Journal - Here she goes again (Withdrawals)....any thoughts for her?

Sparrowbeans · #1 09-11-2009, 03:56

My friend needs to be clean for Nov 19. She will be traveling to stay in a remote location in the mountains for several days and helping on a farm.
She is scared shitless, to put it delicately. She decided not to let the drug use stop her from doing the things she would like to do, go places she would have normally enjoyed, if it were say, seven years ago...
She has been through withdrawals countless times, dozens, who knows...but only from lack of resources while living in remote location with a hatred for doctor visits/anxiety so strong it saved her from too much shopping....only really once recently was it for the purpose of quitting.
It's been everything opiate like, mostly oxy....whatever. But as of late it's been a bizarre disgusting trial with opium. She'd WD'd from oxy when she moved 'back home' and stayed off it successfully for 3 months, had a few T1s on hard days; and with the luck of the gods....the depression and nervous breakdowns no more frequent than what she was basically born with and had before the drugs.

The opium was a fair discovery in her new town, she thought, and access was limited, so use every 2 days, or maybe 2 days on, a few days off, shit like this, what could go wrong.
As it turns out the effects last for about 2 days. The half life is much different than the pills or heroin...
Now she gets withdrawals as soon as 2 days are up.
Throughout the fall, it was either just go get some and feel fine, or else go through a day or two of WDs, and then get some the day she had to work or had a social engagement or volunteer work, whatever....just peachy. Right.

But it got pretty bad. Can't make seed tea, certainly can't pack enough seeds and bring them with her on trip. And can't get pods or opium or anything more 'compact' to bring. That, and she has major anxiety around doctors for whatever stupid reason, and knows a script for anything would just get used up ahead of schedule anyways. Experience proof enough for that.
Tried CWE on T1s for WDs but doesn't do well with caffeine from even 4 pills. Plus it does next to NOTHING for coming off opium, unlike say, a short spell with oxy....(major piece of advice, never take T1s during the night while withdrawing....the RLS will magnify itself like 10fold and you'll have the most irritating schizophrenic obsessive speedy sick feeling dreams...lol the caffeine is the culprit no doubt)

Anyway, whatever, she doesn't have to have advice so much as she's just scared and wanted to tell somebody, seeing as nobody in her family or none of her friends know, and her ex junky boyfriend seems to not be able to tolerate any talk of it or see her sick....understandable, right? Maybe.

WDs haven't started but the fear has....struggling to keep it positive. She's used to suffering (chronic pain problems, a jacked up body, won't go into detail here) and has a tendency to catch Noro viruses in a bad way, similar intensity to WDs, and survived through those sweats and shitting of onesself and writhing around in bed; and still kept chipper and surprisingly placid..... but it's just something about the repetition of the whole thing, knowing that this isn't a flu or a bug, and the urges to go to more extremes to get something while in withdrawal.
She has all the vitamins, amino acids, meal replacement drinks, sleep aids, clonidine, all that jazz. Even baclofen and some benzos.
But this is it, she has to really do it now, she can't do it when she goes up north. This wasn't supposed to happen again....

Near 7 years of use, this might be stupid and crazy to hope for. But at the same time the summer was surprisingly successful. Maybe it was the complete change of environment, she doesn't know for sure....

I guess she wants to know if anyone thinks a fairly...short term....opium addiction can be 'resolved' on a physical level by Nov 19 or if the WDs are typically longer than for say, oxy, or something....because that would make sense unfortunately.
Or is she just batshit and daft.

On the plus side, she hopes spending time in an unfamiliar and beautiful location immediately after will somehow make it more successful. She knows one thing, she can't be still getting sick while she is there, at least certainly not going through the worst of it.

I_8_my yellow crayon · #2 09-11-2009, 09:59

Hi sparrowbeans,

I see your from canada, so am I. Welcome to the forum. Since someone whos isn't you said not so much advise, Swim is going to tell swiy a couple things to help her understand why what is happening is.

First of all, the opium. The reason the withdrawal is so bad, well, part of it, is because if swiy is using opium then it is worse then prescription drugs. Because raw opium has a cocktail of opiates in it. To name a few, if swiy is using opium then she is using, morphine, codeine, papaverine, thebaine, noscapine and many more in trace amounts. But they all count in the end. Some are longer acting on the system and some arn't. That is why the withdrawal seems a little worse then prescription drugs. Even things swiy regularly eats can change how some of these alkaloids work. All these active alkaloids have their own properties of withdrawal.

Now for the tylenol 1. Caffeine is a no no when in withdrawal. When in withdrawal, remember, stimulants equal= bad. Caffeine= stimulant.

Here's a few tips

For atleast a week, swiy should avoid all caffeine, chocolate, sugers, pastas, and try to include some vitamins.

Bananas and oranges are very helpfull. Maybe get a bottle of centrum vitamins if swiy is not interested in fruits at this point. Bananas are a good source of potassium.

Pseudoephedrine helps with the constant urge to urinate ( it has also been successful in treating stress incontinence by increasing the pressure (tension) exerted by the muscles of the bladder neck and the urethra, which helps retain the urine within the bladder.) but again be carefully when using the above med.

Antihistamine works great for irritable and restlessness.

try to get out of the house go for a walk. Because exercise is another great weapon in the battle of withdrawal. Your body produces endorphins which is also what the pain meds do to a larger degree. So by producing your own will help your body re balance its self. And if you have access to sauna they are good helps you sweet out alot of the toxins in your body.

over the counter dxm (its in cough syrup) It helps with cravings irritable problems that occur. It also helps with stomach discomfort, there's been investigations that it can help with withdrawal of pain meds. It is NMDA receptor antagonists. So it can be abuse and produce symptoms such as those of a hallucinations.

As said before,Swim cannot express the importance of the vitamins. These should be started immediatly. Swiy should get centrum, if not available, something with Zinc, phosphorus, magnesium, and copper. Also, vitamin b6.

It wouldn't be a bad idea to see a doctor and claim anxiety due to family issues or a breakup(lie) to get benzodiazepine. Normally swim wouldn't condone lieing to a physician, but if swiy doesn't want to be red flagged as a drug abuser, then this is the way to go. Also benzo's arn't always a good idea for everyone because they themselves are or can be addictive for some. But, they have helped swim in the past. Swim didn't lie to his doctor, he told him the truth, the doctor prescribed diazepam, because of its long half-life. So doctors do prescribe these for opiate withdrawal. Also, in canada, the doctor visit is free.

Keep in mind, these ar just a few tips for at home detox. Swim knows how hard it is. Swim always went to a doctor himself because it just makes it so much easier. The restless legs will start to let up after 4 nights. The severe cravings will take a couple weeks. The lesser cravings can and may last for months, years, life. Depends. It will take a week or so for swiy to come around. If swiy has any q"s just pm me. Take care, sorry swiy is sick.

To the rep comment, yes, SOME,of it is, some is the thomas detox, others are basic knowledge, swim was too lazy to type it all out, he remembered this article said everything he needed to say.

I didn't know if I should post a link to another site,everything the op needs to know is here anyways. The rest of the article is whining.

Reputation Comments on this post:

	the full article of the quotes you use is from steadyhealth.com, maybe you could suggest this to the OP
	Helpful advice
	Thankyou for reading, it is motivating in itself, and for the advice!

Sparrowbeans · #3 10-11-2009, 08:18

Okay! Thanks for that.....good advice....this may be long because last night was quite an experience, plus she has some things set up for this detox that she will explain....

My lovely friend is already taking a great deal of the advice mentioned above, so that is good...
She has l-tyrosine with potassium, ashwaganda and B-6 in it.
She has an amazing expensive calcium/potassium/magnesium/zinc/other shit formula for osteoporosis patients (ahahaha what a dirty little thief - no, actually her mom tells her to help herself...) and she used to use it for her muscle/bone pain and sleep/relaxation (that is NOT from withdrawal but from having a busted stretched out spinal cord) and it works amazingly....very good for muscle cramps and bone aches. Very very effective....better than tylenol, or to take with opiates when for pain even...makes them work better (not to increase the high, but for pain)

Vitamins - here's a tip, guys and gals....get PRENATAL vitamins, I'm not shitting you. So much easier on the stomach. And a bit heavier of a dose of things, while not overkill (like doing something like taking three vitamin pills, and wrecking your kidneys or whatever lol)
They are perfectly safe to take if you are male or not pregnant, they won't give you titties, don't worry....and the extra hit of nutrition in them is perfectly suited to lying in bed not eating for days

Anyway, she always takes them, and certainly now that she is starting WDs will continue to do so. Always with a bit of food....

Mr. Yellow crayon, thanks for the opium explanation (and yes, all the other information for me to sort through!!)....about all the different chemicals and different WDs involved with opium....unfortunately this may mean her goal date of Nov 19, being free and clear, may be....I dunno, maybe risky to hope for.....(for physical symptoms being gone that is)
I have researched the Thomas recipe and threads on this forum about detoxing, so this information led to her purchase/collection of many helpful things already...

