Question by Amanda: How do I stop using pain pills without other drugs like suboxone or methodone?
I have been addicted to pain medication (Hydrocodone, Percocet, a non-narcotic called Tamodol and I have even sniffed oxycotin) for about three years. I cannot afford treatment, so does anyone have any advice for me?
Best answer:
Answer by Kat
Don’t worry about the methadone. This stuff is stronger than the hydrocodone/oxycodone so there is no way you could use it for withdrawal.
The only thing to do is to gradually decrease the doses of what you are currently taking. You can’t stop all at once without being affected from serious side effects. You’ll need time and motivation. You might want to go into rehab for a while to get help through the process.
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DO NOT take either of those, they are also addicting and the withdrawls are much worse.
Honestly, I detoxed myself (kinda, it’s only been two weeks for me) I went through physical withdrawls, while they are not going to be fun what got me through was Aleve. It helped with my body aches and restless legs. Plus I had one 5 hr shot a day to have some energy. Unless you have the option to sleep all day, I didn’t have that option.
I got through the physical part of it, but now dealing with all my messed up emotions. Don’t feel balanced yet. Good luck to you and congrats on wanting to quit.
It partly depends on how much of the medications you take daily, and tramadol is an opioid narcotic (but not a controlled substance).
Also you could be using dangerous amounts of acetaminophen, which is combined with hydrocodone and in many cases oxycodone in medications. Percocet for example normally has 325 mg of acetaminophen (often written APAP). Most drugs with hydrocodone like Vicodin can have a very large amount of acetaminophen.
You may not be able to afford Suboxone but methadone is the cheapest opioid there is. Someone wrote something that made it sound like methadone can’t be used for people dependent on the drugs you are on however methadone can be used.
Methadone is not well understood, the idea of methadone is that since it is an opioid itself it will prevent withdrawal. What makes methadone good is that it has a long half-life and typically a single dose suppressed withdrawal for 24hrs and when methadone is used at higher doses, which is normally required, it tends to have an effect that makes other opioids used with methadone produce less euphoria.
People often think the physical dependence to opioids is addiction (not true) so methadone allows a person to not have to worry about withdrawal so they can focus on treating the addiction and underlying issues.
If you have been taking a very large dose of opioids then it may not be realistic to get off them without methadone or Suboxone. There are also rapid withdrawal protocols that are a short as 3 days.
Aside from just trying to take a little less each day (which rarely works) you could use non-opioid medications to make the withdrawal much more tolerable. Clonidine in particular is very useful for opioid withdrawal, as are benzodiazepines like Valium (diazepam).
Keep in mind that stopping opioids does not “cure” your addiction.
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