unexpected withdrawal (long post)

July 28, 2006

I'll try to make a long story short and to the point.

I went out to dinner for Mom's 89th birthday. I have a lot of stomach

trouble (acid reflux, etc) from all my meds and usually watch what I

eat. I ate several things on my " no way " list and figured I pay the

price later. Plus I was hurting more than usual, came home from dinner

and took my standard 160 mg of Oycontin and some hydrocodone because

my back was screaming at me.

Then the stomach went nutso and I started throwing up. Besides eating

the wrong foods I think something must have been bad/spoiled because I

was really vomiting a lot. I must have also thrown up the Oxycontin

because a few hours later I felt like I was in the early stages of

withdrawal. Several times I tried some hydrocodone but threw that up too.

I kept waking up, each time feeling worse. At 3 a.m. I realized I was

in full-blown withdrawal: cramps, chills, fever and instense pain all

over. I've never been so sick in my life and the Oxy and Hydro pills

just wouldn't stay down. Worse, my wife and son are out of town and I

was all alone, scared, and really, really sick. I was in withdrawal

but kept throwing up the medicines that would stop it.

By 6 a.m. I remembered I had some Phenergan suppositories and finally

was able to keep some Oxycontin down and the withdrawal symptoms began

to ease up.

I've heard that Oxy withdrawal is rough, and I've never, ever been

that sick in my life. As a young fool in my teens and twenties I was

heavy abuser of narcotics, but those withdrawals were nothing like

what I started into last night. WHEW!!!!

I have a great doctor for my pain management. I called him today to

work out a plan should this ever happen again. I'm just a little bit

leery of walking into an emergency room and requesting a shot of

morphine because I'm too sick to take a pill.

I have a newfound respect for Oxycontin; great drug, really improves

the quality of my life, career, and marriage. But now I'm doubly

inspired to not screw up my doctor/patient relationship: he trusts me

with this medicine, is giving my some extra doses for this kind of an

emergency, and told me to have him paged in the middle of the night

should this ever happen again.

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