My friend here has benzos already, saved up a little collection of them from friends. Clonazepam, ativan, a valium (bad idea, last time she took valium had paradoxical effects and had a nervous breakdown, kicked a door and cried after burning food, ran upstairs and hid in the bath tub, felt suicidal and batshit....doctors claim it's just the body dealing with an unfamiliar substance, that that effect would go away....was prescribed for muscle spasms originally and did NOTHING - but would anyone risk taking it again? Dunno bout that....)
Anyway, wait, I'll write out a list here...I think she is well armed.

Clonazepam, ativan
Baclofen (known to help the stretching and yawning associated with WDs, can help chills in some people; known to be effective in reducing cravings for opiates, alcohol, and stimulants....interesting stuff, look it up if anyone wants to know more; it's prescribed to her for muscle spasms and usually used for MS, but the research on it is growing)
Clonidine
The l-tyrosine, multivitamin, valerian/passionflower/chamomile teas
The mineral capsules (calcium, mag, potassium, copper, vit C in them, whatever the heck)
Black cohosh (could help chills, can make a girl drowsy too)
Toradol (anti-inflammatory stronger than naprosyn or ibuprofen, prescribed for pain)
Tylenol, benadryl(finds it doesn't do much but its there anyway) and sudafed (stimulant, gives her weird 'head-fuck'.....but...it's there...lol)
DXM - yes, she has DXM, but finds it absolutely abolishes ALL possibility of sleep and leaves her heart racing and head pounding, plus used to get hives from it. Woo hoo fun! So she will probably leave it alone because the other night was FAILURE with that stuff haha....
Loperamide (um....it just doesn't ferrrreaking work...serious....even when opiate naive in the past, it...doesn't work....stops up NOTHING...at high doses, and then even higher doses....any good reason for this? Oh well she bought more anyway, what the hell....after reading some claims that it helped with somebody's chills, though she is skeptical)

So now for the good stuff

Ooh this is exciting....
First of all, my dear friend had half her normal 'dose' of opium 2 days ago, hoping on some sort of impulsive random way it might 'ease' her into WDs somewhat, as opposed to feeling high for 2 days.
The WDs started 12 hours after that dose.
She did not sleep that night.
She did not sleep LAST night.

But oh my, was last night FUN!
I kid you not...it was enlightening....
Maybe she has weird batshit brain chemistry, but I think everyone should try some of this stuff....
She was trying to hold off swallowing ANY of the pills, save for vitamins/minerals and food, at the start of this. Save them for when things really kick in, you know..
Well shit KICKED in alright, and quick....the RLS..ugh and the sweats. The sweats are always first....

She got her old MP3 player out that has a lot of relaxing, uplifting, sometimes downright trippy, but mostly beautiful music on it and started listening while lying wide awake in bed well after midnight, or 2 or 3.....

First of all, she noticed something very interesting. She would take all the agitation in her legs and just 'kick' around to the beat of the music. It would have to be a faster beat, while still 'relaxing' music to work well, like not loud and grating, but...fast...because the legs liked that as well as the head/nerves....
And she thinks it had a similar effect to getting out and exercising, it passed the time enormously well, and it actually relieved ALL symptoms of RLS for periods of time. She found herself lying still eventually, after a bit of 'dancing' haha.......

Very very interesting, very relieving.....would reccommend everyone in a similar situation look for some music they find very pleasurable yet relaxing, and give it a shot, get an MP3 player, set up a good playlist on it, and make sure the headphones/sound quality is good.
She also noticed, however, that the music, now without drugs in her, caused some accentuation of chills (you know how normally anyone can get chills from a good song, well, it was like...an additive effect)

I don't know if this is worth trying to explain, but she found if she layed on her back and focused very strongly, that she could almost 'channel' the chills into a numbing 'buzz' instead, and the feeling of 'hot/cold' would subside after seconds. This could only be done with the appropriate music, and not done at all without music. So she just kept the earphones in all night haha....

The effect was borderline outer body experience, like she found she would 'lose' her body for some time, which is quite effing nice when your body is doing all sorts of things you'd like to be absent for.....it took a lot of focus, so she fears it may not be that easy once symptoms get stronger, but she's sure as hell going to try, and keep it up for lots of practice before they come on

Let me explain tho....she grew up experiencing bouts of absolutely mind altering pain (reason any use of opiates began in the first place). I mean mind altering just unfuckingbelievable, half of the experience would be sitting there wondering if she was real anymore.....no pain in WDs has ever compared to this so she is well prepared and the reason is that as a child she learned a lot of 'mind over matter' sort of techniques to deal with the pain, because nobody effing believed her, ever, til her teens...
It was like this mantra of 'this is just pain, just a sensation, it is not good or bad, it's just a thing' and then just like with the music, kind of focusing til she 'buzzed' out into a dissociative like ...state..I guess...
Really odd, I can't explain how to DO it, but once you work on it, you understand..
I know later in her life, encounter with astral projection techniques she noticed were basically very similar to what she was doing (though she is not really a believer in that itself), so if anyone wanted to give it a shot, I believe there are some discussions on this forum about that, and there are lots of online resources....

It's a great way to get to sleep, but again, she does not know if this will be all that effective once she is enveloped in several hundred body sensations involved with WD making it difficult to focus....

Another thing to mention, is that doing this with the music/chill stuff, sometimes she was 'interrupted' by what can only be explained as intense but brief euphoria.... it was very spiritual, really, and very nice. She has never found the time to pass so quickly, nor found her head in such a positive place during the start of WDs ever before, til doing these things....
She finally took a half a .1mg clonidine, a half a baclofen and half a clonazepam at 8am after her 2nd night of absolutely NO sleep lol...ehghh....and continued with the music. She does not reccomend this combination to anyone, it is ill-advised....but she did it....
Fell asleep and slept for 8 hours straight which is a downright effing miracle for even just a day and a half into WDs in her experience...

Woke up feeling the same peace and positivity she had before falling asleep. Which is another miracle.....but she's also been praying lots, sort of a reflex response to the fear she began with...who knows if that helped too, right?
She can say with all certainty that even the very first day of WDs she has always always ever only woken up feeling like a slimy ball of death, everything smelling weird and wrong, everything looking too bright or too dark, and the very air she was breathing seemed to be saturated with poison, dread, and pure evil; anxiety, agitation.....
This is the first time she has ever ever got to this stage feeling quite the opposite and she is very very thankful, and pumped up....

I apologize if she sounds absolutely batshit but if this stuff can help even one person find some sort of 'psychological' or maybe like...'psychic' i guess sort of coping mechanisms she will be thrilled.

She has also noticed a strange motivation from posting here, like she knows so many people may read this and feels almost morally 'scared' that if she doesn't get through this she will make people feel hopeless or discouraged, and it is strange to have that feeling override the thoughts that come into her head romanticizing finding and using the drug and giving up, but it, for now, is indeed helpful, and she hopes to death she will do this and be another example of success (she read Dickon's thread of going through the methadone WDs, and there was one other if her memory is correct, but she hasn't got to it...)

Random observation/question - it's a day and a half in and she is already getting stomach cramping/runs....this has always been a symptom that held off til the 3rd day or later, it's always just been chills and negative mental effects/serious depression/anxiety for the first couple days before....is this normal for many people, or is it more likely she ate something wrong? It was a bit of a surprise to get up this afternoon to find her insides on fire lol

Sparrowbeans added 11 Minutes and 27 Seconds later...

I just wanted to add something I learned recently, for those using clonidine and having trouble with the exhaustion/low BP....

Apparently drinking beetroot juice (I would assume eating beets could be just as well) and taking a bath in a very strong epsom salt solution, like dumping a KG or more into the water, for about 20 minutes is helpful.
My friend can attest to the epsom salt bathing helping, from past experiences.

Sparrowbeans added 466 Minutes and 7 Seconds later...

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I dunno if this one is going to merge into that huge long post I wrote already, but I am so restless I don't even want to try to sleep....and I don't want this to make the above (or this) post look so massive that nobody wants to read it haha....
Oh well, we'll give it a shot.

My friend is finding she keeps going back and forth from shortness of breath to breathing deeply to shortness....it's weird.
She is having a lot of trouble with stomach cramping and burning.
Tomorrow will be the 2.5th day for her, of WDs...
That's good right, many times in recent months she would normally have picked something up definitely by just at the end of the first day, or morning of the 2nd at worst. Even that would be hard to do, because it would feel disgusting to get up, get dressed for the cold outdoors, walk to the bus stop.....so that would be the only reason she ever made it as long as a day if ever....

The discomfort is odd, she doesn't want to try and lie down and listen to music like last night. She feels somewhat relieved to scramble around in her bed and do things, sign in here, read, listen to something chatty on the radio, whatever.....try and eat...
She has been sucking on vitamin C candies. Helps with everything smelling weird and the weird taste she gets in her mouth while detoxing.

She ate one meal today hoping maybe her stomach would piss off if it had something to do. It was hummus and whole rye bread. Just caused gas, made it worse, now with the cramping from before combined with that and being hungry again (everything seems to move out of the stomach so fast on WDs) it's just very irritating and uncomfortable.

She had some tea (herbal, not any caffeine type) but finds a strong aversion to drinking any quantity of fresh, regular old water, plain. It feels gross in the stomach and bowels, churns...
She normally drinks 3 litres of water a day and even more when taking opium, it seems to dehydrate her.
Nausea kicking in...
It's a struggle because no doubt water facilitates the body in so many ways, and especially during detox.

