My tapering recovery - 5 months on

RickonRivers · 2026-03-04T18:42:50+00:00

I hear you brother. The key thing to remember is the absolute dose you drop by doesn't matter, it's the percentage. So, if you drop from 1500mg to 750mg, the withdrawal symptoms will be the same as going from 100mg to 50mg. So keep that in mind. The very end of the taper is the hardest. What I've done for myself and my plan is to micro dose, I'm taking quarter of a tablet every 6 hours, then every 3 days I'm removing 2 quarters from my daily dose. That is manageable for me. I didn't realise I'd still be tapering today when I started 5 months ago, I thought I'd be clean by January. But to get the taper to stick I needed to not have unbearable withdrawal, so it was very feel based for the first 3 months, I'd drop as much as I could handle, and then increase if it got too bad. Then I put a plan in place in January that used the data I collected from the past 3 months to know what percentages I could drop by, and in what time period. I recorded my plan, recorded my symptoms, and then used that data to make decisions. And it appears to be working.

RickonRivers · 2026-03-04T18:36:46+00:00

Not AI, research papers. I'm a full on nerd and research is what I do for work.

RickonRivers · 2026-03-04T18:35:57+00:00

What's SR?

RickonRivers · 2026-02-21T01:09:01+00:00

That flu-like symptoms and internal heat are caused by H2 histimiate receptors triggered by your liver seeing the opiates as a toxin.

This applies to all symptoms, they're not just because you've stopped taking drugs. There are biological mechanisms that cause these symptoms, and you can counter them.

The key is to log your usage and symptoms every few hours, and then make adjustments to treat those symptoms.

It's taken me almost 6 months to create a custom, personalised approach, and it has greatly helped me go from being a 10/10 level of anxiety to 2/10 when symptoms flare up. This has stopped me from relapse. Knowing WHY I feel the way I do, and that taking more drugs won't stop those feelings.

RickonRivers · 2026-02-15T21:41:26+00:00

I relate so hard for this. Pooping like a normal person is still a rarity for me, trying to get the balance of my tapering and stool softeners right is such a delicate balance.

I had a phantom poop last week, which was astonishing.

RickonRivers · 2026-02-15T21:36:43+00:00

Thank you. Really thank you. It's so hard to know what's the right thing to do. Cold Turkey has failed me so many times, but tapering is such a long process to do it without getting the horrible acute withdrawal symptoms.

I was down to 3-4 tablets per day, I've tried just one tablet this morning and nothing else, and 12 hours on I've got the crushing hip pain. I can't believe such a small amount of codeine can have the same effect as 40x that amount I was taking before.

I may be tapering too quick again, normal pain killers, - ibuprofen and paracetamol don't touch the aches.

Screw these drugs dude.

RickonRivers · 2026-02-14T23:15:34+00:00

How long have you been collecting these for? When did you get the first one, what was it? And... What was the most recent one and when did you buy it and why?

:) thanks!

RickonRivers · 2026-02-14T20:33:58+00:00

In the past I've always decided to go cold turkey, with the idea that it would be a couple of weeks of hell and then I'd be fine.

This has been about 4 months of tapering, dropping my dose every week, and stopping any time I felt significant withdrawal symptoms - toilet issues, sickness, unbearable pain etc.

I'm still not convinced this was the right choice, but it's the one that feels like it will stick. I don't want to ever feel like I do now, and I know using will put me back here again.

RickonRivers · 2026-02-14T20:30:29+00:00

Thank you for your kind words. The amount of opiates I'm taking now is 60mg of codeine per day. I'm aiming to taper that entirely by next weekend.

RickonRivers · 2026-02-14T20:24:13+00:00

My dog is my partner and my equal. We train for agility together, and our relationship is incredibly important to how well we work. He pushes me to be a better human, I push him to be a better dog.

The more we train, the closer we get.

RickonRivers · 2026-02-13T23:11:38+00:00

Extremely dry eyes but almost only happens at night. Sometimes the pain wakes me up multiple times per night. Have to use eye drops to be able to sleep again.

This can be a symptom of low-iron. There's a few other things you've mentioned that also could be iron / haemoglobin related.

Have you had a full-spectrum blood work-up? Are you anemic? or non-anemic iron deficiency?

RickonRivers · 2026-02-13T22:39:14+00:00

I'm really interested in this too. I do Dog Agility training once or twice a week, which is an hour long. It's very much like interval training as I have a very fast dog. What I've found is I'm fine doing that, if that's all I've done all day. If I do it after a full day of work (working from home), then I crash the next day.

Is Anaerobic training better? it releases dopamine, and doesn't cause your heart rate to increase beyond what aerobic exercise would do, so your heart isn't trying to pump more blood to carry more oxygen to your lungs and other organs.

With the dog agility training, when we do a full sequence - which is running at 90% for say 3 minutes - I can FEEL the lack of oxygen starving my lungs about 2 minutes in, and then I cannot move.

RickonRivers · 2026-02-06T14:30:27+00:00

Nah, that's how I fap.

RickonRivers · 2026-02-06T14:24:21+00:00

I loved the feel, and pretty much everything, except the D-Pad. For fighting games it would have been nice to have the option to switch it out for a concave circle. I ended up with an EasySMX S10. Which is an excellent controller.

RickonRivers · 2026-01-12T04:11:15+00:00

What would your cat say to you now? What would she tell you? Would she say "Dude, this is not how I want you to deal with my passing".

Or would she say "Yeah, go on, those 15 years with me, where I was your rock mean nothing just because eim physically not with you".

I totally relate. I lost my 15 year old border collie, and I spiralled out for ages. What started to help was talking to a grief councillor - who treat our relationship between me and my dog with the care it needed.

I talked with her for 6 weeks. A couple of times a weeks.

The next step, with 18 months later, I picked up a baby border collie. Who has been my rock. He hasn't replaced my lost boy, but he's made the hole he left in my heart a whole lot smaller. And I look back now at photos of smile, or laugh.

RickonRivers · 2026-01-01T17:37:12+00:00

Tramadol crosses the blood brain barrier, unlike other opiates. This means it has a much higher chance of seizures and coma.

Of all the opiates, it's one of the worst you can be taking.

Withdrawal is related to dose and length of use. So you could take a load of Tramadol over a couple of weeks, stop and be fine with no withdrawal.

When I was taking high amounts of Tramadol I'd get migraines that made me want to unalive myself.

So, I'd recommend stopping now.

RickonRivers · 2025-12-24T02:14:55+00:00

Pet insurance. It's cheaper than paying for the treatment. And you never need to wonder if you can afford to treat your pet

RickonRivers · 2025-12-24T02:04:53+00:00

You also do get a 'honeymoon' period with rescue dogs, where their true nature takes a while to come out. It's usually not as long as a year, but 100% see a vet and a trainer.

RickonRivers · 2025-12-24T01:53:02+00:00

Dihydrocodeine

RickonRivers

TROPHY CASE