Bye-bye tramadol

[AnnieNYC]

Hi everybody, I'm new here and really happy to have found this community. You all seem like such nice people. I try to get to meetings, but it's great to have a place online that I can look at any time.

So, tramadol. I've been using for about two years, with time off for "detoxing" with suboxone. The suboxone definitely prevents w/d symptoms; unfortunately, I get high on it. My doctor says that's very rare. Lucky me. So for me to do the tapering thing off suboxone would be about as easy as tapering off any old opiate. If I could do that, I wouldn't need the sub.

But that's just what I'm doing now. (I know tramadol is a "opioid," but it's a very similar high for me.) I've been tapering. I felt quite good this morning, and I took my last remaining pill because I thought I "should." It knocked me right out...put me to sleep, made me flushed and sick to my stomach. All good news, from my POV.

I'm getting through the day with some sniffling and yawning and the runs. All tolerable. I'm so grateful not to be hideously sick and depressed.

You know the worst thing for me? And this is so stupid. But my head is clearing and it's very hard for me to handle! It actually does feel good! But it's so confusing. All these thoughts: "what should I be doing right now?" being the main one. My home is a mess, and I want to clean it up. My head says "But I don't feeeeeeel wellllllll I can't do that!!!" Reality pipes up: "I actually feel kinda OK; I could totally do the dishes or clean the bathroom." It's massively stupid, but I guess my brain is kind of feeling its oats and I don't have any kind of baseline "normal" established yet. This is actually pretty unnerving.

OK, enough whining from me. I'm very grateful to have found you all. God bless you.

[AnnieNYC]

Thanks, I will check it out.

[GoingToMakeIt]

Yes, too fast, The trouble with fast w/d is the possibilities of seizures. It is better to reduce 1 pill and stay at that for 5 days and then reduce 1 more, etc. Look on avisg profile in her journals. There is some good tapering info there.
http://www.medhelp.org/user_journals/show/725

[AnnieNYC]

People will no doubt think I am a pathetic lightweight, but my habit was 10 pills (50 mgs) a day, which screwed me up really badly. So I tapered down over the course of a week to just one pill today. Too fast? I would really appreciate your advice. Thanks!

[GoingToMakeIt]

Be careful quitting Tramadol cold. How much did you taper down to?