This thing seems to be messing up her night and days, her sleep patterns. It's one thing to have a choppy messed up sweaty uncomfortable sleep, like often experienced; but it's been solid awake all night, and pretty solid sleep during the day so far.

The nice thing is despite everything, she seems to feel happy still....something about last night really kicked her brain in its ass this time. It's never ever gone this way before....she feels positive and the dreadful dark dirty empty thing surrounding and saturating her that she normally experiences during WDs seems entirely absent.
It's a good good good thing, she hopes she can keep it going. It feels as though maybe she's tricked her brain chemicals significantly with the music, the something, whatever it was and perhaps the dopamine and serotonin levels are not downregulated as much as should normally occur, and maybe the brain is even making some progress with endorphins prematurely here....
It's strange and wonderful, and in the entire 7 past years she has never even once experienced this.
She can say that she improved her diet profoundly in the last 4 months. Whole foods, vegan, lots of nutritional supplementation. No doubt this has superbly prepared the brain and body for this unlike the state she might have been in before....it has more resilience, more resources, something; it's a possible theory. However, if you were to ask her in a couple days how her mind is feeling, it could be a different story so perhaps she ought not to get ahead of herself lol....

She is rocking back and forth and shifting and twisting at all times; not a still moment.
Hey, she's burning lots of calories, she'll come out of this with a nicer figure, what else is there to conclude :P

It might get dreadful when the body starts asking for sleep and can't get it....
But then she will swallow a number of pharmaceuticals once again, to deal with some of the symptoms, and put on those headphones again.

Another tip: Buy a scented candle or plug in air freshener if you find everything smells revolting, sour, you smell the sweat coming out of your body is unusual, your breath stinks, from the detoxing, all that...
Make sure it is a subtle, non nauseating sort of scent that you are sure you can handle, and make your room smell nice. It helps my friend, it may help others too if their heads are bothered by the stink in the same way....
In fact her very very very first signal that her body was going into withdrawal would be that her fingers would sweat and the sweat would smell a very specific way (she lays with her hands under her cheek when she sleeps, by habit, so it's inevitable lol)
Odd observation, yes....but only recently did it occur to her to buy scented candles and room sprays and whatnot...

BUT....be careful.... rather unfavourable walking into your house or somebody else's, and smelling all those things that you used to scent your surroundings while you were in WDs; can bring on some nasty triggering memories or make you relive sort of the negative 'aura' you may have experienced at that time. This is what my friend advises. Get something unusual, that you don't recognize, that hopefully anyone you know doesn't use in their house, and that you don't care if you'll ever smell again after the WDs...

Anyway, this is again absurdly long and she needs to go do something else cuz her body is protesting unreasonably to lying on her side here making sure I type everything properly

Reputation Comments on this post:

	Thank you for sharing all the info and swiys story, and taking the time to type everything out
	Thanks - that's a really interesting and thought-provoking post

cooki · #4 10-11-2009, 08:58

Sparrowbeans,

Swim feels compelled to tell swiy that swim is finding reading your friend's posts amazingly inspirational, and that swim believes this is the most articulate, insightful, empowering journal of withdrawals on the whole of DF. That you can still manage to be thinking about giving help and advice to others whilst going through this is a testament to your strength, and eventual recovery.
Swim found a few new suggestions in you post (black cohosh, air fresheners, epsom salt baths to name but a few) and is astounded by the lengths you've taken to prepare, and hopes swim will one day follow your advice and do as well as you.
You are winning girl!
There is no doubt in swim's mind that swiy will make it through this, and swim would like you to know how much you have contributed to DF in sharing your journey. I hope this spurs you on even further, and that swiy can continue to update us and your fantastic progress.
Thank you so much, and swim now understands why swiy didn't really need any practical advice; swiy has all she needs. x

Reputation Comments on this post:

very kind post :)

Sparrowbeans · #5 11-11-2009, 06:03

Aw... Cooki your words are very kind and encouraging....
I hope you are right, very right, about this being a testament to my friend's recovery. It's about damned time for it

So I'm already back here distracting myself, occupying myself...
Never really went away for long so whatever...but...
This shall be an embarrassment because I am talking so much.

But my friend is getting really agitated and curious things...are sort of occurring, I guess.
Bone pain. ALREADY. WTF?
Sorry...um....well, she has never had either the gastro intestinal distress or the bone pain this soon into the WDs.
The squirming is just getting worse and worse. Bone pain is in the thigh bones, knees, and each itty bitty finger. It skips lots of terrain. Muscle aches in the calves and lower back....but it's not so bad, certainly not much worse than what she gets while ON opiates, as for the muscle stuff.

But it's just weird, stuff seems to be coming on prematurely; normally it would be at least the end of the 3rd day or 4th...I guess it's not too far off....
Maybe she is just forgetting that this time she is dealing with opium and not a straight pharmaceutical, and the different substances are manifesting their different schedules for withdrawal symptoms....

It is 4:19 am. She remembers looking at the clock at 4:20 last night lol....
It's been another 24 hours...how cool is that....
She is thinking it's so cool that she hasn't slept yet that she should use medical aids now. She hates doing it because it seems that she is sensitive to side effects.
She has never enjoyed benzos and certainly not baclofen and already had clonidine earlier during the day (well, I guess it was 'technically' yesterday, so maybe more would be wise now)

Chills and sweats seem to have taken a short break, not nearly as disturbing or uncomfortable as usual, but it is probably still the clonidine and black cohosh.
Oh...Cooki, about the black cohosh, you should know that there is research out there finding people taking black cohosh in the long term or in higher doses than reccomended have experienced liver damage and problems. It is not a good idea to take it longer than 2 weeks at a time, probably not more than a couple times a year, to be on the safe side; and to be on an ever safer side, to have some good quality milk thistle extract with it. It's powers for protecting the liver have been comparable to renowned pharmaceuticals. I like that haha....something natural having a decent reputation lol

Ughhh it's like the pain is crawling up her back by the minute, invading more and more volume of her body....it's strange how some of the symptoms just seem to appear out of nowhere too. Like the bone pain she could probably mark the milliseconds from where it was not there at all and then boom...it was simply there, like a switch flipped. No warning, no subtle pain building up....there and strong and real.
Would love to know how the brain decides it is time for this or that to take hold during WDs. It would be fascinating....

It has only been minutes and the pain is crawling into her neck and the back of her skull feels so stiff...her jaw....oh wait, maybe chewing gum to ward off bad tastes for the last 12 hours did that hahaa....

Interesting tidbit: My friend's cat ignores her while she is in withdrawal. It's eerie....the cat can smell it coming before my friend even knows it almost...
The cat will crawl up on her bed and act like velcro, have to sit between her and the laptop or book or whatever, at night when she is feeling fine.
In withdrawal...the cat does not so much as even linger outside of her bedroom door asking to be let in.
The first theory was....the cat does not like being on the bed when my friend is squirming and twitching ever so much. However....the cat will not even enter the room or sleep on her own cushion or anything.
What a snob! Hahaha...
They must be able to smell the body chemistry, something in the sweat...hell, I know my friend can lol....
Cool stuff.....I wish I could ask her what her deal is. And of course then pass this info along to my friend. Maybe she will tell me in a dream....

Sparrowbeans added 863 Minutes and 28 Seconds later...

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So, I made a big pretty line because I want it to be clear that this post, which will probably be merged with the huge post above it once again, is a post being made 'the next day' as far as I'm concerned.
It's only been maybe 14 or 16 hours since I posted the above, (watch, it'll turn out to be something totally different lol) as far as I can tell....
But here is what my friend experienced last night:

She finally tried to sleep after a bit of repetitive goings online and reading/posting at a certain website or two.....
She took medications: clonidine, baclofen, clonazepam, toradol, pariet (to stop the toradol from ripping lining of stomach out), loperamide, like 6 of those super special mineral supplements for osteoporosis people (you are supposed to take that much don't worry), umm and she can't remember what else.

Normally the first three medicines mentioned above would have knocked her flat on her ass, and she would wake up after at least a few good hours of sleep.
She could not sleep. She played music, tried to space out, all that stuff. It was wonderful again, absolutely wonderful and soothing and AGAIN the RLS symptoms COMPLETELY stopped, (very cool huh) at least for a bit, like during and then for about an hour and a half after...
The after part had it's downside though. Her headphones died. They just freaking stopped working. They now make little hisses and pops and she gets a bit more sound if she fumbles around with the wire near the jack, but nothing stays, she can't even tape it into place. She has never been violent with these headphones, why must this happen now? She has other headphones but they are super old, huge clunky non-ear bud types, and she can't sleep with them on because they shove out of place with her head on the pillow, etc etc....
Is this an act of God? Shall we see how she can use her mind over matter without the music? Or is this karma?
It was okay for then, at that point she had had quite enough of the music and a lot of it seemed to be taking on different nature than the time before (what a silly brain) but now she will not have her music for tonight.

