hello can any one help i have been on 8 tramadol a day a cant get of them i also have to take a sleeping tablet to get sleep. when i try to come of them even two i feel sick fed up im nasty to people ive stopped drinking going out. the doctors are no use at all, is there any thing i can take to get of them HELP PLEASE
I assume 8 a day is 400 mg a day? I am not a doctor. If you can see your GP and get referred to rehab, they can help. To come off tramadol you need to want to stop enough to seriously suffer. If you are willing to do that, and you hate being a slave enough, you can do it. Two ways. Cold turkey - if you have to work this might be best as you can take a week off sick and get it over with. If you have to work while coming off, tapering down is the other way. Doctors will have you taper. It works well for some, but just prolongs the suffering for others. To taper really slowly, get some kiddie vitamin syrup, some syringes and your tramadol. Do some serious math and work out how much tramadol to add to the syrup so you can get your dose by increments with a syringe. This way you can taper down by taking a tiny bit less every few days (in each dose every 6 hours). But do not do this if you can't work out the amount of tramadol in an increment on your syringe. If you can cut down by taking fewer pills, then go two weekly down by 50mg. Many say to go faster but it messes with sleep too much. If you can do cold turkey, try to cut down by tapering to 200mg a day if possible first. Then prepare to feel like the flu hit you, your guts are being tortured, your head is exploding, and all your friends and loved ones are gone. You can know that it is all just something to be lived through. I would suggest that you do not stop tramadol and the sleeping tablet at the same time. I definitely encourage you to get a doc to help, if you can. If not, believe me, you can do it. I have done it and it is dire, but there is always a part of your mind that can spur you on and remind you it will pass. The anguish is really bad, and the lack of sleep makes it worse. Support, back rubs, someone making tea and toast helps.
Ok David, I am sorry you are struggling with tramadol. I've had major withdrawal symptoms from it and I'm still on 3 tablets but I use to be on 8 per day. You need to do it one tablet at a time. It can up to 8weeks for symptoms to subside before you may be able to reduce another, BUT everyone is different you may do it quicker. Depends on what other meds you are taking or reducing. You May experience the usual withdrawal symptoms, sweats, headache, diarrhoea etc then after they settle you may experience emotional symptoms. You can get through this I won't deny it is hard but many of us have survived and you will too. I'm still battling myself so I totally understand. I find the operiate withdrawal symptoms which is the emotional ones the hardest to get thru. I've had no support from any medical professionals, it sounds like you are not getting any support either. Well I believe you will get through this difficult time. TAKE care xx
You just gave me an idea. Maybe a compounding pharmacy could pre-mix it.
Support is out there, but it is hard to get. I was offered support, but it was a wait. I could not wait, so I did it myself, with hubbie support. The anguish for me was the worst part - I sobbed and wailed uncontrolably, whilst telling my husband that I knew everything was fine, but the feeling of anguish was so strong it brought me to the floor. It is a tough ride. If you know it is a tough ride, and you plan for it, you can get through it. It will take two years for your brain to fully recover. You will get highs and lows. The lows will get lesser in intensity and further apart, but they will still happen. Recover is just exactly that - a recovery, and it is a long term one.
thank you for your reply , i have been so down with all of this, i am going to try so hard to cut down to 5 this week and so on and on, i get very bad craps in my arms and hands the pain is just so much some times i just want to hit my doctor waste of time. they have changed me as a person changed my life and not for the better , i so want of them
thank you for your reply im just so fed up with it all , work no sleep falling out with friends what do we do all i seem to say is sorry x
sympathy......lots of it.
Tell your friends what's going on. Be honest and forthcoming. If they are truly friends, they will understand and make allowences. If they don't, they aren't worth the worry.
i am on the same thing and i have exces sleeping during the day time sleeping at night with sleeping pills otherwise i can not sleep if i was not retired i would have lost my job for sure. one lady i heard of did same symtons . falling asleep during the day on her computer at work i am 68 My DR not much help but they have booked me into the respratory and sleep clinic here which is in about 3 weeks time i may post the results here .DR said tramadole suits me etc
so try the hospital through your DR best of luck peter
Sleeping tablets (diazepam, I assume) are very very addictive. Get off them. You will not be able to sleep without them for a while, but still, get off them! If you have tramadol to come off of, get off the tramadol first.
