percocet and vicodin withdrawal timeline. in days.

I'm new to the forum. My story is similar to alot of the stories I read on here. I have had knee problems, surgeries and basically told I'll have to live with the pain. I was prescribed vicodin for a while. I took them in moderation, never as prescribed, but never 5 at a time or anything like that.

This went on for about 2 months, before I stopped for a month, slight withdrawal, mostly bored, anxious leg pain. No real stomach discomfort. I told my doctor I wasn't thrilled with the vicodin so he prescribed me tramadol. I didn't get the euphoric high, although they did make me happier. I ended up having a seizure from the tramadol after taking the prescribed amount one day.

Since then I was prescribed percocets and vicodin. I dont use at the same time, but I do take more than the prescription which is 2 a day.

I stopped 3 days ago. Basically because the time frame of relief I was getting went from 5 hours to 1. I just figured at that point why bother taking these pills if I'm only going to get 1 hour of relief.

For me the biggest problem was anxiety and panic attacks. I have had them before, rarely, in 35 years, I had probably 6. 1 one from smoking pot, one from taking diet pills, one from dirnking too much and things like that. I never really worried about it too much just avoided those things without problem, but its obvious I have some sort of panic disorder.

With no medication in my system I have really no anxiety or depresion. Howevere this has been different, I'm on Keppra for the seizure, which is a precaution, they were pretty sure I had the seizure from the tramadol, which I took 10 pills that day. I was prescribed 8 a day.

Back and forth as someone with a problem would do I went from vicodin to percs. I decided I wanted to stop a afew days ago. I weened down to 6 percs a day, and then finally quit on monday. So I'm exactly 72 hours in. I personally can deal with the physical symptoms without blinking. Stomach problems leg pain nothing too bad, but for some reason this time around I'm suffering from MASSIVE panic attacks and anxiety.

I went to the er a few days ago because I was manic. My wife called my parents and they came up and offered to take me. I went without question. They told me I have a panic disorder and prescribed me xanax.

The last few days have been rough. The xanax helps me sleep but the boredrom and anxiety seem to make a normal day last for what seems like 10.

Its been 4 months since I was on pills. Not constantly. I would go off for a week at a time here and there. I recently went through a 40 pill perc prescription in 7 days.

Not really sure when its going to end. Today i do feel mroe like my self but still kind of depressed just can't seem to relax and watch tv. If I'm moving and active it helps tremendously.

I suspect my symptoms are minor to some peole but they are tough for me. I'm just looking for some advice on time lines and when i will feel more normal.

Depression and anxiety are so much harder to deal with than physical pain. I dont think i need any type of other medicine to control this I have evey intention of toughing it out, I was just hoping for someone with a similar experience to let me know when it will be back to normal. 72 hours in. today was better than yesterday, but still not feeling right.

I kind of feel like this is getting out of hand and I dont want to rely on pills that make me feel worse when i stop taking them.

Any ideas on time frames for withdrawals for percs and vicodins. when I would take vics which was over 3 weeks ago I would take 8 7.5's a day. The percs are 5mgs. I would take up to 8 or 10 a day but mostly 6.

Any support will help. I've decided I'm done just want to be my happy self. and this gap in my life seems to make me so bored like coming home from work not knowing what to do. If i took pills I would be happy and just be ok sitting around doing nothing. Thats normal, but so wrong.

any advice will help

 

Yes,I have taken much more in the past. The last month or 2 I knew this was getting out of hand, mostly because 2 pills shouldn't only make me feel OK for an hour. so I started stopping. Your timeline has it starting at 36 hours. for me the first day without them was definately not symptom free.

I have been using the xanax only becasuse it helps me sleep and that greatly reduce the leg pain.

I didn't know there were all these other ways to use these drugs and Id ont even want to know, sniffing and snorting. I was eating 2 at a time, and I was pretty miserable with that.

Today is the start of day 4. so its been 84 hours.

Its said on this site everyone is different. I've never had achey arms. Achey legs from the hips to knees to legs I have had that. I find that to be pretty severe but certaintly not something I can't deal with.