Anyway, she dozed for about 20 minutes (it was 8 am) could not sleep. Got out a bible and read it out loud imagining that evil spirits were beside her being absolutely tortured and going batshit and shriveling up from hearing it (yes she gets loopy when she's sleep deprived) and she found herself laughing with glee as she used her overactive sleep deprived imagination as such. Laughter, my friends, is so very good for endorphins!! (we all know this, I know lol)
She felt glowing after, though none of the aches or chills went away. But the anxiety and dread and negativity was all still kept at bay at this point.....
She stopped the anti-demon readings (lol) and tried to sleep when the discomfort of trying to stay still and hold a book got irritating. Slept another 20 minutes.
It was 10am. Still no sleep ALLLLL NIGHT.
She made wild and ambitious plans for waking up in 5 hours to get her act together and go to walmart for new headphones, (of course this never happened after all today, she felt to ill, and sleep was messed all over the place) and buzzed a little at the idea of pretending she could function, and getting out of the house as she drifted to sleep.
And woke up again. This is the 10am awakening I was speaking of, I hope I don't confuse you...
She woke up and the pain...well....it was giving her a visual, before she opened her eyes she was absolutely certain that there was this thick vein of lava going from her esophagus to her bowels. She was sure it was a flesh searing glowing orange. She found herself face down, fetal position-ish and imagining acting very savage as if that would expel some of the heat or something.....

Hips were throbbing, hands and face dripping with sweat, and the trunk of her body soaking through her clothes, she could feel her PJ bottoms sticking to her legs, all that usual fun.....

So...no sleep....
And stomach worse than ever.
No toilet trips just quite yet........
She imagined that perhaps she ought to eat to do something about the lava.

In a sleep deprived stupor she waddled down the stairs, dumped a can of cold minestrone soup into a big mixing bowl, grabbed a bagel, a jar of salsa (god knows why salsa....with a stomach like that), some rye bread....suddenly seeing food it was like a small beast was speaking to her "Eat this...eat that....eat EVVVVERRRRRYTHINGA BWAHAHAH"

She was eating the soup like a madman (woman, but madman explains it better somehow), shoving pieces of bread into her face. And then suddenly ...it proved all to exhausting so she left the stash of food on top of the vanity in her room, no will to bring it back down to the kitchen....
Took doses of all those medications again, as the lower doses she'd used a day or 2 days ago no longer worked for the level of symptoms, or helped her sleep....and she took twice the size of those doses. Still wouldn't do much for her. It's amazing how WDs will make your body so resistant to medications which would normally knock you on your ass...

It was 11am. But even then she only slept until 2pm. And then finally managed to sleep again from about 3 to 5pm.
Woke up to the song of lava in her belly, and had unfriendly bathroom experiences as can be expected, bone pain and muscle pain taking over all terrain of her body, unable to be still and relaxed, all the usual shit from WDs, and then some stuff accentuated...like not only are there chills and sweats but she can't stand any freaking thing touching her lightly like bedsheets or anything unexpected at all, everything feels like a torturous level of tickling, she kept twitching back quite violently any time a sheet brushed against her arm, or (I am serious) she breathed in the direction of her hand while lying down, (the current of air tickled unbearably).
WORK calls her house. "Can you come in for the evening? We've run into trouble blah blah blah blah" Go figure all those times she would have had the capacity for it, nobody calls her to take much needed hours, but now, while in withdrawals, they have already called for her help TWICE since sunday, and it's got to be a freaking JOKE, it makes no sense.....this rarely happens, people are pretty protective of thier hours there, and fairly regular with their shifts.....
She saw this stretch of time on her schedule open and decided this would be the week she does her own detox, and of course they are asking her to come in all over the place now....blah.

She sounded like a drunk idiot on the phone, trying to think up a reason why she couldn't do it. She can't exactly say "hey, no, I'm in the middle of having withdrawals from using opium and other opiates for the last couple months, I'm sure you'll understand!" AHAHAAA...hee hee.....
Plus being sick and half asleep, she was not on the ball. Certain staff now surely pissed off with her for saying no...

She ALMOST almost used it though....she almost went and thought to herself I could go find something to get me just through a shift....just a small amount, some opium, some oxy.....find a fentanyl patch, a dillie....whatever..and have just a tidbit just to get through work. Right.

Anyway...it's almost 7pm and she is feeling quite gross. After her last wake up she struggled a lot with some dreadful feelings, anxiety, a few tears....and then she realized her body was lying to her, her body was the fool here, her body was being its own evil drug in a way, and that this whole thing was a very good thing, and that she could feel things without the drugs that a human being is meant to feel and how spectacular it could all become once this is over....
She told herself she could laugh at her brain and her body for challenging her, and that she knew better.

She also noticed something she's sort of been doing as a natural reflex....
You know how with the chills, sometimes you get them like....a ring of the 'chilly stuff' is surfing up your body, or a line of the chills suddenly, sharply crawls up your back, or you get suddenly a shock of the chills that makes your nipples so hard they hurt and your hair follicles every where on your body seem like little razors pushing up....
Those more pronounced chill experiences....well every time she'd get the more shock-wave sort of a chill, she found herself forcing herself to be very still and in a weird way that she could feel all over her body, but in her brain too, just basically telling her body 'it's okay, you're okay, you don't have to do that..."
This is in addition to the whole 'buzzy' thing she would try to do with the chills at night. This is just sort of something she was doing all along and scarcely noticed until yesterday.
It's a curious thing, it wasn't a conscious thing to chose to speak to her body like this, but the fact is it does make them less shocking, does increase comfort, it does do something, it does work somehow....and if it wasn't working she wouldn't have been doing it all along, and wouldn't have realized it just now, surely....

What can she say...
Get creative with your brain and your body, improve your surroundings (use WARM light in your room, there is something dreadful about a very cold, or those stupid florescent type lights - at least for my friend. She strung up yellow/white ish whatever christmas lights around her room last week, and they seem to give such a peaceful glow and induce something strangely positive all on their own. She has gone through WDs in a room with a very cold cold light and it's very hard on the head for whatever reason, and makes everything seem either killer bright while bland, or too dark and gloomy, makes her imagine things are more dreadful than they are. She wonders if this has anything to do with EMF from those sorts of lighting, not just the quality of the light itself, who knows....

The aches are asking for a bath, which seems like such a chore, but she knows it's quite necessary at this point. So off she will go.

Sparrowbeans added 105 Minutes and 24 Seconds later...

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omfg the leg pain....anyone want to find a gun and shoot me? Please?

Sparrowbeans added 203 Minutes and 31 Seconds later...

________*$&*$&*%_________________#*$&#**#&%_______ _______________#*(&#*&#*%_____________________#*&# *&

SWIM HATES how posts always merge lol....
Oh well.
Lallalalaaaa....

CONFESSION TYYMMMEE!!!
My friend believes there is a God and a Satan. Headphones going dead may seem like a minor detail, however here is what happened....
Once she finally got the atrocious infuriating leg pain that kicked in today to subside a little, her brother shows up. Her brother has just fixed his car. His battery probably not in the best shape, he had jumped his car to get here....

She says "Hey will you take me to Walmart to get headphones?" and starts bundling up in loads of warm clothes, tries to make face and hair look presentable....pretends to be healthy and full of energy, not sick, not WDing!! I'ma get out of this house, I'll do it!!
Off they go.
He asks to borrow money from her to buy gas because his work jacked up on him and had to delay paying him. She says yes. She goes to get some cash out so she can give him some of it. So now she has cash (got extra just for whatever, bus far, any old reason that may pop up later). You may have guessed already where this is going....

They go to gas station. Gas goes in car. And THEN.....car does not start up again. NOTHING. Dead. Car is dead. My friend and her brother are nicely stranded. It is dark out and cold and she is not feeling so great out in the cold when in WDs. Gets uncomfortable....

Well he goes to call somebody to boost car, and must wait for this person to arrive. She gets fed up, wants to walk down to the store, see if she can pick up some tonic water for the gas/cramping, plus it contains quinine which is really good for leg cramping/pain and restless leg syndrome. This seems brilliant, and like a great opportunity....
She runs into a certain shady individual along the way (and normally he would never be in this area of town)l, situation has changed, she finds she can get some very nice stuff from him for cheap.
She feels very very awful and cold and sweaty and achey, and thinks to self....just a tiny tiny tiny tiny bit...."it'll be like tapering down, it'll be something to make me get through the night, I won't even be getting high, just taking the edge off of this shit...." Yes, the junkie rationalized anything and everything in these situations....

On the up side, all she got was a very very very little bit. Stuck to that 'rationalization'. Not enough to get high....
And she will have no way of accessing this resource after tonight either.

Anyway she feels like a bit of a lame fucking failure regardless of the minimal 'dosage', but on the other hand, she's had tylenol 1s and all the meds for handling WD symptoms beside her this entire time, it's not like the goal was cold turkey at any point....
It could have been worse, she could have really let her head rationalize "what if they call me in to work again and I am having symptoms, or maybe I should just give up for now, get a bunch, so I can be safe and free of WDs when I go to the farm..." and then bought a nice supply for herself....

It could have been much worse, any other time it would have been much worse...she would have disembarked on this attempt to detox entirely, but this amount was too small to allow any such thing.

It still seems like some sort of curse that this string of events occurred, either the devil or some bad force in the universe trying to trip her, or maybe God or something good testing her (which would mean she somewhat failed here)

What are the chances, it was supposed to be a quick drive to Walmart to get new headphones, and then back home to bed - so she could have her music for the rest of WDs, and this shit opportunity to buy drugs that would normally not be so convenient when she is actively SEEKING it out, pops up out of nowhere....
Trust me, it was very unlikely, and the worst timing....

