Shoreline

HI Bill, Anxiety, depression, retless leg, sweating, rapid changes from hot to cold, nausea, vomiting, the rns and depression are all pat of physical dpendnece and the withdrawal process. What concerns me is that the dose is low, youmentioned you only taking it to stave of withdrawal or anxiety. The only unpleaseant way o dtox is the rapid withdrawal methods used to purge your sytem of all opiates. They knock youout with enesthesia, monitor all digns as if your having surgery and infuse Nracan "naltrexone" and this blocks and urges all your opiate receptos. You wake up clean and alittle shakey but your done. The down side is it cost 10-12k last time i saw it adveertsed and it's not covered by insurance.

With the low dose your on, I wouldn't recomend switching to a med like meth to trat addiction to opiates. If you think Oxy is hard, meth you haven't seen anything yet.

From the looks of things your a couple weeks from being med free. There are safe meds that can be used to control some of the ised effectslike nausa and BP but rplacing one oaddiction with another is no the way to go . I've met to many addicts that think meth is a wnder drug but they are stilltaking it 10 years later. Still dependnet on opiates only they have to get up and start each day with a trip to the meth clinic.

There are newer meds like subutex and suboxone but you mayhave to see an addictionologist or go the rehab route if you can't tolerate 2 weeks of feeling like crap. Your does is really low enough that it's not that much different than switching from one med to another and staring the titration process over. There is an addiction forum at ealboards that can tell you more about subutex and your option sa s far as treatment if youfeel this is mor than simple physical dependnece. Howver chewing an OxyC is really taking astep back. If your prescribed 10 mg OC's they sustain 5 mgs in your system for about 8 hours, chewing one releases all 10 mgs at once which simply drives your tolerance up further maing stepping down even harder. But every orthopedic surger patient usualy starts with 2 5mg peercs every 4 hours and as you heal the meds drop down to vicodin, llower doses and less frequently. So your really not coming off any more meds than I did with all 3 spine surgeries I had. Discontinung meds is part of the surgcical process and people do it all the time withut having to go to rehab. So I wouldn't feel like your stuck on sme hriable drug at a high dose that means months of tpaering an feeling bad. day 3- 10 are the worst fif you flushed everything today and then your sleep paterns, apitite and bowels will return to normal after another couple weeks.

Why your taking them and improperly taing them is what really determines the difference between simply physiological dependnece and actual addiction. This isn't an addiction forum so my experience changing meds and starting at 1/3 of where I needed to be creates the exact same symptoms, but the undertsanding and need for pain mnagement is what makes getting through those rough weeks and months untill your dose is adjusted to the point of no withdrawal and beter pain relief is very different than what someone dealing with an addiction issue has to deal with. That's hwere the addiction forumwould be a bteter place to get through the next 10 days f your intention isto quit. IF your not going to quit, than stop chewing the OC's because soon you will need the 20 mg pills to create the same effect as chewing a 10mg OC.

The higher your dose goes, the more dependent you become, and the more severe the withdrawal symptoms will be. If you discontine at a rate of 10-20 percent evey
3-5 days, you would limit the worst of the withdrawal but take alittellonger to be completely free of all withdrawal symptoms. Clonodine is the standard withdrawal med used for CP patients, It controls blood pressure and has an anti anxiety an calming effect. But it is hard to do on your own when there are meds and weaker opiates you could step down to and make the process easier.

Personally I would rather feel wrotten for 7 days then feel woozy for 6 weeks. It just depends on what you can tolerate and how you see this problem.
God luck and take cae BTW, very few people have ever died from oiate withdrawal. You may have anxiety that makes you feel like your dieng but heroin addict get thrown in jail all the time and they aren't given any medication, they don't die and it's extremely unlikley you will unless you have serrious heart problems that can't withstand a rise in BP.If that's the case you need a docs supervision but still have to follow his plan. Stay well hydrated and try to do things that take your mid of how you feel.
Take care, Dave