Insomnia is VERY bad for me. which is why i have the xanax. The rest of the symtpoms I dont care about, crams, diahiah, nasua, whatever, I just throw up if I have to.

BUT the depression and anxiety that comes along with these withdrawals is something that I'm just not capable of handing easily. I was so depressed on day 2, I dind't know what to do with myself.

Let me try to explain, I came home from work, which was a nightmare to get through the day, and I just walked around hte house. not knowing what to do, and not feeling like doing anything. 4 through 10pm took a month to happen. Is this type of just bored feeling normal?

has anyone else had this happen? any advice would be appreciated, I'm hoping today is a better day.
It should be, day 4 is supposed to be a little bettter I think.

 

The trams were about a month ago. I think for me my situation is a little unique since i was on 3 different types of medicine. Trams, vics, and percs. The trams I was on for the longest. Vicodin here and there, but the percs I only took 60 in the last 4 months or so. I think its a combiination of being on different drugs like this for several months.

I had weeks where I was off them, just to try and keep my tolerance down, and it was always a bad week. thats when I realized I was addicted to these pills.

I dont know exact dates, but the last time I took a tramadol was probably a month ago.
The last time I took a vicodin was 3 or 4 weeks ago.
and once I stopped the vicodin I went through the typical withdrawal, and started the percs for a period of a week, which ended this monday..

So I have been on alot of different types of these pain killers in an attempt to avoid getting addicted to any one in particular but that just doesn't work that way.

The tramadol withdrawal wasn't really a physical withdrawal, just mental torture.

I have to believe most of those are out of my system except the percs that I took up until monday of this week, which puts me at day 4.

Its hard to find people to relate exact experiences to. I realize that. I also realize everyones withdrawals are different, it seems to attack your weakest points. In my opinion the depression and anxiety is the worst. Maybe that would be different had I been on different drugs.

I'm also under alot of stress, and the stress seems to be amplified. I could normally handle it, but during withdrawal its all so much worse. I find myself worried sick about things that I wouldn't normally worry too much about.

I dont have a choice, I realize I have to stop this medicine. I dont have any in the house and I made sure of that before I quit monday. I expected to be misereable for a while.

I dont care what doctors or anyone says. FOr me tramadol had serious addiction issues just like the other pain killers.

Maybe I'm just looking for someone with similar experiences, maybe I'm just looking for a place to vent my frustration. Feeling like a loser for getting myself in this situation. I am truely hoping to feel semi normal at 1 week out, this may be unrealistic.

The only good thing I did do, was I would take 1 medicine at a time, and then stop it. for a month or so, but I would just switch to something else shortly after that. but I think the all added up affect leads for pretty serious withdrawal in the end.

The mornings are worse for me, havin to face the day. After I get done around 5, I seem to relax a little bit but I'm still not myself. Judging from other peoples posts, this is going to take a while.

slaveknowmore: how long were you on, and what were you using.

You couldn't be more right, these pills all make you feel good. When you stop you feel bad basically. I guess until your brain balances out.

One more note, I tried to drink alcohol in the past, I'm not a drinker for the past year because I didn't like the anxiety I got from it, and I figured I'd have some wine to help me relax that made things 10x worse for me. Thats what triggered my panic attacks. I'm not making that mistake again.

Right now is 84 hours in. I'm going to be functional today, still depressed and anxious. I am sleeping though so at least I'm not having the total body aches.

I'm trying to remember when i started taking this medicine, I can't remember exactly when I started taking it regularly, my best guess is 6 months or so. And everytime I would stop I would get VERY moody and agitated and not know why. This forum is explaining alot to me.

This time its differeent because I dont plan on going back, so I know its for good. So maybe my mind is just making it harder for me to accept this.

The ONLY thing that helps me is solid excersize. It gives me a brief sense of accompolishment and lets me relax afterwards. Today I plan to get several things done.

read soem posts about caffeine. I drink alot of coffee in the morning. Maybe thats why my mornings are the worse for me, after my coffee I usually get very anxious which is not normal. I'll have to cut that back.

I really appreciate anyone who is just willing to talk to me about this. my wife doesn't understand.