And even if the amount used was so miniscule, and not enough to abolish all WD symptoms, so what.....it still slows the process, it is still a bit of a step back....
She feels guilt. And weak.....

So...needless to say, she is feeling about halfway better than she was now (only just used within the last half hour). Not high. Not thrilled in the least about any of this, and not enough drug to escape that reality, that's for sure.....

So that's her story, and now she will tell you of the positive side of all of the evening's events.
Her brother and her went for a drive (get some battery charge going, though the sound system probably used it up as quickly as it came lol) after leaving Walmart (yes, finally did make it to Walmart....)
And played music very very nice and loud and made car nice and warm and cruised...
Now, this was almost euphoric (I guess her mind is prone to these effects from music as it is) but she knows that all the time that she is ever on opiates of any sort, that her ears get VERY sensitive, she can hardly handle the sound of a medium loud human voice, let alone loud music of any kind. She has not been able to listen to rich loud music on a decent sound system and appreciate all of the sound ranges and depth and everything for so long. It was near intoxicating, and there is something of comfort she's always found with being a passenger in a car at night with some good music.....
She was almost alarmed at how loud she could handle the music. She's scarcely been off opiates enough to realize the difference in the last several years combined with having many opportunities to drive around with somebody blasting music lol...

She used to swear up and down music sounded better on the drugs, but she knows now how perhaps while that was true in certain mental aspects, this surpasses it by far.
It was a very very nice thing to get the hell out of her stinky room, the surroundings she has been sick in for the last few days, get out of the house, breath some real oxygen, do something else.....

So there are the positives.
And AND....she is a big nerd, and bought the Planet Earth DVDs set on impulse while in Walmart. She has always been completely astounded by the bits of footage she has seen in that series (has only seen a few clips here and there) and every time she saw it on the shelves at a store was tempted to buy it but afraid to spend the money. Getting rather excited at seeing it in stores and playing with the possibilty of buying the set has gone on for almost the entire time since it came out, so today she said FUCK IT I need something to do other than post on DF while I'm sick! (jk, she will probably still do that more than watch DVDs haha)
And so she bought it. And is very very happy haha....
She's always loved this sort of stuff, she was a major outdoors sort of person before she started getting into drugs years ago, among other things. All of her past interests seemed to have died completely and been replaced with getting high, being with friends who get high, only doing something she sorta likes IF she was high....etc, you get the picture...
She neglected all passions, talents, interests, anything, everything, lost any faith that any of it was ever any good, that she was any good to start with, and imagined it didn't matter, that these things don't make a person happy anyway.
So this is a sort of start, combined with the plans to go to a nice wilderness like area coming up soon....and she thinks it is a good sign that she is making sure she is retraining herself a bit to focus on what she would like to occupy her time with when all drugs are set aside, out of her life...
It's just DVDs, but somehow she is thrilled. She spent money on that, she could have saved that money for drugs...(well....more drugs)

It sounds like a small silly thing to be excited about, but she thinks all these small things can add up and make all the difference

She also got headphones, in the end....so she is set....they are purple lol....what a little kid she can be sometimes :P

Ahh. Well tonight will probably go a bit easier than the last few given her sort of fuck up by buying a small amount of drugs, but it will still be mildly rough and it better damned well be because that's what she deserves, truly....
She will be happy to wake up in sweats and remember that it could have been 'worse' she could have stopped all detoxing in its tracks, and she will get on with it.

Reputation Comments on this post:

Fascinating story of getting through w.d.s. Best of luck!

thebige · #6 11-11-2009, 14:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sparrowbeans

Interesting tidbit: My friend's cat ignores her while she is in withdrawal. It's eerie....the cat can smell it coming before my friend even knows it almost...
The cat will crawl up on her bed and act like velcro, have to sit between her and the laptop or book or whatever, at night when she is feeling fine.
In withdrawal...the cat does not so much as even linger outside of her bedroom door asking to be let in.
The first theory was....the cat does not like being on the bed when my friend is squirming and twitching ever so much. However....the cat will not even enter the room or sleep on her own cushion or anything.
What a snob! Hahaha...
They must be able to smell the body chemistry, something in the sweat...hell, I know my friend can lol....
Cool stuff.....I wish I could ask her what her deal is. And of course then pass this info along to my friend. Maybe she will tell me in a dream....

HaHa swim has always counted on his cats as the only ones willing to climb in in bed with him when he was in withdrawal.........
although they did seem to get happier after swim shower,shaved and changed the sheets.......These cats know more than they are letting on to....

Sparrowbeans · #7 11-11-2009, 14:51

haha...cats are fascinating little critters....

Quote:

Originally Posted by thebige

.......These cats know more than they are letting on to....

I have no doubt. I once had a dream where my sisters cat started talking to me, telling me how he could see things humans couldn't see and knew how the world was going to end and all this crazy stuff....
It kind of made me a little bit afraid of cats for a few days after lol
He even had a 'real' name that he was born with in the cat world he came from, or some place odd like that that humans don't know about. Weird dream, that.

**Dickon** · #8 11-11-2009, 11:06

SparrowBeans,

I'm sorry to hear about the little slip-up, but keep on trucking. I am following your story with great interest. I've got one of those David Attenborough DVD sets, I think it's Planet Earth. They'd be pretty good for a withdrawal.

I really think you should try and get through without using any codeine or other opiates, as it will make things improve much more quickly, and will be less of a "prick tease" (or whatever the female equivalent of this is) of the mind. Clonidine can be really helpful, although doesn't do much for sleep. It seems you have a fairly extensive knowledge of supplements and things to help you through, but clonidine is one of the few things that seems to do much real good. When withdrawing last, cat stuffed on milk thistle, valerian, chamomile, vitamins, diclofenac, adrenal extract and probably half a dozen other things with little noticeable benefit. It's hard to say though, maybe things would have been worse without them. Clonidine was easily the most useful, although far from a magic bullet. I hope you are dosing sufficiently to get the most benefit. I read above something that might have implied you were taking it only once a day. Really you can use it a lot more often than this, 4 times a day being normal. See A how-to guide to opiate detoxification. for some details.

I'm glad to see someone is finally give my Screaming in the night air thread a run for it's money when it comes to verbosity! Way to go. It will be a good record of events for future reference and with luck will be inspirational should things get tough subsequently and maybe quite funny too.

First off though is to get through the acute withdrawals. You're doing well, but I fear for you if you slip again.

All best wishes and happy thoughts

Dickon

Reputation Comments on this post:

Excellent point about keeping a journal, and actually using it as a recovery support. good point about codeine being a m...

cooki · #9 11-11-2009, 13:28

Sparrowbeans,
again excellent loquacious post, that allowed swim to understand exactly what your friend's going through. Listen, don't sweat the small stuff. In a few more days, your friend's 'little slip' will mean nothing compared to the progress she has made/battle won/future.

It's done now, don't look back..and er..don't do it again!

Swim knows exactly what fate/God/Satan can do to our attempts at sobriety: these things were sent to try us, no? Swim couldn't count the times someone has showed up with gear when she didn't want to use, but could definitely count on one hand the times she was climbing the walls and someone did the same. Kismet, Hardy.
I am extremely impressed at your friend's preparation and dedication to the cause, and I don't care how long your posts are, swim finds them fascinating reading/resource material!

Keep fighting the fight, and swim is here should you need to vent. Let us know how you doing as often as you can. Good luck sweetie.

Sparrowbeans · #10 11-11-2009, 13:47

Ahh Dickon, I feel honored that you've read my nonsense. I read your cats pet flea's journal and it made me feel good, it made me think maybe that somehow posting here does help a person a great deal to cope with detoxing...

Well to be honest it wasn't first meant to be a journal, just an urge to say something when my friend was feeling very afraid, but after some exploration of DF, it was partly the work of Dickon's subject that made me want to keep updating here....

About the codeine....my friend has a sensitivity to caffeine and doesn't have much of an urge to touch them because the effects of the caffeine (they are tylenol #1s) worsen the WD symptoms (some of them) more than the codeine relieves some.....but it's been kept there in case she thinks a small dose now and then could help, though so far she hasn't bothered with it. She hasn't had any real reinforcing experience with codeine in a very long time (not since a time when she was relatively opiate naive) so don't worry too much about the codeine she keeps at her side, she looks at it and considers it and remembers all too clearly how it made her just feel like absolute shit just taking 4 the last time and many other times, and gets rather nauseated at the idea of bothering with it lol.... it has little allure.
But she was thinking that maybe when her tolerance gets down, if she has some irritating symptoms left and needs to get her ass in gear for work or something else like that, it might help to clear them up a little for the time being. She also used to use the T1s to ease oxy withdrawal when she had important things to do, though they make her feel jittery and tired in a strange way (tho still better than WDs) It helped a bit with oxy, but she's noticed it does nothing with the opium WDs.

Anyway...blah blah....that's that. It's probably pointless to have them here at all....
As for today's slip up....she is not feeling so great about it, not one bit, and is thinking hard about making sure it does not happen again. She feels like she deserves a lecture or to feel the wrath of an angry god or something, it's odd....mere weeks ago she wouldn't have thought much of using....it feels shameful...

