codeine withdrawal

3 weeks ago tomorrow I was in a multiple rollover car accident by myself, as the driver without my seatbelt. Somehow I was completely lucky to come out with just a broken tailbone and torn ligaments in my left shoulder. I was taking 4 T3's/day from the day afterwards up until this week, when I started to get the flu. I woke up monday morning throwing up, and threw up my morning dose of the pills. All day I was very sick, throwing up almost a dozen times, until I was admitted to the hospital monday evening due to dehydration. it is now thursday evening and 4 days without my t3's. I wasn't addicted or taking huge amounts of the stuff, but am now sicker than I've ever been, and it's not the flu doing it to me so much anymore. My stomach feels as though it's tying knots in itself and my head pounds so bad. I am so dizzy I can barely climb the stairs, and I can't sleep at night, even with powerful sleeping pills. This is terrible and I want it to be over. How long is this going to last when I wasn't on the stuff for forever?

I have been addicted to codeine for 7 years. I was also addicted to oxycodone too for 2 years. I went to rehab for the oxy but got back on the codeine again for another 2 years now. I was taking 150 - 300 mg a day at times the 30mg ones, my doctor was giving them to me. I decided many times I wanted to quit but was afraid of the withdrawl symptoms. I quit them for 9 days now cold turkey. I was really rough on day 5 but now the biggest problem is my mood swings. I feel terribly depressed and don't want to communicate with anyone. This whole thing is ruining my life/ relationships. Curse the day the Doctor ever wrote me my first Script!
So what do I do now? Go back to the doctor from a presription of Anti-depressants? How do you fix the damage to the chemistry in your brain so you can function normally and happy without drugs?

Hi All,
For those of you who have problems stopping codeine, here are a few options:

1) Speak to your doctor about Suboxone (Buprenorphine). Suboxone is generally given to people addicted to heroin or stronger opioids. But there is nothing wrong in using *low-dose* Buprenorphine for codeine withdrawals (I've done it before with my patients). For someone with a habit of say 1200mg of Codeine/day, you can get by on 2-4mg of Suboxone. The suboxone can then be tapered off after 2 weeks. This should give you a relatively comfortable withdrawal.

2) Slowly taper the codeine off by reducing your dose to 60% of the original, every 4 days. Once you are down to a low dose like 30mg, you can reduce it by 5mg every 2-3days, or you could even come off of 30mg cold turkey (very very little withdrawal symptoms)

I really hope this helps, and feel free to contact me if you need anymore help. (This is my first post on this forum. I'm not registered so if you wish to contact me, please remove the NO and the SPAM from this:
ajNO@inhrnSPAM.org

Cheers,
AJ
De-addiction consultant and specialsit

Hi All,
For those of you who have problems stopping codeine, here are a few options:

1) Speak to your doctor about Suboxone (Buprenorphine). Suboxone is generally given to people addicted to heroin or stronger opioids. But there is nothing wrong in using *low-dose* Buprenorphine for codeine withdrawals (I've done it before with my patients). For someone with a habit of say 1200mg of Codeine/day, you can get by on 2-4mg of Suboxone. The suboxone can then be tapered off after 2 weeks. This should give you a relatively comfortable withdrawal.

2) Slowly taper the codeine off by reducing your dose to 60% of the original, every 4 days. Once you are down to a low dose like 30mg, you can reduce it by 5mg every 2-3days, or you could even come off of 30mg cold turkey (very very little withdrawal symptoms)

I really hope this helps, and feel free to contact me if you need anymore help. (This is my first post on this forum. I'm not registered so if you wish to contact me, please remove the NO and the SPAM from this:
ajNO@inhrnSPAM.org

Cheers,
AJ
De-addiction consultant and specialist

I have been addicted to codeine for the past 5 years taking an average of 10 pills a day (10 mg each). I am now going through the withdrawal stage with the sweating, feeling cold, nausea. One question I do have though is, has anyone else had their menstrual cycles affected and do you believe it was because of your codeine addiction??

Hi, I am also a codeine addict. I started taking codeine in 2002 when I lost my baby and everything started going wrong health wise. Over the next 4 years I was taking codeine every day. I knew I was addicted as I didn't have a clue how many I was taking all I knew is I wanted more.

In 2006 I decided to stop the medication I wanted to see if the pain I had was really there or just in my head (a reason to take the codeine) It took me just over a month I started reducing my daily dose and keeping notes written down of the time I took a pill. I gave my tablets to my husband at home and a collegue I could trust at work so I couldn't just take them whenever I had a craving.
The withdrawal was horrible as so many of you have said the flu feeling especially in the shoulders becomes unbearable, I just felt restless. I used to rub lavender oil into my back before bed which did help a little.

I was so proud of myself when I stopped even though I know it wasn't over I only had to see codeine and wanted one but I was strong.