When you can't sleep, do something. Get up, potter about, get some kind of hobby that is absorbing and makes you focus - I knit. Anything....building a house of cards, a puzzle...crosswords...something repetative and that interests you and is satisfying as it progresses. If you can, take time off work and focus on the 24 hour 'job' of getting drug free.
There is a life after tramadol. Equally there is a life after diazepam. But to get to that life, you need to go through the dark tunnel of withdrawal. Once through, I can promise you, life has sunshine! Yes, there are still clouds as the brain adjusts. There are still waking hours. But life is very very good, at times, and those times get more frequent. The important thing is to get off addictive drugs.
Be careful who you share with. I find people are harsh about addictions - in our case not addiction, but drug dependency. If you do share to get much needed support, tell them it is a build up drug dependency and that you need support and no judgement to come off, and some slack as you will be grumpy with tiredness and low mood.
hello you are right there . dr did not beleive me for a long time
will let you know when i have been to sleep clinic here in a few weeks time thanks for your reply Pete
I am 13 days off of tramadol. I wanted to tell you how exactly I did it. Might help... I was at 6 per day or 300mg for 8 years. I started going down by 1 or 50mg per week. The first day of each taper I felt kind of rough but not too bad, I was still able to function/work. Once I got to one tablet I took that for a week and then flushed the rest of them, which was probably one of the scariest things I've ever done, but I knew if I had them I would take them. So day one wasnt so bad but by night one I could really tell...didn't sleep at all and got very aggravated. Day 2 I felt pretty bad but it wasn't intolerable. My best advice is find something that takes your mind off of everything such as a game, hobby, etc. If you don't find something to do you will drive yourself insane by watching the clock. At least that's exactly what I did. Night 2 was rough but better than the first night. Day 3 I was starting to feel better still didn't have a whole lot of energy but this was the day I noticed things were improving and not getting worse. Your mind plays some crazy tricks on you and makes you think you can't do it. Night 3 I slept all night long, I think my body was so exhausted it had no choice but to sleep lol. Everyday after day 3 was better and better. I am not on day 13 today. This is the part I want to share with you the most....even after all the bad and hell you go through it is worth it SO worth it. I feel so good now!!! I feel like a new person! I was so depressed and upset when this started for me and now I have so many things I am looking forward to. You really do start all over in a sense. My best advice for quitting or what helped me is FIND SUPPORT family/significant other/friends,etc. The more support you have the easier it will be. I had my husband and once I got through the worst of it I appreciated him so much more than I ever had!! He helped me stay positive I don't know what I would have done without that!! I started taking viatmins the moment I started tapering and then once I quit I took potassium pills. I forced and believe me when I say forced myself to eat breakfast lunch and dinner. That was hard becasuse I had absolutely no appetite. But I knew I wouldn't get my energy back unless I ate and ate right. I bought some Gatorade and stayed hydrated. I cut out my cokes because I felt like it made sleeping harder. I used a heating pad for my legs. I think for me RLS was the absolute worst part of it all. Also, no matter what make yourself get up and move around DONT lay in bed non stop Im telling you walking to the mailbox will help so much. This is the first time I have ever decided to quit but I have ran out before and my personal opinion, the tapering was so much more tolerable than cold turkey, but again that was for me. I have learned reading these forums that everyone is different and you have to find what works best for you. I hope this helps you and I want you to know that you can do it !! I know right now it seems impossible but I promise there is a light at the end of the tunnel and once you reach it it's the best feeling in the world. I am in no way out of the woods and I still have a few (minor) w/d sypmtoms BUT I am proud of myself and feel I am allowed to be. Hopefully if nothing else I encouraged you a little!! Goodluck!!!!
Thanks for that, Nichole. You sound like you had an easier taper than most people. I certainly had no luck with tapering. At the first increment down (.0.5mg) I was sobbing with anguish and up all night with restless legs, and panic attacks and jaw breaking yawning. I had to just go cold turkey as it was just about the same, but for less time. It took me two weeks of agony before I felt like life had any sliver of sun, although day 6 was better in the day. This was my second time stopping, and the first time was easier and more similar to you. The first time I stopped it was because I was better and did not need it as a pain med. The second time was because I had been put back on it for retless legs and my body suddenly grabbed it and I got worse and worse and the docs kept increasing the dose, until they realised my body was dependent and I needed to stop and get a different treatment for the restless legs. I take from that that stopping if addicted or dependent is worse than just stopping because you don't need or like to take it any more.
