Quitting Hydrocodone Cold Turkey

[arieal33]

Im 33 years old and I have been taking pain pills ( lortab, percocet,darvocet,ect ) for close to 15 years now. Im up to taking 10-15 today depending on what mg they are. Im wanting to quit. I tried to quit a few years back c/t and went thru serious withdrawl symptoms, even had a seizure. I have been taking 7.5 and 10mg lortab on a daily basis. I am not so much scared of the w/d as the effect that it has made on my body. Im afraid going c/t again will cause me to have another seizure, or worse yet cause me to want to commit suicide again. Last time i had such feelings of doom that i came very close to committing suicide. That is when I started taking the hydrocodone again. I dont know if I should go see my dr tomarrow and ask him to help, I live in a small town and pain pill addiction here is taboo. Im not sure if he will help me taper off or even give me something to help make it thru the withdrawls. I would love to go to rehab but currently can't. im a single mother of 2 kids and no family around to help, so no one to take care of my kids while i was gone to rehab. Someone please give me some advice, I dont have the kind of money it takes to go with sub treatment. Dont know what to do.  

[troubleinohio]

definitely talk to your doctor. Let him help you. Ask for some antidepressants for starters since you got suicidal last time. If you are already on some, you may need a higher dose for awhile then. Also ask about clonidine for BP if you think it will apply to you.  Why did you have a seizure? From my knowledge, WD from these type of opiates do not cause seizures unless its TRAMADOL or a benzo like xanax or its ilk. Are you prone to seizures otherwise?
I wish you the best of luck and please stick with this board through everything, it will be a HUGE HELP to you for support and info and friendship.  

[Cupp78]

Hi arieal,

Sorry to hear you are having such a difficult time.  I understand your hesitation to talk to your Dr.  I was scared to tell mine too, and I live in a very small town too.  But amazingly, he just told me he was proud of me, would pray for me, and would help me anyway he could.  I chose to go the c/t route.  I was taking about 350mg of oxy for about 3 years.  It was hard to first 10 days but has gotten MUCH better since then.  Maybe you should talk to your Dr. about an anti-depressant to help you through this time.  I found that aftercare (for me NA meetings) was VERY important.  It was very helpful to talk to other people who have beat this demon and gotten their life back.  I would highly reccomend trying out the amino acid protocol if you can.  i think that helped me get back to feeling OK again quicker than the many other times I tried to stop.  Getting on something else (Sub) to get off of another thing just didn't sound appealing to me...and with all the horror stories on here I am glad I decided against it.  Please keep posting and keep taking it ONE DAY AT A TIME!  Don't think about tomorrow b/c we are not promised it, we just have to get through the day the best we can.  If it turns out to be a bad day, chalk it up to a bad day and try it again tomorrow.  It does get better and there is a way out of this.  And suicide definitley is not it.  That would just create more issues for you two kids to carry through their lives.  Try to think about the legacy you want to leave for them and what effect your choices have on them.  Not tyring to be preachy...just telling you some of the things i thought about that helped me through the days when I wanted SOOO bad to use again.

Good luck, and God bless you.  Keep coming back and posting!!

[Sarah1083]

Hi, I'm sorry to hear about your situation.  15 years on these pills is a long long time.  I've only been on for 3 years and this is day 5 of being off them.  I'm feeling much better than the past few days but I couldn't imagine cold turkey after 15 years.  I did try a sub a few months back for only 3 weeks to try to have an easy way out of the withdrawels but after I got off that the withdrawels were worse I think.  I was back on Lorcets within a week. I personally wouldn't go that route if I knew then what I do now, not to mention the cost.  But, to each his own.  I don't think I would cold turkey either.  if rehab is no choice for you and I can understand why then I would definitely see a doctor about the correct way to come off of these, especially if you've had seizures in the past.  You don't want anything to happen to you coming off them this time especially with kids. Good luck to you.  If you ever need to talk I'm on here a few times a day.