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Hi everyone, I see you’re still doing a great job Mark ????
Its been a few months since I last checked in here, but I just wanted to let folks know that I was on 8-9 30mg DHC pills a day and I started my own tapering program.
I have been gradually taking less and less over around half a year.. until the last couple of months when I was down to taking 5mg on a morning and 5mg before bed.. and I just couldn’t bring myself to stop taking this final dosage..
Anyway, I took the plunge 3 days ago and it wasn’t as bad as I expected.. but to tell you all the truth I have started drinking heavily to cushion the blow, so I wake up each morning and I look like I’ve got mixamatosis and I feel like hell.
But I’m opiate free at last, I suppose that’s the main thing.. and I went through every drawer and bag in my house and I threw every opiate based tablet into the bin.. so I’ve got no temptation or option to ever take these evil tablets again.
I did mention that I was struggling to sleep during the tapering process, so I went to my GP and persuaded him to prescribe me some Melatonin which did help for a while.. but then I found out about GABA powder which is an excellent sleep aid, so I ordered 1kg and I take half a teaspoon under my tongue just before bedtime and it knocks me out cold and I sleep all night.
All I can say is please stick at what you are doing, wether it’s cold turkey or tapering.. because you will get there in the end.. and I know it’s terrifying, especially for family members who can see that you aren’t looking so healthy.. but you must be honest with them and they might not understand what you’re going through but you should explain that you will eventually get better and this is a temporary side effect.
Good luck to you all 😉
This is why I only log in every now and again.
I see you are still hanging tough Mark.. and I reckon you should receive a medal for your efforts on this site, because you are tower of strength.
Everything online seems to be subject to some kind of “ censorship “ .. it’s like the internet Police are afraid in case you let something slip that might incur the Authorities into liability of something, I mean these days we do live under a strict Authoritarian regime don’t we..
This knocked me off posting comments on here because censorship stinks !
Otherewise you are doing a great job Mark.. you are devoting a lot of your time and effort to people who need serious help.. and your help is not offered by the NHS or any other health service in the world !
If you save only one life with your support, a desperate young mother through this.. I reckon you have done a great job..
I am sure God has chosen you to help us poor souls.. I really do.
You are a good soul Mark ????
Hi Mark, I hope you’re ok mate.. and I know exactly how you are feeling, I really do.
I remember your post about not being able to continue with the type of work that you had done most of your life due to your inability to continue due the agony and the anxiety it brings.. and I’m not just saying it, I think you are in the same boat as me.
I’ve done some terrible work over the years, I wasn’t so lucky to get a trade but my first job was a Coal Man for £30 a week.. Then I went to work in a Steel foundry, swinging a 14lb melhammer 10hr shifts.. I’ve done all kinds of heavy work and now I have just found out at 50 years old, that I have arthritis in my semi crippled feet.. so my condition is worsening as I get older, yet I got took off my meds at the time when I need them the most.. how ironic lol
I don’t know what your circumstances are regarding married life or family etc. but have you ever thought about becoming a foster carer ? .. I really think a caring soul like yourself would fit the bill for such a job.. because you seem to possess the qualities of a good man ????
I forgot to say that GABA is a naturally occurring amino acid that occurs in our bodies so it’s totally safe to take.. there’s plenty of information online about it anyway.. and apparently it helps with anxiety and there have been medical trials done with opiate withdrawal patients and apparently it helped really well.
But I really know that Melatonin works for sleep, because I took it for years and I slept well most nights.. but when I couldn’t buy it anymore I was unable to sleep properly.
Good luck everyone and I hope you get through this ????
Hi everyone,
I joined the forum a month or two ago, but I lost faith with the posting process due my posts being hidden so I lost patience, but I decided to read a few posts today, so I thought I’d try and post some helpful advice.Anyway, I am more than half way through a tapering process after the NHS just decided to cancel my prescription of Diyhdrocodeine 30mg and I was taking around 270mg and sometimes more.. I am now down to 65mg.
Getting to sleep has always been difficult for me even before I started this opiate withdrawal thing, but a few years ago I used to buy Melatonin online but since the UK came out of the EU it has since been banned so I couldn’t buy it anymore.. but after some research I found out that it can be prescribed on the NHS ! So I went to my doctor and persuaded him to give me some and it’s helped me get to sleep.. but there’s more.. I also found out about GABA which is an Amino Acid powder supplement and it also helps with sleep, but I had to buy it from an eBay pharmaceutical seller in Germany .. and I’m also using Magnesium.. so I’m taking all three and I take them all together around half an hour before bedtime and they knock me out all night, honestly they work.
I just want to say that you are a good bloke Mark, you are supporting a lot of people and you are doing a fantastic job ????