If it was a perfect world, I would take a pain pill when I needed it only on a day when I am hurting so bad I'm limping, but thats just not possible for me. I wish they took the pain away, but didn't make you feel so happy and energetic. thats the addictive part.

 

in regards to the last 2 posts. thank you so much for sharing some information with me. I'm 4 full days in.

I never had any leg cramps. I'm not sure what that means. I get bone and muscle pain in legs hips and back. sleeping is rough because my ass hurts which ever side i lay on which is so wierd, because i have the most comfortable bed imaginable.

Today I took some peoples advice on here to get some excersize. except when i started doing things, I noticed immediate relief from my panic and empty feelings. I started at 9am and just sat down, i'm so physically exhausted i'm actually too tired to worry about my opiate problems.

I mentioned the mornings were worse for me. I think thats because I used to take 1or 2 pills in the morning almost like a ritual. Maybe that in combination with my coffee intake which is excessive amplifies my anxiety. That was no different this morning. The only thing different was I decided to take on several projects I needed to do, painting, pipe fitting, drilling holes to run new wires. nonstop movement. It REALLY helped me get through the day.

I wasn't expecting to have such a good day on day 4, but then again i didn't sit around and worry about it.

If anything comes out of my posting and communicating on this forum I hope someone is able to do what I did today and have a good day during what is an awful process.

I also understand things like meth are much worse, I can't imagine worse, since this is the worst I've felt, but working myself beyond exhaustion seemed to relax me somehow.

So day 13 was your turning point. I really hope it happens before that, but I dont want to be unrealistic.

Tomorrow I offered to help a friend move an entire house. That will take me 10 hours of nonstop carrying lifting. I'm not in bad shape, but that will be enough to put me out for the night.

UNFORTUNATELY. I did take 2 xanax today. the helped me in the morning. I have no doubt I will have to ween off these, and I'm not looking forward to it, but I have been on them less than a week so I'm hoping that will be managable. One thing at a time.

You know what the wierdest thing for me is. I have been off pills for days before, and had physical symptoms just never the depression or anxiety. I think this is because I have no intention of getting my prescription refilled.

My knee pain is strange. I can workout all day for 7 days straight have no issues, then there are days when i'm in so much pain at work just sitting at my desk I cant concentrate. Which is how I ended up on pain control.

Percs vics tramadol, they all do the same thing for me. However I was taking too many, and they weren't doing enough pain control, but were at least making me happy enough to deal with things. thats how I got sucked in, I'm sure i'm not alone.

Talking about this on here is really helping me. I never would have thought to get some physical activity during this. Since tomorrow is day 5. I should be able to start improving mentally....

wtf though. what a mess these things can cause.

 

So I took the time to look up my original script dates, it dates back to december, so I was on them longer than 6 months. more like 8 months. However I did start and stop them severeal times, take 2 week breaks here and there. That shoudl help me some.

I guess I'm hoping I dont have anything like paws. I was off and on them for 8 months, I didn't just take them steady. I did take them the last 2-3 months pretty steady. I remember going on for a month then going off for 2 weeks in the beginning. Withdrawals were minimum. It just sort of built up from there.

Time will tell. Today is the start of day 5. I slept fine, but again I took xanax. I think I'm going to lay off that tonight and see how I do on my own. If I can't sleep I can always take one.

physically I feel fine. I can't say I dont have any cravings.

I can say I used to drink quite a bit. I stopped that because I relalized I was getting older and my hangovers were lasting 2 days instead of 1. when i quit drinking, on weekends, the first month or so, I had NO idea what to do with myself when I wasn't drinking. Eventually that went away and I found ways to entertain myself sober. I was a weekend drinker for 14 years. In fact someone asked me when the last time I didn't drink on a weekend and I honestly couldn't answer, I thought about it and it was back before college, so I knew I needed to quit that. Everyone I know still drinks on weekends, I quit about a year ago.

But in regards to paws. I dont konw if it applies to alcohol or not, but I know there was a void on a friday niight at about 5pm. no physical withdrawals, but just that "What am I supposed to do now" feeling.

