United Brachial Plexus Network, Inc.

how was withdrawal? What medicine did you go off?
Thank you,

Hi,

I tried them all after my accident. Oxy, percs, tylenol III...I quit cold turkey no big deal.

Yes, it was the best thing I did to get my recovery moving into high gear.

It was nasty though, but well worth it. I was on pain killers for 5 years. Shouldn't have been on them longer than six months in retrospect. Getting off of them actually granted me the ability to learn how to deal with the pain.

I was on Oxycontin, Methadone, Neurontin, Amitriptyline, and a couple others that I can't remember (in very small doses). Methadone was the worst as far as withdrawal, and then Neurontin came second.

Best of Luck!
Christopher

i am 4 months into this injury and still on lyrica i know that if i miss a couple doses my hand goes crazy. other than that i have no other problems when i dont take it. i am probably on my last prescription and am thinking about tapering off of them. the pain is managable as long as i am on the lyrica. i am not sure if i should stop it or not. i have heard if you are on a med for pain, the withdrawal is minimal. i hope that is true. how long do you have to be off a med before you get withdrawal symptoms? if i do not take the lyrica for an entire day, i have no withdrawal symptoms, but the next day my hand hurts like crazy.

yesterday, i went to a warm water public pool for 2 hours and did excercises with my arm and hand and WOW WOW WOW my hand feels a lot less stiff today. i think i will do that more often!!! maybe i can be rid of the lyrica!!

I was on really high doses of neurontin, oxyconton and oxycodone for about 6-7 months, with others added on for different surgeries (ie, tramadol, lyrica, etc.) due to having such massive bodily injury and sucessive surgery and even though I followed all the correct dosages while taking them, and going off them (tapering), I'd say I had pretty miserable withdrawl symptoms for about 2-3 weeks after. They were pretty typical - bad hot and cold flashes, restless limbs, and an overall "weak" felling. It was scary when I would feel miserable, and then take my tapering dose and sudeenly feel normal again. It makes you think about how easily people can get sucked into drug addiction. I probably should have called one of my doctors about extending the tapering off period to ease the withdrawl symptoms but i really just wanted to be off all the drugs. I'm pretty sure it was the oxy that was the culprit, especially the oxycontin since that is designed to stay in your bloodstream 24-7 (a slow release pill taken every 12 hrs).
I always thibk it's a good idea that people taking drugs or painkillers either lower their doses or go off them completely (with their doctor's assistance, of course) every once in a while because your body is always changing in
A) the way it reacts to the drugs and
B) How it handles the pain without them or on a lower dosage.

Many people need a lot of drugs in the first 6 months or a year but find after that they don't need them as much. It's also easy to forget what normal even feels like when taking a lot of painkilers (though I understand that some people really need the assistance of painkillers and such, and that everyone is different)

Within a month of my accident in May of 08 I was off of all narcotics. I found that they just made me drowsy. I was still on Amitryptiline at night. I decided to get off of it and just take the Gabapentin. I still take this medicine 4 times a day at 600 mg. It seems to knock the edge off of the hand pain. I went through a month where I knocked it back to 300 mg 5 times per day and did "ok" with it, but not as well as I did with the 600mg dosage x 4. I would love to be off of any medication, before this accident it was extremely rare for me to take medication of any type.

I took myself off everything prescription about 3 months after surgery which was 6 months after accident. I used to have periods of time when I was off everything. I'm now on tylenol or advil or tylenol and advil in order to sleep. The lack of sleep started affecting me more then the pain during the day.

I had my wisdom teeth pulled a few months ago and they gave me vicodin for that. That was a good weekend but not something I want to take every day. I've been debating going back on something strong because I've been able to identify triggers which linger for days and if I could take something during the trigger I think it would be a huge benefit. For example flying really infuriates my pain. I don't know if it is the plane or the lugging around luggage. But it takes a few days for things to calm back down to normal.

Another trigger for me is fatigue. So, make sure you all get enough sleep.

I had my injury in 1968 no one prescribed anything for my pain! I had to grin & bear it. It was hell. somedays I would not get out of bed it hurt so much. what i had was my love of sports and I used that to deal with the pain. I ended up being selected to be a member of the US Disabled Ski Team for 9 years. I never knew there was a pain killer for a BP injury.