Hi Warby, thanks for the message.. I actually just realised that you and Wynter are two different people lol.. I think Wynter and Warby has a certain ring to it like an easy listening duo or something. Anyway thanks again and I hope you are keeping well ????
Hi Soph, I am sorry to hear about what’s happened and I know it’s a nightmare, in fact it’s probably the hardest thing any of us on here have had to do.. physically and mentally. I don’t know how you are planning to get of these opiates, but the way I done it was.. I worked out how many tablets I was taking per week and then I got a notepad out and started a countdown program to taper the pills. So the best way to do it I would say is with those clear pill boxes you can buy with morning, midday, afternoon and evening written on them and they come in a 7 day tray. Then you set out your first week of weening yourself off.. and was the scary part for me, I was like a Bomb disposal man shaking and sweating as I slowly laid the tablets in place. At one point I was on everything opiate based I could lay my hands on.. I was a secret opiate fiend and nobody could tell. But now I’m down to around 120mg a day with the help of a notepad and those pill boxes. So if you are on say 300mg a day now, you put a chart in your notebook and then after 7 days start a new date with a chart below with an amount of pills which will add up to 280mg.. then keep repeating. Honestly, I am halfway through and there is no reason to go back. You can do it.. and even if things get rough you can always put the tapering on hold for another week.. but never go up on the dosage, I think that’s the important thing. Good luck anyway and I hope you get through this ????????
Hi Wynter, I’m sorry about this.. I was just telling Mark about how I typed up a load of replies to you and they were just disappearing and not showing on screen.. so after an hour or so of wasted time I sort of gave up with forums lol. Anyway I’m just reading back to try and catch up on what’s happening and I realised what you said about the spare opiates you have left in your house.. Now, I really respect your honesty but please.. get them thrown over the biggest cliff you can find, really. You know the way I see this, it’s like finding out that your partner has been cheating on you for years, so you end the relationship obviously.. but then you just say hey just stay in the spare bedroom just in case I get a bit frisky one evening ! Or it’s like those old glass covered things that look like a fire alert bell with “ break in case of emergency “.. you know, the ones with a single cigarette inside that were sold in joke shops. Except this is no joke.. I know as soon as I’m down to the last 5mg on the last week, I’m going to take half a Valium tablet for bed every night for a week and then go onto Melatonin and Magnesium.. You can do it Wynter, get them thrown as far away as possible or even destroy them with a hammer in a sacrificial ceremony. You know it makes sense ????
Hi Mark, I don’t mean to sound insensitive or anything but how did you end up going back to the opiates once you kicked the habit through cold turkey ? .. I am imagining it was either the physical pain or some sort of crisis in your life ? .. This is what’s scaring me, because as soon as there’s a shock like a family or friend who dies I used to go overboard on the pills.. but strangely not for physical pain, I used them more for emotional pain.. it’s strange, because they are not usually prescribed for emotional distress. Anyway I hope you and everyone else on here are going to stick to the plan .. and get off these evil little white monsters for good. I have a lot of good information that I wanted to share with everyone, but it seems that a moderator is taking my messages down.. I’m a bit confused because I thought forums were to help each other.
I hope you pull through, I am so sorry to hear about what’s happening to you.. it must be a nightmare. It just goes to show how dangerous these things are.. and they do more damage than good. All the best to you.. and good luck ????
Thanks Mark, I really appreciate it. I have just tried to post a shorter message with a list of everything I have been addicted to over the last 20 years and I’m just wondering if there’s some kind of censorship issue that I’m breaching .. any ideas ? It says my reply was updated to the forum but when I checked it isn’t there. Anyway, I hope everyone is hanging in there still and not taking any more devil pills than they should be.. I found some interesting info online about L-aspartic Acid which is an Amino acid.. There were some medical trials done years ago on Heroin and Opiate users who were in withdrawal.. and they all showed signs of improvement throughout the process. I have just bought myself a 1kg bag online and I am going to see if it helps.. Although I can imagine it might make my diarreah symptoms worse, I’m turning myself inside out, where I used to be constipated to the point of not being able to go to the toilet for up to 3-5 days and it was like giving birth, now it’s the exact opposite
Mark, sorry mate.. I feel a bit ignorant. I have never joined a forum in my life and I am not sure if I’m typing too many words in my posts, because I typed 3 replies a few days ago and when I posted them they disappeared.. so I gave up. I don’t know if I broke any rules by adding certain names of different drugs that I was on over the last 20 years, but my replies were respectful and no swearing etc. I also thought that folks might think I was exaggerating just how much opiate based medication I was taking on and off.. and then to top it off I realised that I might be in the wrong forum, because it seems that you folks are a lot braver than me because you are all doing this the hard way with cold turkey, but I scared to do that so I am tapering gradually. I will put a list of what I was taking and how much.. but it shocks me to even type it.. I can hardly believe I’m still alive.