Three weeks ago my dentist prescribed me with some pain relief (codeine based) and being silly I thought I would be ok as it was only a short term supply and it had been two years. I was wrong it took me a day and a half to get back used to the feeling and now I am suffering again with withdrawal, I am not sleeping and have that feeling in my shoulders which just makes me want to cry.

Once I am over this and I will be. I am never taking anything with codeine again it really isn't worth it.

Be strong it is possible to get back to a normal life. It is amazing the differnce being clean makes.

I've been addicted to oxycontin, then i switched to codeine because I moved to a country that didn't have access to oxycontin but plenty of codeine without a prescription. I was taking 300mg at a time about 3 times a day, nearly a gram of codeine per day! I came to San Francisco and started a suboxone treatment, it's really amazing, no withdrawals and you don't have to worry about taking it every couple hours you take it once every 24 hours... http://www.suboxone.com/ its really an amazing drug, theres some people who try to taper off it too quickly and get intense withdrawal effects but you have to be on the drug for atleast a month depending on your addiction. Addiction to opiates is truely a disease because it alters your brain permanently, don't be ashamed of it, just have the courage to turn your life around. If I would have known it was as easy as going to their website and putting in my zip code then calling the clinic and coming in the next day I would have done it years ago when I was doing massive amounts of oxycontin, atleast 240mg a day of oxycodone... I was severely addicted codeine is practically impossible to quit going cold turkey on the amount I was taking but I could imagine if you were taking atleast half the amount i was you could easily ween off at the recommended 10% every 8 days, thats the standard, every EIGHT days you shave 10%, 7 days is almost enough time for your brain to respond but 8 days will make it more comfortable. Weening isn't always the best solution because you may or may not have a steady supply or powerful enough will, when you're weening its extremely important that you time your doses within 15 minutes. but i truely recommend suboxone as the best solution for ANY opiod dependence

hi guys

just thought i would let u all know (if u didnt know already)

having recently come off nurophen plus-used for migraines and pms cramps and accidently got addicted.....

the withdrawal symptoms suck, nausea, headaches, leg cramps are the worst at night!!!

well after 4 days i felt normal by 2 weeks energy levels were normal

and THE BEST BIT

as my sister is a GP she let me know that drinking tonic water helps combat the symptoms of leg cramps as it contains quinine...so have a gin and tonic before bed she said!! and also lavender oil helps with all symptoms especially leg cramps and insominia, put some drops in a bath before bed and also some on a towel or pillow in bed.

good luck those coming off. stick with it :0) its worth it!

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Guest wrote:

When you stop taking the drug, each day the amount left in your system is cut by 1/2. (i.e. 100/50/25/12.5 etc...) Suck it up and deal with the withdrawal symptoms. You did this to yourself and now its time to make it right. Yes, having the feeling of weakness, nausea, headaches, light headedness suck but it only gets better with time. Take back control of your life!

That's a bit harsh my friend, but sometimes true in certain cases. In my case I had agonising pain in both calf muscles and my Dr thought it was psychological because I had a bad childhood (yes he's a dickhead!) anyways cut a 12 year history short he kept upping my codiene unti it hit 360mls per day whilst specialists looked at his psych outlook on me and although I told Dr Alan Broom that we may be putting a bandaid on an open wound he said it was in my head.

Well I moved countries and the Drs here diagnosed me by the size of my huge calves with Chronic Compression Syndrome wwhich is where the muscles becomes too big for the fasica and starts pressing on nerves.
So for 12 years those nerves were covered by heavy codeine use and now after surgery on them I find that 12 years damage has been done and my pain from crushed nerves will be forever.
I can't sue because New Zealand (where I came from) has stupid laws in to 'save' doctors who mess up!

I am on Lyrica 300mg twice daily now and it has dulled the agony to a 1 out of ten, but Now Imust start my codeine withdrawal.
I was taking 12 30mg tablets but have this down now to 1 30mg tablet but I know the shit hits the fan when that one comes off, so I'm here to find out how others are doing and well thst's my story

Hi all

Im pretty new to this place and have just come across this thread. As yet i dont really have many answers, just lots of questions. I am addicted to Cocodamol 30/500's and i last took them 4 days ago. I have not cut down or used anything to quit.

I was taking 10-30 a day, sometime more but generally around 15. I generally only used them at night.

At the moment i am going through hell trying to stick to not taking any, which is the reason that i am sat writing on here at 6am!! I have begun to blog my days of cold turkey on another thread on this site which i think you may find useful or interesting.

http://www.steadyhealth.com/viewtopic.php?p=566579#566579

I am not sure if the link will show up or not. If it doesnt simply look at the threads in

SteadyHealth.com - Health Topics Forum Index -> Addiction & Recovery -> Narcotic (Opioids) Drugs Dependence

and look for my name - perfect-angel or look for the name of the thread -
Withdrawal from codeine - cocodamol 30/500's - Day 2 of cold turkey!

I hope you will reply.