leeloo

[ScottQuit021907]

OK, let me get this straight. You are trying to get off of morphine for girl reasons and you are currently taking fentanyl and norco for breakthrough pain. You were taking 90 mg 3x/day, or 270 mg/day morphine. Now you are taking 45 + 45 + 30 = 120 mg/day, and you want to know what w/d is like as you taper down to zero.

I can't tell you how the fentanyl and norco will help in terms of w/d, but what I can tell you is that I do have experience withdrawing from morphine sulfate. I started out taking 30 mg ER and IR tabs (not for pain) about 6 or 7 months ago, probably averaging about 90 - 120 mg/day at first. Then I basically switched to 100 mg ER tabs around December, taking 3 or 4 a day on average, sometimes up to 6 or 7. I rarely took more than 4 though because when I did I got really f**ked up.

Anyway, I had to quit, so I went from ~350 mg/day on 2/15 to zero on 2/19 (does that mean I tapered I don't know?). Anyway, w/d has not killed me but it has been very hard. I still have the following physical symptoms after 3 weeks: mild insomnia, sneezing, daily headaches, chills, mild heart palps, random lethargy. But I do feel MUCH MUCH BETTER.

I sincerely wish you the best of luck, especially in fixing this little problem while keeping the pain at bay.

[leeloo]

Ugh, I am so sorry to hear that you had/are having the restless legs and arms thing! Did melatonin help? Did you try that natural restless legs thing that I have read some people post about? I appreciate your comments, are we the only ones here getting off Morphine? I have not read every post yet, but you are the only member I have come across yet. Do you think that all opioid medications are the same as far as withrawal?

[ScottQuit021907]

I don't really claim to have tapered off of the morphine because I didn't suffer any real withdrawal until it went to zero (probably because my last dose was still pretty high at 50 mg).

I did have the restless legs and arms, and it was very uncomfortable because it was almost constant at first. Even after 5 or 6 days, my wife was kicking me out of bed because of it. I still have a MUCH milder version of it, but have taken nothing for it other than melatonin in week 1. It's nuts for sure, but it is exponentially better than it was.

My opinion - once you are down to < 50 mg/day, plan to just go ahead and get off of them completely. It will keep you from a prolonged state of withdrawal and the acute withdrawal phase should be milder than if you were to quit at 120 mg/day.

[leeloo]

Thank you so much for your message, ScottQuit021907! I have been searching through and reading the archives to find messages about tapering off of Morphine, but mostly see Oxycontin, Vicodin, etc. but not much mention of Morphine. Don't know if it is just something that is not used much by non-pain-patients, since that is what this message board is about, or what.

Yes, you got it right, except that I can't much remember if I was taking 3 or 4 of the ER tabs 3x per day, but that doesn't much matter at this point anyway. All I know is that my doctor did switch me to the Fentanyl and Norco to address the pain issues I have while I have been trying to get the Morphine out of my system. They work slightly differently from Morphine though, so they don't help at all for the WD symptoms. Its sort of crazy that I can be on all of this other pain medication, and still having crazy WD symptoms if I wait too long in between my Morphine doses. I really appreciate your comment, it is nice not to feel alone in this. My question is this, it seems that you had to taper down very quickly, did you experience the uncontrollable kicking and punching? I guess you would call it severe muscle spasms? I had to detox from Oxycontin a little over a year ago, and because my doctor lied to me and told me that it would be easier for me to get off the medicine if I went "cold turkey" under medical supervision than taper off of it, I got to experience the full-on insane withdrawals, and I could handle the achiness, chills, restlessness, yawning, etc., but am most scared of having the scary kicking/punching thing that happened to me when I stopped taking Oxycontin (w/Percocet for breakthrough at that time) It was the worst hell I have ever experienced. I am so scared that I will have that again. I lost 20lbs in 2 weeks. I was so sick. Did you have that too?

Anyway, thanks for listening to me, and responding. Hang in there, it sounds like you are doing very well. Did you try any of the Thomas Recipe suggestions?