Hi Mark, I left you a reply earlier.. but it seems to have disappeared ? Maybe it was a bit long or it was put on hold from admin so they could check it before posting it, because it had a few references to certain drugs etc. but it was respectful with no swearing etc.
Can you let me know if you received it or has it disappeared into the ether..
All the best ????
John.
Hi Wynter, thanks for the warm welcome.. I really appreciate it.
I’m really sorry about your Cat, I know how hard it is when you have to make the decision to put your pet down.. I had a little white terrier who went everywhere with me and he lived up to 18 years old and he started taking fits and he kept falling down and it was terrible to make the decision to put him to sleep.. Then a few months later my mother got rushed into hospital and we were told that her bowel had packed in and she was a bit old for surgery and she would probably die anyway.. so we were basically made to decide whether to operate or put her on this drip driver machine filled with Morphine and Medazolam ( Matt Hancock ) death recipe.. So my sister, me and my dad had to sit in this room for 48hours and watch our mam die slowly.. It was a living nightmare, because we just assumed that she would return home after a few weeks in hospital, what a terrible shock. So I was eating the Opiates like they were sweets.. and I got a friend to bring me some Diazepam which helped.
So I feel your pain, I really do.. But my advice to anyone is don’t be tempted to give in and take any more than you are currently taking.. or if you have completely came off them.. and you still have any spare ones laying around, get them thrown in the bin.. because that’s what I’m doing. I decided that it doesn’t matter how bad life gets, I won’t use opiates as a comforter anymore.. I know it’s hard and I feel like a hypocrite because in the evening I drink Vodka like it’s Pepsi.. but no way would I crank up the dosage of these devil pills even when bad things happen.
Dig your heels in Warby and stay strong.. you can do it ????
All the best
John.
Hi everyone, I’m new here and I just wanted to share my experience with trying to get out of the opiate trap.. I know it’s a pure living nightmare.
I was prescribed dihydrocodeine 30mg around 20 years ago for pain relief because I was born with deformed feet and as I got older they got really painful to the point I couldn’t sleep. So I got these magic tablets which were great at first, then after a few years they did nothing but make me feel like hell.. especially when I forgot to take them. They basically become the master and you become a slave to these evil little pills.. and the crushing feeling in the upper chest is the worst feeling of all ( in my experience ) .. so you have to keep taking them to stop this feeling, it’s like a vice crushing your chest while your heart pounds at a fast rate .. and also the feeling of being suffocated topped of with feelings of dread, agitation, anxiety, tension and anger.. like your body is attacking you into submission to take the pills.. and I have been eating them like smarties just to try and feel normal everyday.. not good, I know.
My story is a bit different to the ones I’ve read so far on here, because many of you took the bold step of coming off the DHC by your own choice.. but I have had no option, I never made the choice.. the NHS did. It’s quite a bizarre thing that’s happened because I just got a text message telling me that dihydrocodeine was no longer being prescribed in my area and I would be getting a substitute which was “ Codeine Phosphate “.. and for those who are clued up will know that these are as much use as taking Aspirin compared to the DHC30mg. So when I read the text message I nearly had a panic attack.. because I was down to my last two pills that day.
It seems to me like the NHS is currently doing it’s best to kill people instead of saving lives.. because they should have at least given me a few months notice to let me know that they were planning on stopping the supply of these drugs.. and I think it’s terrible and dangerous. Luckily I knew about Codydramol which contains DHC 30mg plus 500mg Paracetamol.. so I made an appointment to see my doctor who was basically clueless, anyway I talked him round into prescribing me Codydramol instead of the Codeine Phosphate which are not a substitute for DHC .. So basically I have been forced into coming off them by tapering and 5 weeks into the process I feel like the rest of you on here.. no motivation, major depression, hopelessness, no interest in anything and I am avoiding people to the point that I can’t even go into a shop anymore.. It is a living nightmare.
I just thought I would add my experience on here, just to let you all know that you are not alone and I feel your pain.. I really do. I think one of the worst things of this is the worry, misery and upset that our family must go through when they can see the change we are going through and I know that we can’t just paint a smile on our face.. I wish I could but it’s hard. Luckily I’ve got an easy going wife who is doing her best to understand and support me with what I’m going through and to tell you the truth I am very surprised she hasn’t left me.
Sorry if I have left such a long thread, but I got a bit carried away and it’s the first time I’ve posted anything in a forum.. I tend just to read forums for advice, but not this time.
Good luck to everyone and I really hope you get your life back on track very soon.
All the best
John.