And absolutely, at the beginning she was definitely not taking clonidine enough.....though the night before this one she took a lot more, and in combo with a benzo and baclofen and other stuff. To her alarm she had even less success feeling better, but that was only because the WDs were escalating of course, more for the medications to contend with.... and would have been much worse without the meds...
She does not do well with the low BP from clonidine, so was trying to avoid taking too much. But she hasn't written here every single time that she's taken it either....

She did not get the clonidine from a doctor, but from a friend, and is kind of testing the waters with it at this point. She ought to look up more info on it on DF no doubt.... perhaps she shall take your 4 times daily advice.
She's been pretty random, just taking it when the sweats/chills get bad most usually, not at set intervals, proper hours.....
And before sleeping, hoping lesser symptoms will mean easier sleep....

So it's....the 4th night now? She can't think, maybe it's just the 3rd?....everything's a blur...but anyway, she is yet again still awake and it's past 7am. But partly now this is due to having jacked up her sleep schedule, and not just the WD symptoms alone.

Her new headphones proved to be lovely and she has been enjoying music with good success for the restlessness, though it certainly isn't as easy as the first night...

She had a very good conversation with her boyfriend. He had at times been very uncomfortable when she talked about how WDs were starting or whatever. This time around she just didn't contact him for 3 days (currently in long distance relationship) but tonight he was willing, and she asked him a lot of questions about when he had severe withdrawals from morphine, oxy, fentanyl...things that made it harder, things that made it easier...
We agreed very much on the atmosphere, and having lots of distractions....having warm lights, things to change the smell in the air, having tv, computer, books available....it seemed like they agreed very much that these things have a very strong affect on the moods one may go through during WDs. Many little things that really make a significant difference. They spoke of how at detoxes the rooms seem so cold and sterile and dull, and how that seems to be unfortunate for people that go to detox clinics to stay....how it would be nice to warm up these places a little for people in some way. Of course surely not all are equal, some must be nicer than others...

She would like to mention that she believes that some things, like the l-tyrosine, do make a noticeable difference in energy level and mood improvement. She has used l-tyrosine for a long time and not just for WDs, and while some herbs and teas and whatnot may have little effect when WDs are getting heavy, the l-tyrosine she has noticed enough times, and she is quite sure, does make a difference, as well as lots of b-complex and a few other things but she's a bit tired right now and can't remember what she was going to mention haha....

She has also noticed that one must NEVER take l-tyrosine before attempting to sleep hahahaa....it does have a bit of a stimulant effect sometimes, somehow....

Anyway. Finally finally finally my friend is finding her stomach is not in agony. She is certain there was more to this stomach nonsense than just the withdrawals, like somehow it got messed up, higher acidity levels from sleep deprivation, trouble from taking the anti-inflammatory medication, something....
It is nice that it has gone, it made it just that bit extra harder to find a comfortable position to lie in, just that bit extra harder to get some sleep (what is she talking about, she hasn't really even tried for sleep yet tonight...)

Another thing that is really quite nice (though can be a bit frustrating when you have hot flashes, chills, etc) is having a space heater right close by and easily accessible. When legs start to get bad, blast heat directly on to them. When feeling extra cold turn it on. Of course in many instances one feels suddenly too hot, that's how it can be with WDs, but somehow it is a brief relief and an easy one to have it right there at all times....

My friend is a bit spoiled, she has a good situation and lots of things to help her deal with this, and is feeling quite grateful.

She managed to eat some more soup, and then later some fruit today...

No vomiting yet, and hopefully there will not be. She's had some nausea, an instance or two of random gagging, but vomiting is something she hasn't experienced a lot or persistently with WDs and....she does have quite a strong ability to suppress the urge to vomit however, so this is good....

Anyway, this is rather uninteresting, rambly, and she ought to try and slip into a sleep state now if at all possible. It is remembrance day and her ambitious plan was to find a way to get her butt out of the house no matter how miserable she feels, and walk around down town where they have the ceremony at the cenotaph, get some exercise, see if it won't help a bit, and if it gets too miserable, she will crawl back on the bus which drops her off 2 blocks from home...shouldn't be impossible....and should be good to get out of this room.

Sparrowbeans added 6 Minutes and 4 Seconds later...

__________________________________________________ _____________________________
Hello Cooki, I saw that you posted right after I posted this last bit....thanks for dropping by again! And reading my longwinded descriptions of my friend's...stuff...
Thank you for encouraging my friend not to look back at the slip up, she is alarmed at how much it is bothering her, making her feel like she has an obligation to beat herself up over it or something....

It is nice that a few people are reading and responding, and I'd love to say more to you right now but my mental capacities seem to be shutting down after this last post haha....interesting that SWIY can relate to the whole experience of things being tossed in the way of sobriety in an uncanny way....

Existence is weird...

Hope you are well tonight (erm today..whatever it is.)

**Dickon** · #11 11-11-2009, 16:18

A quick question. Do you honestly think you will be able to take a little codeine now and again to get up some energy to work or is this just "the addiction" speaking?

Sparrowbeans · #12 13-11-2009, 04:49

Dickon, codeine - absolutely not a good idea, and very much addiction speaking, in a way. Because she should be clean and going to work, period.

But at the same time she doesn't have much of a fear of actually doing any of the 'taking a little for work' because she gets worse side effects from the caffeine most of the time than she does 'good' effects from the caffeine....
If it was actually pure codeine there would be a much greater problem. No question.
But this time it's T1s loaded with caffeine which makes it much less alluring....like she said (or thought, maybe she didn't mention it after all, but she remembers thinking it) that the idea of taking them due to the caffeine seems quite revolting anyways....which is why despite having had them beside her this entire time as an 'option' since WDs started, she hasn't taken any....

However, she still thought of trying them, having them around, and kept them around without much thought....so regardless of the reality of how they may affect her if she takes them, that is still sort of compulsive addict behaviour, surely....

Today was a shit sad day.
2 animals my friend was taking care of while house-sitting last week are having symptoms of rabies and as these sorts of symptoms show up way later after animals are infected , she's had enough scratches and contact with them prior to this to be exposed, and is not very happy to hear this stuff.
They will be taken to vet to rule out other stuff tomorrow, and I suppose she will probably know better what's worth worrying about tomorrow, but it's still unpleasant.
It's bothering her that her family member (the pets owner) who lives alone may lose both cats at once, plus this person has another cat (a kitten) in the home that just arrived, and a dog that is young and his first rabies vaccination isn't coming up til next month, so both of them could go too....because they live with the sick cats.
She doesn't like the idea of rabies, and humans getting rabies (as rare as it might be) and doesn't like the idea of family member losing all her animals as this family member is close to her, but a serious depressive who's also had a sort of screwed up life, and she feels all this stuff coming on, like overwhelming sense that she will somehow have to help her deal with this or whatever....and she can't handle much...

She knows everything seems worse while having WDs, but she also knows how she has responded to situations where she feels like it's up to her to help somebody else cope with something or stay sane or be okay or something....in the past, while not in WD, even not on drugs, in years past...., and how bad she feels when she tries to separate herself from stuff to protect her own mental health even if ppl do say it's necessary....
She also knows this isprobably absurd, why worry so much at this moment when not a thing can be done or learned until tomorrow and the days following...

Still she is feeling quite anxious and worried and un-good all around.

Her head is pounding and she was very much close to puking today.

She forced herself to go walking today, and was gagging while walking around.....
She thinks it's pretty damned good that she could force herself to exercise despite pain and gagging and whatever else, and the dull coldness of the day, so there is something good....

But overall just tired and feels very uninspired or like she has anything useful to share with anyone about her day today. She did not sleep all night last night, and then still nothing til 11am, adn then slept til 4pm....
Didn't go to any remembrance day ceremonies or anything as had been ambitiously planned, but that's okay....

Pissed off that little animals are suffering too.

Sparrowbeans added 215 Minutes and 49 Seconds later...

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__________________________________________________ __________________________

My friend just woke around 4am. She got a couple hours sleep, not sure how many...
She feels strangely very quiet in her head but depressive but that everything will be okay all at the same time. It is a strangely nice sense of reality...clear somehow, safe, but sad....

She had wild wild dreams, one was a recurring dream from months ago, very odd and tense haha....

She isn't having chills as bad, so much as feeling permanently cold. The heat is above normal in the entire house and she would normally not be able to tolerate the heat, but she feels the need to crank on the space heater even so now....

She thinks she wants to read something inspiring, do some thinking, and finish off with some music before hopefully returning to get some sleep. She thinks that the mind goes through so many odd blips during detox, and that one can take advantage of them....the brain chemistry is in a strange and ever altering state during WDs and she believes fully that not all of it is bad, not all of it has to be painful...that one should seek hope more than they ever have before during these times.

She has been taking a lot of toradol, pain in body is just bad, going into detail here just seems pointless....
She has taken more baclofen, and clonidine and clonazepam and calcium/minerals, ate about a third of a banana, and took her supplements all day, and everything else (refer to list in first or 2nd post, wherever it was, if anyone is curious)

My friend has lost weight, like a pound a day on this fine withdrawals regime.
She doesn't mind that haha, though for some people that would be not good at all....

