Give yourself a pat on the back. Great start! I would have tapered down slower instead of taking them when u feel bad. I would have started by cutting one of the pills in half, then a week later take away the other half ( or 2 weeks later if needed) etc. for ex. from the 4 a day take 3 and a half for a week or so then take 3 and so on until your not taking any. Hope this helped.
Last edited by frisbeefreak; 04-27-2012 at 07:08 PM.
The Following User Says Thank You to frisbeefreak For This Useful Post: KennyD1 (04-27-2012)
fris, thx so much for your reply. i am planning to taper over the next time period. i have not yet set up schedule.
Is there a lower dose a day you can be at now without feeling bad? If so start at that dose and taper down off that instead of going back up to the 4 a day.
I'm not sure I understand how you tapered originally, you said you took 1 one day and 3 the next for 2 weeks...that doesn't make much sense. Usually you spread your taper over a couple of months, you do continuous gradual stepdowns until you reach a small enough dose that you can safely stop taking, for a lot of people it's around 2mg. You'll still have some wd symptoms, but not really bad ones. When your tapering or if you've finished your taper you never take extra meds because you feel bad. If you serious about quitting and you've done your taper you need to flush any remaining pills, get the temptation away from yourself.
Now, if you decide to restart a taper, don't go back up to the full 40mgs a day, figure out how much you were taking a day when you stopped take that amount for a week then reduce it by 2mgs or 5mgs, whichever you can handle, for a week, then reduce again, etc. Once you get to the point of stopping you should be good to go. Like I said you will still have some minor withdrawal symptoms, so try to take your last dose on a Friday morning so that you'll have Friday evening and all weekend to deal with the wd issues, you won't feel great on Monday, but you should be able to make it to work or school.
Kat
The Following 2 Users Say Thank You to katlin09 For This Useful Post: KennyD1 (04-28-2012), Tysmom1 (05-16-2012)
Ok, so it sounds like your going to start at 3, 10mg pills a day and taper down from that, if I read you right? If you go down by 2mg a week that gives you a 5 week taper.
As for the success rate, most people who taper off of narcotics do very well. Much better than those who go cold turkey. You'll still have some wd symptoms at the end, but they really shouldn't be that bad if you stay on schedule. When you get close to the end, check back here and there are many who can tell you what kind of things you should have on hand for the wd symptoms.
katlin, thanks so much for your response. can i ask you a question? when you say taper down two milligrams per week, does that mean weak one i am at 30 and weak 2 i go to 28?
Yes. You probably have 10mg pills, or I imagine you do. so you'll have to cut them into 1/4's a little closer to 3mg's but same principle. If you wanted you could do 5mg jumps but thats a pretty high jump.
I think I get it. Move down slowly , week by week, whether one quarter or one half pill.
My history: I have been taking 300 mg tramadol er plus 4 x 10 mg hydro's. During my initial reduction period I eliminate the tramadol !!!!
Now with the boards help, I have a taper schedule on the hydro. I had to start at 35 miiligrams (yesterday). I am taking meds at 7 am (10), 11 am (10), 3 pm (5), 5 pm (5), and 7 pm (5).
Tramadol withdrawals can be and generally are worse than most other narcotic meds. If you stopped that cold turkey a week ago, you very well may be having withdrawals from that and not the other..
hello there how have you been doing? I'm new myself to these boards. but if i can be any help I'm here, to vent to. or just to share stories. i don't mean to come off rude but i must say your down to such a low does my guess is your addiction is more physiological then chemical. but I'm no doctor, just a fellow opiate addict, on methadone now. and even a physiological addiction is pure hell i know this 1st hand. i have been clean myself this time around sense DEC.22 2011. but as i said i am on a methadone maintenance program which i know some people think it's just replacing one drug for another, but that's not how i feel. I'm not high, I'm not spend a crap load of money on pills every day or spending hours searching for pills or putting myself in seedy situations to buy pills, I'm able to be back at work I'm able to take care of my kids and not live in a fog. I'm able to go and do things and not be worried if i have enough pills to get though the day. this was the 1st year in a long *** time that i can show for what i spent my tax return on, i moved to a better apartment and bought new furniture for my place, most years in the past i spent appx. 6,000 on pills in a short time. so as you can see yes i'm on methadone but i got my life back. and i started to use pills about 6 years ago when i hurt my back at work. these last 6 years i have gotten clean a few times, but i seam to always relapse. i have gotten clean once with the help of suboxine and once before with methadone. the suboxine was nice and easy, i didn't deal with withdrawals coming off that, but methadone is hell coming off i think it's worse then regular withdrawal from pills. but for me that it what seams to work best, everyone is different. i live in ct suboxine is very hard to get legally the waiting list to see a doctor who is licensed to give it is so long and those doctors don't take insurance it's all about doctors putting more $ in there pockets. methadone clinics do take insurance so that's why i went back to the methadone clinic. for me i get clean for a while then i think i got this beat and i come off the suboxine/methadone, well then I'm good for a few months and boom something will happen and I'm back using again, hopefully this time i will just except the help of the methadone and stick with it and stay clean, people are just so judgmental of people who are on methadone even myself i have always thought that iv drug users are on methadone which yes alot are but methadone is also used for opiates use too, as i know now. so it's a cycle i'm trying to break, so your not alone thanks for letting me vent and share my story, a little bit of info too add: I'm 36 year old female as i said from ct. my drug of choice this time around where perk 30's, i would use up to 4 to 6 a day and i would snort them. before that was oxy's until they made them so you couldn't crush them any more, when i would have to swallow them just so i wouldn't get sick that got me to get clean. my thing is the energy rush. i like the speedy feeling, makes me feel like I'm super mom i can just keep going and going i would never get tired, that goodness i never have done speed, well i have just my own kind or meth, i bet i would just love that, OK I've rambled on, best of luck, your not alone be safe and it's true take things one day at a time....
as i said I'm new to these boards i thought i was replying to you 1St post how u felt alone and i thought i read that you were only on 5mg a day and were trying to withdrawal from that. that's why i said you were on such a low amount. I'm sorry i didn't mean to come off by sounding like i was down playing your issue in any way. katlin09 is full of great info and help, i'm thankful i found her on these boards i hope she can be useful to you as she is for me. again i'm totally sorry if i came off as down playing your addiction that was the furthest thing from my intention
Thanks for the info. I trivialized tramadol because it is so easy to get on the internet. I have taken it for 3 years, originally 200 mg per day and 300 mg per day for the last four months. I last took one on Wednesday. So this is only my fifth day without.
I think this means I will feel better tomorrow :-)
I have been sticking to the 35 mg of hydro per day. Last week I took 1 hydro/1 tram on wed, 1 hydro on thurs, and none on friday. On Friday I was SICK. I tried to go for a walk and could not go 1/2 mile without sitting. Tonight I went on my normal walk -- 3 and 1/2 miles.
Friday was my 33 hour mark when I made my first post.