Took several months to go away and before I felt fine at social events. but it did pass.
I wasn't drinking every day. so using opiates every day for a long period will take more time to balance you out.

I have also been reading other peoples threads, my god, I didn't even know that there were this many types of drugs. I knew drugs were bad, I knew pain pills could cause problems. I was prescribed them took them, and realized they made me feel good.

I personally dont understand this, maybe someone who isn't an addict or knows can explain it to me.

THey say people who are prescribed pain medicine most of them dont abuse it. Most people take it to control their pain for years and its never a problem. I just dont see how thats possible when you take them they make you feel mentally and physically good. How can you NOT just increase your usage over time and slowly get addicted.

It almost seems impossible to em, and I'm wondering if there is just something in people like myself's brain that is more suseptible to the highs and lows of these drugs.

I had a friend who had a serious injury and was prescribed pain medicine, he told me he didn't take them because he didn't like the way it made him feel. this is why I bring it up, I could honestly say I love the way they make me feel.

as always any information would be greatly appreciated. I'm off to start a new day. wish me luck.

 

day 5 came and went. woke up still felt pretty miserable. Better than day 4 though. I worked so hard physically to keep my mind occupied and away from the mental anxiety and anguish I was pretty sore.

I did offer to help a friend move. THat went from 9 until 4pm. UNFORTUNATELY AND THIS IS A BIG UNFORTUNATELY right around 2pm I did something to my back. I have had this before, I was carrying a couch up stairs that turn, twisted the wrong way and got a twinge in my lower back. I think its a nasty muscle pull at least thats what i am hping it is.

I definately had this before and it took a few days to go away but I had to take it easy. Just sucks because the one thing that was working for me was doing active things, now I lost that pretty much.

Today is day 6. Sore back. my own fault. pain is under control with aleve and stuff like that. Not worried about relapsing. Still worried about getting my mind straight.

I do feel alot of the wd symptoms have minimized. I dont have such a doom and glooom feeling. I dont feel normal. but I feel ALOT better than when I started this post. My problem isn't comparable to alot of people on here, but wd is no picnic even if you're taking your stuff exactly as prescribed and not doing anything different than swallowing them.

god damnit though i was just about to turn a corner, and out goes a muscle in my back. now I gotta lay on the couch for a whole day, which is what iw as doing when i started this and half the reason I hate wd more than anything.

If I know myself I will probably just take some advil, use bengay and go move small things that aren't going to cause anymore trouble. but we'll see.

OH one more thing to add to this group. I was a smoker here and there. when i was more anxious and nervous than anything day 1 and 2 I was smoking more cigs. that made everything alot worse, i stopped that immediately. maybe thats something for someone to take away.

If you're a smoker, quit that before you try anything, it seems to add to already intensified anxiety.
just a tip. hope it helps someone.

 

yeah I figured as much. Its been a week today. I'm tapering back the xanax i was prescribed. all of my symptoms are gone except the anxiety. and I think thats more from the xanax at this point. I'm really suprised I have this PAWS after an 8 month run. Of that time I only had maybe 2-3 months of continous use. It proves my theory though that some people are more prone to addiction than others. I hate that I like this shit. either way. at this point i'll be measuring my improvements in weeks now rather than days.

If I didn't hurt my back which is unrelated to any of my pain mediciations I would have worked myself to exhaustion and felt great today, instead I'm sitting around dwelling.

part of me is glad this is so difficult. If it was easy i wouldn't mind refilling my script. the fact that it is so hard is a blessing.

 

Its funny you mentioned that, because I'm looking back on my life and after my first knee surgery I really was depressed for a few weeks after. I wonder if it was the effects of the pain pills. I really wasn't on much maybe for a month. This was about 4 years ago. After the knee thing I really didn't take anything for years. but yes this is somethign I have experienced before and not realized it at the time.

I think for me I'm really going to limit caffeine and other stimulants as much as possible during the day and hope that helps with sleep.

It went away last time, it will go away this time. I just wish I could fast forward a few weeks. but wow hurting your back during all this stuff really makes things worse. i can't excersize and release those endorphins. that is true relief for me.