She isn't sure what else to share, just so very tired and strange...will go read or something now

Sparrowbeans added 1078 Minutes and 31 Seconds later...

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My friend found out about her family member's cats today, and as much as they were weird and foaming at mouth, it is unlikely it was rabies and everything just seems weirder and more threatening when WDs get to your head, but they are being treated and getting relief and should be okay, and she's going to stay away from this person's house, or phone calls with them for a while, and all the animals and just not let herself get so worried about things that are another person's responsibility, as much as she is used to helping and worrying for this person.....(more so this person she is worried about having emotional problems in response to stuff, and my friend sucks at dealing with other people's depression and stress but always feels like she should somehow help...)
It can't be done, one can't be so weak and over involved in another person's trials during shit like this, and my friend knows she naturally blows things out of proportion and gets excessive anxiety while sick with anything, let alone WDs, even being over tired...it's a strange thing...

Anyway. My friend is having a weird weird day.
Bottoms of feet hurt to walk across the room despite being in bed for like 20 hours (versus say working on feet hours which would normally cause such a thing), teeth are hurting in random places and she knows there is nothing wrong with them, it's just random aches haha....
She is sure she stinks terribly no matter how many baths she takes, she finds chills and sweats increasing somewhat again, but GI problems seemed to have pissed off finally....
But that isn't any of the weird stuff, just stuff she noticed today...
The weird stuff is her head. It's scattered and fuzzy and agitated all at the same time. She thinks she over did it with the toradol and clonazepam, was having very shallow breathing and rapid heartbeat and difficulty staying awake in fact (though it's nice for a change in one way) but she was experiencing unworldly pain last night at one point (and it was a flare up of physical problems she was born with, not WDs, though no doubt exagerrated by WD syndrome). This pain has been known to get so bad that she has found herself incapacitated with it even ON opiates with no relief, it's probably never been the best idea to have ever had been on opiates for it in the first place, though no class of meds has been any different (not terribly helpful) really and a combination of several types has helped only a little better in the past.
Nonetheless it is so incredibly unresponsive that it's clear that taking the opiates for it in the past was probably never the way to go anyways, and she hopes that pain (from problems, not from WD) will never make her think it's necessary or worth taking opiates for, or give her an excuse or anything like that, she needs to keep in mind that the value of opiates was always minimal in these cases and that she only ever kept it up for the high after a certain point. She hopes not to forget these lessons because addiction starts talking too loudly....

The pain was never ever the greatest reason to use, ever probably. It scarcely responds to opiates. Though it may a percentage of the time, the dependence and addiction is not even remotely worth use. But she knows in the past she imagined she still ought to have them anyways and it was because she knew she liked the high.
She's been thinking about this and it's true. Even if pain crops up as usual for the rest of her life it can never be an honest excuse to use again and she knows this. She hopes maybe she can get her boyfriend or somebody to remind her of this regularly, if at any point in the future she is not thinking too clearly; but ideally would like to hope there is strength to keep herself accountable to self, to have strength to keep it straight from within herself, to not need somebody there to think clearly for her and make her feel too guilty or somethingorother.....to bother using....as if that would really work anyway haha....at least for any length of time...

Blahblahblah....she feels like she's rambling off in a weird way and isn't sure what to talk about, it's just been one of those days where the head is so clouded and weird feeling, but hopefully it was coherent enough...

My friend is not as uncomfortable overall as far as stuff that is purely from WDs, but at the same time quite incapacitated right now, and looked at her calendar and realized she has to work on the 14th. At one point today she panicked and was sure that she will want to get something, that she is pretty sure she won't be very well yet by the 14th, even if it'll have been 6-7 days, and all that....
Then she realized whatever, just go to work and have a crappy day. All normal people have a crappy day at work now and then, all normal people have days where they go to work and have a headache or a this or that ache and no energy and wish they wouldn't be at work, but they effing go and do it anyway, what has to be so scary about that?
It's just 12 hours of her life doing more than she'd rather be doing given physical discomfort and then it's over and then she will go back and feel better other days, whatever.....she can do it....right?

Sparrowbeans · #13 14-11-2009, 05:50

My friend has noticed that although she is not super duper, moving from one place to another takes immense effort, her head is in a fuzz and she now seems to have developed a strange habit of hiccuping for hours of end....lol.......that she feels very positive about attempting a day at work and that it will play out as merely nothing more than a day "at work and under the weather a bit". She can do it.
The symptoms actually seemed to have come down quicker than she expected....
She hopes it is a result of diligent supplementation, amino acids, this that and the other making the difference....plus clonidine...
She feels like she missed a lot that maybe people would have wanted her to post (but maybe they wouldn't haha) she didn't mention every single symptom she's had or had much more of anything enlightening to share, and hasn't had that many tips she's thought of lately....so hopefully she is doing an ok job posting here but whatever comes out will have to suffice...

Anyway, work will be okay.

She is aware that sometimes symptoms suddenly get worse again before they get better and as she's never made it through a week of detoxing from opium before, that she can't predict if this will or won't happen, but she won't sit here and worry or fret about it, because then if it does happens she would rather be taken by surprise to some degree and have her more positive mindset in tact by then still....
Positive, yes..as in she's feeling, still, much less of the mental side effects she would have normally, and nothing like she has normally had from any WDs, opium included (waking up the first and 2nd day feeling incredibly low and anxious and strange)

At this point in her mind she feels that by the time she leaves for her trip she will not be getting sick and even though will probably have some aches and some fatigue or something random, it will be nothing compared to the middle of WDs and she will still be able to fake being a relatively healthy person and get stuff done haha...

Secondly, she is looking forward to the 10 days trip in a remote location (and the hostess of the house she will be staying in is a natural health sort of freak, actually, she eats mostly raw and vegan, so this will be good because there is talk of how this can give the body such a boost of live enzymes and 'live' nutrients in their proper solutions, lots of good fibre and probably a steadier blood sugar and blood pressure and increased energy and mental clarity. This is the theory, this is a potential advantage for this stage of 'getting clean'. Absolutely nothing unhealthy is kept in this homestead haha....it's almost a bit of a freakshow, but she knows it will be good for her....plus this woman has a vast knowledge of herbs, particularly ones for pain and anxiety, sleep problems, and numerous health ailments and my friend will be very happy to have access to some new ideas and methods. She has spent a short time with this family before, and used some herbal concoctions that were grown there (all non-narcotic, all legal, don't worry!) for pain, and as skeptical as she was, things were very effective...
One of the ingredients was Mullein (sp?) leaves I think....it helped muscle aches and sleep.
She thinks there is a difference between buying tinctures and dried stuff from health food stores that somebody somewhere that nobody knows mass produced, versus going to a home where somebody has carefully cultivated their own plants and remedies, uses the right parts of the plant, isn't there to make a quick buck or even a single buck to start with....

10 days, absolutely NO way in to the city, no neighbours for miles, no way to get drugs, a good time to exercise banishing thoughts OF drugs from the head since it will be impossible anyways (but she believes that thoughts should be practiced when changing habits, very consciously and in a self-encouraging way, and that this will be a safe place and great opportunity to do this)
Anyway, this glorious natural trap of wilderness and amazing farm grown fruits/veggies/home ground grains made into things, and all this stuff, the beauty of the place, the animals (she will be keeping guns around, she no like grizzly bear! has had 3 encounters with roaring angry bears in her life liek she must attract them and their wrath for some mysterious reason ughhh) but the little cute animals living there, the house pets and stuff like that (they are truly therapeutic, if you like animals, another possible tip for anyone who needs something uplifting during recovery)

Anyway, all these things, and this place and the entire situation seems like it may turn out to be a sort of divine intervention instead of a thing to dread because of worrying about not being sick there, blah blah blah....it may be a very very good place to keep her on track for some trying days that follow detoxing. It just seems ideal and she is very glad that she made the decision to go to this place even when she knew her current drug use was going to make it problematic (or thought so very much) at the time...because now it seems like the best thing ever, instead, for her...

My friend has some things to say about her boyfriend. She thought that it bothered him so much to hear about her going through withdrawals, that the talk of anything drug related was maybe very triggering for him or conjured negativity in him or something; and always felt embarrassed with herself how she would sometimes be alone all day sick, not talk to a single soul, everything so quiet, and so end up rambling to him so much about it when he called....and that this was maybe hard for him after his own troubles - addiction, severe withdrawals he's had, probably worse than hers...detox, rehab, etc.

Anyway, he proved very very encouraging and really...almost begging her to make sure she stays off the stuff, and don't slip up for work, or don't do this, or if you think you need to use a small amoutn of opiates again, promise him she'll talk to a doctor instead and discuss the situation, and shared a lot of his ideas and experiences...

It's hard because my friend introduced him to opiates but he fell into it way harder and faster than she did, and this was right in time (right just before) some major damage related to his bones (congenital) cropped up, and he had to go through 3 or 4 surgeries (can't remember precisely). So basically he was using, and then severe pain came, so using became quite necessary for awhile, and then when it came time that pain should have been resolved, another couple years were spent dealing with a major addiction. Doctors were very very lenient with his case because of the nature of the pain, it's source, the ongoing complications, but his tolerance was so incredibly through the roof. And he was making sure he was high any time an opiate was used.
My friend strangely, somehow, doesn't feel immensely guilty for introducing him to these drugs because eventually he would have anyway maybe, but she feels this sort of thing like it was still wrong, regardless of that fact....

