How much pain?

[Undonn]

My brother is in day two of detox from percs and T1's. He is in a lot of pain.....is this normal. He has underlying back pain which is being treated but seems twice as ba now. Is this normal?

[J T Junig, MD PhD]

Agreed.  It is also very difficult to sort out exactly how much pain the person is really having.  many people addicted to pain pills have winced and cried their way to getting prescriptions for years, to the point where even the patient him/herself doesn't know how much 'pain' is there.  I suppose one can look at heart rate and blood pressure;  a person with a great deal of physical pain will have significant elevations of both.  

Bottom line-- opioid withdrawal is a very miserable experience.  There are a couple meds that reduce it slightly (e.g. clonidine), but there is no way to go through detox without significant misery.  Even the 'rapid detox' programs-- where the person is heavily sedated or under anesthesia during detox-- only reduce the withdrawal by cutting off one day of misery.  The experience of withdrawal is very lonely;  you can help by letting the person know you are there. No pain pills-- but you are there.  That can really help.

[Undonn]

Thanks for the help. I posted earlier, he finally went though the detox and is doing really wll. We actually tapered down to half a perc before finally making the jump. My concern is the pain he claims he still has. We still have a script or percs (30/month).  He gets 4 a week o manage his pain....no more. Hopefully he will be able to manage it.

[shafto]

It is normal. He is taking opiate pain killers which will mask the pain. Opiate withdrawls themselves are horrible! So he's feeling pain for both.
Was he using the percs for pain relief or recreational?
Opiate withdrawls will usually last 3 to 5 days with disrupted sleep for months after (in some cases)
It sounds like he needs some sort of pain management the ISN'T opiate based.
Good luck.