Stones, considering it's literally Synthetic Heroin, it's kind of hard to NOT get high on the IV version.
For me, the tapering my doc was doing was working great, I only felt bad withdrawals initially because he started me off on the taper at 140mg a day, when I had been taking 90mg Methadone AND 360mg Oxycodone every day for a long time, but because I was still taking 140mg a day from him, the W/D weren't NEARLY as bad as if I had gone CT ... I went to see him every two weeks after that where he proceeded to take 10mg a day away, and after several months of that I was down to just 40mg a day when they implemented that new rule, and the irony was that even at 40mg a day I didn't feel any more pain than with I had been taking the Methadone and Oxy in huge doses. I agree about the pain tolerance, before I hurt my back I did weight lifting almost daily, I taught Karate and was in a lot of martial arts tournaments, I used to climb up and down a local gorge to go fishing and in some cases would climb back up the gorge with over 100 pounds of Salmon on my shoulders, etc, now my pain tolerance is shot, which of course is why these body aches are so incredibly debilitating.
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Originally Posted by djensen
Be careful with those Trammys too, they have their OWN set of withdrawl symptoms that include siezures, and some really bad S#$T! Be careful.....
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I find it hard to wrap my brain around taking 360mg of Oxy a day, thats 36 ten milligram tabs. Is that how much you were told to take? Because that seems like a pretty high dose, its no wonder you "took them as directed", if I was told to take 360mg a day I would be so high I would be running like Forrest Gump!!!!
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Hi BKR,
I never did take oxys to get high. I just took them to feel "normal". The few times I ever felt high were times when I didn't realize how many I had taken and took more than I should. For me, if I got to feeling high, I would feel seasick.
A lot of people who have never been addicted to pain killers assume that the more you take, the higher you get. That may be true with bursts of higher dosages, but for me anyway, my dose got higher and higher just so I could feel normal and not sick. Eventually, I rarely even felt "normal", except maybe for the first hour of the morning after my first dose. The rest of the day, I was constantly trying to take fewer pills, and I'd take a dose when I started to feel withdrawals coming on. That happened at more frequent intervals with ever increasing dosages. I was never at a dose as high as yours, though. So, I get it if people think you were/are getting high, when you aren't. After awhile, it just takes higher and higher doses. Eventually, for me anyway, I just felt so sick all the time I knew I had to quit. Plus, ANY physical exertion winded me when I was using, and I used to ride my mountain bike all the time. I stopped doing that, and avoided all exercise because I just couldn't hack it. I'd even have to take an oxy dose to go take a simple walk.
Geez.
I am SO glad to be free of that crap. Sometimes I wish I had at least enjoyed it, at least gotten high from it. But I didn't. I don't think my story is entirely unique. We all got on these demon drugs one way or another. It doesn't matter why you started, just that you want to stop.
I don't want to discourage anyone from doing what works for you. The main thing I don't like to see is people self-medicating with street drugs, especially when they start to try detoxing with stuff like methadone or suboxone. I really think that that kind of detox should be medically supervised. For one, you don't know how pure the street drugs are, even if they look EXACTLY like the prescription stuff. Plus, there is too high a tendency to dose incorrectly, and then to take yourself down on your own just doesn't work for most people.
I agree with the warning about tramadol. Even though it is a weak opiate, it is addictive because of that plus some other effects from other components of the drug, and the withdrawal sounds as bad or worse than stronger opiate withdrawal. Just be careful. It's risky taking someone else's medication, especially if you are seeing a doctor who is not aware of what you are doing and is trying to help you without the benefit of that knowledge.
Again, good luck.
FT
I never did take oxys to get high. I just took them to feel "normal". The few times I ever felt high were times when I didn't realize how many I had taken and took more than I should. For me, if I got to feeling high, I would feel seasick.
A lot of people who have never been addicted to pain killers assume that the more you take, the higher you get. That may be true with bursts of higher dosages, but for me anyway, my dose got higher and higher just so I could feel normal and not sick. Eventually, I rarely even felt "normal", except maybe for the first hour of the morning after my first dose. The rest of the day, I was constantly trying to take fewer pills, and I'd take a dose when I started to feel withdrawals coming on. That happened at more frequent intervals with ever increasing dosages. I was never at a dose as high as yours, though. So, I get it if people think you were/are getting high, when you aren't. After awhile, it just takes higher and higher doses. Eventually, for me anyway, I just felt so sick all the time I knew I had to quit. Plus, ANY physical exertion winded me when I was using, and I used to ride my mountain bike all the time. I stopped doing that, and avoided all exercise because I just couldn't hack it. I'd even have to take an oxy dose to go take a simple walk.
Geez.
I am SO glad to be free of that crap. Sometimes I wish I had at least enjoyed it, at least gotten high from it. But I didn't. I don't think my story is entirely unique. We all got on these demon drugs one way or another. It doesn't matter why you started, just that you want to stop.
I don't want to discourage anyone from doing what works for you. The main thing I don't like to see is people self-medicating with street drugs, especially when they start to try detoxing with stuff like methadone or suboxone. I really think that that kind of detox should be medically supervised. For one, you don't know how pure the street drugs are, even if they look EXACTLY like the prescription stuff. Plus, there is too high a tendency to dose incorrectly, and then to take yourself down on your own just doesn't work for most people.
I agree with the warning about tramadol. Even though it is a weak opiate, it is addictive because of that plus some other effects from other components of the drug, and the withdrawal sounds as bad or worse than stronger opiate withdrawal. Just be careful. It's risky taking someone else's medication, especially if you are seeing a doctor who is not aware of what you are doing and is trying to help you without the benefit of that knowledge.
Again, good luck.
FT
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