I really need to take it easy today. I have to try and find something very light to do that takes my mind off all my problems after work.

mainline sounds like you've been through it, how long did it take for you to really see major results.?

gotaproblem24 added 484 Minutes and 48 Seconds later...

today is day 8. for some reason i have horrible anxiety. pretty insane actually. I slowed down my xanax use quite a bit the last few days, I wonder if this is why.

I was starting to feel somewhat normal over the weekend, so I figured I could just lay off them. I wasnt going crazy with them, and i have only been on them for 10 days. I took one this morning to take the edge off. helped alot.

Could the withdrawal from the xanax be happening to me already? only after 10 days. That is a little insane. I did use the xanax fri, sat and sunday through out the day, and then to sleep.

Yesterday I cut my dosage in half. and today I'm only taking .5mg in the morning, and another .5 to sleep, I'm refusing to take any during the day. If I am experiencing anxiety from the xanax then i am very suprised as I wasn't on it for any extended period of time but I was on it regularly.

I am on anti seizure medicine, so I dont think I need to worry about that. but wow, I guess I'm suprised.

I'll have to taper a bit slower off these. unless this anxiety is still related to the original withdrawal.

hard to tell. either way I'm going to get moving around a little seems to help. I hope day 9 is better than day 8, I felt like I took 2 steps back today.

 

thanks for the tips! I'm on day 9 I think from the pain pills. no trouble there except the depression and anxiety. I know dropping the xanax is taxing me but i dont care i want off. I went from 3mgs a day for 4 days. down to 2.5 mgs. two ROUGH days there. now i've been on 1.5mgs for 2 days. I'm taking it for 1 more day, i'll take 1 or 1.5mgs then i'm done. i dont care what i go through. i' will have been on it for 2 weeks at that point, so if I have to suffer for a few days so be it.

I got the back undercontrol. It hurts, but i can still do things. I didn't carry anything too heavy. I hurt it moving 100lb furniture up stairs for 8 hours straight. then i did the same thing the next day thinking it was healed. stupid i know, but I needed to get my mind of it. the only relief i got was working myself to exhaustion.

Honestly I dont feel horrible. i have anxiety but its under control i guess. I dont like how fast i developed a tolerance to this shit. it took months and months to have any type of increase in dosage in pain pills this happened in like 5 days. I figure better to just suffer this weekend and hopefully it will be over.

I figured out I had too many stimulants during a wd. I cut back on all of them and I think thats helping.

this forum is helping. I think if I stop tomorrow i'll have a bad few days but i can't see having it 9 or 10 days out if I was only on it for 2 weeks. but I have never been on any of these before.

I wish i didn't take them. but I did need sleep to work, and i wanted to keep workign during this wd.

I went to a chiropractor, a friend that i trust, she squared away my back. the side that was effed up is fine, nwo the other side hurts but its muscles, she said I had did somethign to my sacriolitic joint and she popped it back. the other side hurts, but its not bad and its from everything getting back into position.

I found some projects I can do without having to lift anything, got some painting to do, and going to drylock the basement walls. should keep me busy through the weekend.

I think i'm through the worst of the opiate business. I just have boredrom now. I think thats going to take a while. I'm still kind of just wandering around trying to figure out what to do with my time. I never had that problem when i was on them.

I guess thats normal. gotta stay moving. thats the key for me.

gotaproblem24 added 4 Minutes and 25 Seconds later...

oh and I dropped nicotine during this too, so that is yet another thing I threw into the mix. smoking caused me to get more anxiety so i quit. which is something i wanted to do, but i got the nicotine wd's thrown in there to stack up. i'm on day 5 of that. so worst is over there too.

My thoughts are if i'm going to suffer, might as well suffer as fast as possible and get it all overwith at once, so I can get back to normal. luckily there is LOTS of yard work to do. my goal is 2 weeks, someone mentioned at 2 weeks I should start to slowly lose the bored empty feeling. I'm not seeing day to day differences, but week to week I think I will notice. just from reading my old posts its helping me see my changes.