I must say this though - people, do not flush your tramadol or bin it or bury it. Take it to your pharmacy. It is a terrible thing to add medicines to the sewage system, or the ground. You may have been using flush poetically, but I thought I would say on here that the NHS asks us to return all unused meds for safe disposal.
thank you so much for your kind message, i lost my business 5 years ago which i had worked so hard for, in the last 5 years i have lost my step mum 3 other members off my family and then last August my dad my world fell apart thats when i got on to tramadol for a pain in my back, my younger brother lost his foot and my other brother is so poorly all he wants to do is die, trying to keep the houde together on top of tramadol is so hard, but 6 months a go i got a pub back i say pub its a massive place in Leicester it had been closed for a year, so it took me 2 months todo up which as helped im now doing well and family on the mend, but these tramadol are just killing me i am a dibetic as well only tablets, but yes i am strong so i am going to try it, i am so pleased you are doing well its very nice of you to chat about this i will try very very hard to do this i have to and want to, they have chnaged my life i do not not go out chat to people i use to be the life of the party, i have a good business now i am just so down fed up and feel aloan, did you feel like this, i will keep you up dated thank you so much for your reply stay strong and thank you again xx David
I think most people would be very surprised at all the drugs that turn up in wastewater.
It's strange how some people can be much more resistant to addiction than others. I was on 6 milligrams of alprazolam (Xanax) a day for two years. That's six 1mg doses every day. And sometimes taking other benzodiazapines at night, for sleep. (Not to mention that I had a prescription for 180 10mg hydrocodone every month [about 6 @ day]. But I wasn't taking all of those.) Then my doctor went to jail for overprescribing pain meds, and I just stopped. Yes, I missed it, but I did not have a hard time. I didn't go looking for another doctor. That was over 10 years ago.
Glad to hear you are strong. You will need to be strong those nights when you are coming off and can't sleep and feel as bad as possible in body mind and soul. There is always a part of your brain that is aware that the symptoms are temporary. Listen to yourself telling yourself you can get through. As Nichole said - the light at the end of the tunnel is there. It is not very far off either.
Yes, some people are more sensitive to chemicals. We utilize them and store them and flush them at different rates. Also the reasons for taking differ. For pain, tramadol is great, but I wonder if it is safe for someone who has a low mood, as it would be an anti-dep for them and lead them to needing it for mood? Also, the side effects of tramadol effect people differently. My theory is, if it takes some time to tolerate tramadol, it will be hard to come off when the body has become used to it. there is a lot to be learned. It is not the non-addictive drug they said it was 15 years ago. I hope this forum is looked at by a doctor and experiences noted and used in research.
I am quite sad that the doctors who put us on tramadol have no ability to take us off. My doc said he is not allowed to supervise or prescribe to help me off tramadol - but he put me on it all those years ago. (He did send me to the rehab folk, but they did not help as I was not addicted, just dependent, and I did not need/want to go into rehab for three months.) So patients are having to figure out themselves how to stop. I am sure there are many who simply stay on past needing tramadol because there is no help to stop - and tramadol for many is as hard or harder to stop than heroin. Seriously, they offer help to stop smoking......
When I first took tramadol it did absolutely nothing for pain. The only thing it did was make it hard to sleep, and itch a little during the many hours it took to wear off. Seriously, like 12 hours from one 50mg dose. Because of that, I seldom take it. Only as a last resort, and only one dose on any given day (usually 75mg). But over time it has become more effective at relieving pain, and wears off just a little faster. I think my body had to "learn" how to metabolize it. (It is the metabolites that kill pain.) It still ruins my sleep.
Yes!! I felt very alone and down. I def wasn't trying to down play my wd's by any means it was the hardest thing I've ever been through and I'm still going through it. I just set my mind to it and stayed as positive as I could. I literally put quotes all over my house to inspire me every room I went in, as weird as that sounds lol. It plays so many mind games on you it's hard to convince yourself your going to be OK. But saying that... once I started showing signs of improvement it was like a sigh of relief. Once I could see myself getting better it was like I was excited to get to the next day to feel even better. It had been 8yrs since I had felt normal all on my own and I felt clarity. It can and will be done and the worst of it is very temporary it will go away soon. I'm sorry you have been through so much lately but you sound like a strong person and I have faith in you that you will be able to do this. And as for flushing the pills I had left it was 2pills and at the time the last thing I was thinking about is how harmful it was to anything other than myself. I needed them gone so I could be done and while my mind was in the right place I had to get rid of them fast. Good luck to you and again you can and will do this.