Anyway, things were a major ordeal with him, it got hard when he started lying and stealing from even her to feed the addiction because no matter how bad she got herself, doing this to her own boyfriend seemed like the one rule she had left and could stick to, but he couldn't...it hurt a lot, but she realized eventually that the anger and feelings could not be thrown against him, she could not say the things she wanted to say and hurt him back; she hasn't even told him of the many times she knows perfectly well he stole from her and lied and manipulated, and he thinks he got away with it....
She realized that this was a sickness of the soul, not him hating her or thinking she was stupid or oblivious - perhaps hoping for the sake of his own desperate need to get what he...'needed' (drugs, whatever) - but not something she could allow herself to take personally and tear her apart. Nonetheless they spent some time somewhat isolated from eachother because it was too hard for the 2 of them with similar problems to watch eachother, try to support eachother, tho she's sure there are cases where it is the opposite for some couples...
She learned lots from her first addict boyfriend she had, she did not deal well with him or know how to treat him while he struggled, she was a fool..
She hasn't seen any behaviour like this at all (in her current BF) for probably about a year and it is encouraging for her, that a person can come out of this and be changed psychologically and behaviourally, and be the person he knows he would rather be but is easily obliterated by addiction.
My friend says this is encouraging because although she did not do these things to boyfriend, she is not immune to addiction causing her to lie and manipulate and steal in other situations or among other people, and this is absolutely no better and she knows that this has to change now, and that it only increases and becomes increasingly blinding if she stays on the same path...

This is kind of an all over the place post but it feels nice to share her thoughts, and it's good to do the thinking in the first place she hopes.
Not sure what more to say; she will be working for 2 days, both 12 hour shifts, and probably be dead tired and unlikely to post in the next 2 days, so if anyone thinks she's dropped off the face of the earth, or gave up and ran into a dark alley somewhere, don't worry haha...

Oh yeah, she was saying about the boyfriend, that he was very helpful and encouraging last night on the phone, and it surprised her, but made her happy too, because he would talk to people in detox and rehab, and all over the place, but not really her; (despite their roots in the addiction together, etc). It was hard to make productive, helpful conversation with him about addiction for quite a long spell, and she feels it's important.
She knows both know how dangerous it is for the relationship, maybe it's because it was too anxiety producing, or upsetting, she doesn't know....and she doesn't feel she's doing so well articulating much at the moment, but it just seemed like a breakthrough of sorts, anyways.

cooki · #14 14-11-2009, 08:48

Once again Sparrowbeans, I am truly awed by your clarity of thought and ways of expression. These posts are inspirational...insightful..girl, you're on my 'subcribed thread' list; I eagerly await the next instalment of the Kitty's detox 'show'.

Not only are you chronicling your own kitty's journey-giving excellent insight into her emotional outlook in a lucid,detailed manner, you're still worrying about whether you may have not given enough advice/support to help OP on DF!
All the help swim needs in contained in them there words; that your cat is living, positive, WORKING(?!!), and planning for the bright future already, is everything swim needs to feel excited(yup!)about her own detox to come.
Thank-you.
Swim knows your cat can definitely get thru the rest of this nightmare, have a wonderful break, and come back to fill us all n on how great she feels!

Sparrowbeans · #15 15-11-2009, 07:28

Thankyou for being so very encouraging Cooki...not sure what to say, my friend can guarantee this post won't be nearly as pleasant, for sure, as you seem to have found others....so my friend apologizes in advance for the venting of a wreck of a day that will follow:

Today...at work...my friend did sorta ok. She had to deal with a suicidal woman in very severe opiate withdrawal who had a bad reaction to a medication her doctor gave to her, (that was supposed to HELP her with WDs) which involved basically the magnification of all withdrawal symptoms (meaning if you aren't in opiate withdrawal and have the adverse reactions to this medication, it will feel very much like you are having opiate withdrawal or very badly sick and agitated basically. wish these meds were never invented sometimes....)
What a shit deal for this woman, my friend spent about half the day trying to get her feeling better, it was worrisome...
It's a freakish thing working with ppl going through withdrawals while in then yourself, you feel a tad bit dirty or like a big fat liar...this is what my friend tells me...that, and it's troubling, because you can almost feel what the person is feeling listening to them, watching them....and know that no matter how much you can empathize or whatever, it's so difficult to help that person's head shift into a happier safer place when shit hits the fan, or when things have gotten intense for them....sometimes the staff least familiar with drug use/WDs do better than my friend, in her opinion, and she feels that's a bit pathetic on her part...
Certainly, anyway, in this case my friend could only feel very fortunate that her ownwithdrawal experience wasn't so completely cursed like this woman's was....poor thing, horrid meds, bad WD, shit life events, everything working against this individual...

Anyway, next major news of the day....well once more in real life, somebody's cat....my friend's own cat....and not her relative's cats this time, had an ordeal after she got home from work.
She doesn't know what it is with everybody's pets lately, and especially cats...
Fuck...this is really awful. My friend has seen her cat have some skin problems, maybe mites, or feline acne, or who the hell knows what..
So she tried a home remedy that her friend told her to try, and was tired and lazy and didn't bother researching it first, BEFORE trying. Her friend used this remedy on dogs, not cats, but stupid stupid friend of mine went and assumed it would be no different for a cat, not dangerous to a cat if it wasn't to a dog....
She almost fucking killed her cat according to the literature; and she has to work tomorrow, and it will be another 5 hours before she will be sure the cat will not be having life threatening reaction or not.
Luckily she read online immediately AFTER (bleh) about it, and so did things, like bathed cat, gave charcoal, gave fluids and salts....turns out all those things were the right things to do too, so she hopes she avoided poisoning her..

Anyway, it was just a shit shit ordeal after coming home so tired and sleep deprived from work, and then trying to help her cat quickly, before going off to bed, because she has to work tomorrow, and then finding out that she was risking her cat's life.
Her cat is 11 years old, and that is getting up there for a cat, so she worried it may be even more possible that she caused her harm.
Just feels really horrid that she only increased animal's suffering, and now she is stressed because she must work 12 hours tomorrow, and that was scary enough, but now on top of it, she can't be at home to monitor her cat's condition.

Should have just taken her to the bloody vet....why the hell she is always taking things into her own hands, and especially at times when she should not be taking risks or causing herself additional stress or fucking around in whatever way is just beyond her, she should have done her research first. I mean, she does that much for herself when she's sick (as one can see in this thread lol) why can't she do so much for her pet....it's retarded....

Sorry for venting and being off-topic, it's just really on her mind and really bothering her. She has to go to work tomorrow, not entirely out of WDs, which was going to be trying enough (well...it could be worse, that alone, but still...) and now she's fucked up, worried, not going to sleep well....she is already very sleep deprived. Managed only to get about 3 hours sleep before work this last shift here.....

She has to give these things up, up into the air, let tomorrow take care of itself....

But. Eiiuuuaghh.....it sucks this day had to turn out feeling dreadful, it would have just been a 'pass' in her books had she not attempted murder on her pet unknowingly.

At least she doesn't almost murder her clients, like doctors pretty near do...haa...there's something positive out of the whole thing, right? hah.

Anyway, it turns out my friend will probably get away with signing into DF while at work tomorrow, as she was able today, tho couldn't really have much time to pay attention to it, but maybe she will post, and maybe tomorrow things will all prove to be okay with her cat and with herself and whatnot.

Sparrowbeans · #16 22-11-2009, 23:53

Just checking in....got a quick trip into the city to a college with relatives, short on time, but gonna say...it's been odd...
My friend had a strong re-emergence of strong WD symptoms, heavy exhaustion, chills, whatever, on the first day in new place. Thinks it has something to do with the drastic change in environment, feeling so isolated, it's a very untamed land, nothing for miles that isn't trees, briars, cliffs and wild animals; not particularly fond of the carnivourous ones, which, oddly enough, are NOT hibernating yet. This is a bit abnormal this time of year apparently.

Anyway, after that initial day, well....she actually slept most of that day, and then was up about 2 hours, ate 2 clonidine, toradol....benzos...
Then slept about 18 hours straight. It was ridiculous, but she must have been rather heavily sleep deprived. Also, she'd managed to fit in 2 night shifts immediately before leaving on the trip, due to emergency of another staff member. Those went remarkably well, she was feeling decent...
Anyhow, now she is feeling great. A strange almost neurotic energy has emerged, she's not entirely sure what to do with it all. Not to say it's bad, quite the opposite, but it can border on agitating....
Music sounds better, food tastes better....
But she has yet to get over feeling a bit trapped, or...something....
Lots more to say but she has to get going.
Will report back when she gets home, if no other chance arises

cooki · #17 23-11-2009, 17:01

to the neurotic energy sweet!

I am so glad you felt better, even for a brief spell, and am so impressed with what you've achieved.

It's even better to know that you've come back to update us all. Swim found your posts really inspiring, and reminds you that she thinks this journal is one of the best on DF. Well done!

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