Need help getting off morphine

PainsofXavior · 10-21-2009, 03:16 PM

I have had Sickle Cell SC joint pains majority of my life when I lived in Illinois where the weather was cold and elements were always changing. I used to have to go to the hospital 2-4 times a year in the drastic changing of seasons from summer to fall and winter. My doctor prescribed me morphine 30mg about 4.5 yeas ago for my major joint pains, and I end up having to take them everyday because of my aches from Sickle Cell every other day and the meds end up not having a strong effect after a few years and I end up having to take up to 10 30mg tablets a day...ye I know. But I got sick of having to take them all the time and dealing with withdraw that will end up putting me into a Sickle Cell Pain Crisis and end up in the hospital so I moved to Houston and the warm weather has helped me a lot with my S.C. pain and I have weened off them all the way down to 1.5 pills a day and my doc down here gave me Vicodine 300mg to get off Morphine but its been so rough for me to ween off that last 1.5 pill of morphine to the Vicodine and now I have been trying to replace it but I am still getting withdraw symptoms! What is the best way to ween off without so much w/d pain..please help because I never wanted to have to take meds my whole life...

denon · 10-22-2009, 12:49 AM

Sorry to hear all about your problems. What we usually tell people is to taper slowly down to a very low dose and go cold turkey from there. It sounds like maybe you tapered too fast down to the 1.5 pills a day. Make sure you spread out the dose over the day and not take it all in a single dose. You may want to consider increasing your dose up a little until the w/d's go away and stay there for a week or so, then start dropping 10% every week or few days. If you start having w/d's, try to stick it out a little while and see if your body adjusts. Stay on that dose a little longer and then try going down 10% again. Towards the end it seems that the tapering takes a little longer. You may have to crumble pills up and estimate the dose to achieve the 10% decrease. It took me the same amount of time to drop from 60 mg/day of Oxy down to 10 mg/day than it did to go from 10 mg/day down to 2.5 mg/day when I went cold turkey. I had w/d's almost the whole time I was detoxing.

I'm not sure how the vicodins may help. I've seen an equivalence chart somewhere that indicated what a certain amount of one drug is equivalent to another drug. But, I don't remember where I saw it.

You should also talk to the prescribing physician and tell them about your symptoms and see if they have any ideas.

The trick is GO SLOW!

PainsofXavior · 10-22-2009, 12:28 PM

Thanks for the advice Ive been going down real slow for the past 3.5 months now and im down to 1.5 tablets a day. I feel I came a long way from where I was at 4 months ago, but I will try breaking the 1.5 down through out the day and see how that goes. Is It normal when im going through w/d to yawn alot till the point my eyes are teared up...and my pelvic joint area aches/and like a burning sensation all day long...drives me crazy! I just want to be clean from meds and normal again

reachout · 10-22-2009, 12:36 PM

Hi There

The yawning comes because on the higher doses of morphine, the respiratory system is very depressed. As you lowered the dose, the respiratory system began to "wake up" and yawning is a part of that wake up process. As I withdrew from Ocycodone, I realized that I had not yawned in years! As I tapered down and began yawning, the yawns were only half yawns... very irritating. When the first big, complete yawn came, I was actually excited about it. Chuckles.

I agree with Denon about spreading out that dose of Morphine over the course of the day. As time goes by, try to start strtching the morning dose before you take it. At some point meld it with the afternoon dose. Just keep stretching the time out and eventually the time to step off of it will come. The farther along we go inthe taper, the harder the cuts can become. Take your time.

Wishing you well
reach

Amsterdam · 10-24-2009, 03:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PainsofXavior

Thanks for the advice Ive been going down real slow for the past 3.5 months now and im down to 1.5 tablets a day. I feel I came a long way from where I was at 4 months ago, but I will try breaking the 1.5 down through out the day and see how that goes. Is It normal when im going through w/d to yawn alot till the point my eyes are teared up...and my pelvic joint area aches/and like a burning sensation all day long...drives me crazy! I just want to be clean from meds and normal again

Yes, yawning is very normal, I remember doing it about every 10 seconds it seemed.

I was on and off pain meds from oxy, fentanyl, morphine, etc so many times I finally got a system down that worked for me, and it was to do a fast w/d with a very short supply of suboxone. I hated tapering, and when I made my final decision to end my dependence on pain mgmt I had them write me a 7 day supply of suboxone.

I've also had experience with suboxone and how horrible that one can be to wean from so I'd prepare myself to be a bit miserable for a week, but at least I'd be able to get out of bed and be somewhat functional. My suboxone use was 24hrs after last opiate dose dissolve a full 8mg, then down to 4mg next day, and then 2mg next couple days, etc.