Thomas Recipe

Taper your Vicodin (or other opiate) dose as much as you can before hand, and if possible take some time off from work or any other obligations you might have.

What you need:

1. Valium or any other type of benzodiazepine like Ativan, Klonopin, Xanax etc…
2. Immodiun.
3. L-Tyrosine.
4. Mineral supplement that contains at least 100% RDA of Zinc, Phosphorus, Copper, Magnesium and Potassium. You may not find a supplement that contains all of these together. If not, then buy separately.
5. Vitamin B6.
6. Access to hot showers or baths.

Putting it all into action:

“Start the vitamin/mineral supplement right away (or the first day you can keep it down), preferably with food. Potassium early in the detox is important to help relieve RLS (Restless Leg Syndrome). Bananas are a good source of potassium if you can’t find a supplement for it.

Begin your detox with regular doses of Valium (or alternate benzo). Start with a dose high enough to produce sleep. Before you use any benzo, make sure you’re aware of how often it can be safely taken. Different benzos have different dosing schedules. Taper your Valium dosage down after each day. The goal is to get through day 4, after which the worst WD symptoms will subside. You shouldn’t need the Valium after day 4 or 5.

During detox, hit the hot bath or Jacuzzi as often as you need to for muscle aches. Don’t underestimate the effectiveness of hot soaks. Spend the entire time, if necessary, in a hot bath. This simple method will alleviate what is for many the worst opiate WD symptom.

Use the Imodium aggressively to stop the runs. Take as much as you need, as often as you need it. Don’t take it, however, if you don’t need it.

At the end of the fourth day, you should be waking up from the Valium and experiencing the beginnings of the opiate WD malaise. Upon rising (empty stomach), take the L-Tyrosine. Try 2000 mgs, and scale up or down, depending on how you feel. You can take up to 4,000 mgs. Take the L-Tyrosine with B6 to help absorption. Wait about one hour before eating breakfast. The L-Tyrosine will give you a surge of physical and mental energy that will help counteract the malaise. You may continue to take it each morning for as long as it helps. If you find it gives you the “coffee jitters,” consider lowering the dosage or discontinuing it altogether. Occasionally, L-Tyrosine can cause the runs. Unlike the runs from opiate WD, however, this effect of L-Tyrosine is mild and normally does not return after the first hour. Lowering the dosage may help.

Continue to take the vitamin/mineral supplement with breakfast.

As soon as you can force yourself to, get some mild exercise such as walking, cycling, swimming, etc. This will be hard at first, but will make you feel considerably better.

- Thomas”

If anybody gives this one a try, let us all know how it goes.

As tolerance develops, it gets harder and harder to effectively manage the sometimes excrutiating pain that accompanies a lifelong injury. At some point however, the drugs don’t do their job, and another solution must be presented. I decided to put together this series about how to successfully manage pain without vicodins or any other painkiller.

Believe it or not, there are pain management techniques out there that do work, and that don’t require the use of opiates. Whether you’re trying to get off the pills because they’re causing you more harm than good, or you’re looking for an alternative to dealing with your pain, I hope this holistic approach can help you out.

Use Your Brain.
We often underestimate our own brain’s ability to deal with painful stimuli, so we resort to easier methods like vicodin as a subsititute.

Here are a few techniques of the mind that you can use immediately:

First, find yourself a dark and quiet room where you can relax. Recline either in a chair or up against some pillows on your bed, and begin breathing slowly. Breath with your stomach, not your chest. Try not to get distracted. If your mind starts to wander, concentrate on the sound of your breath. Focus on slowing your breathing and your heart rate. Once you feel like you’re calm enough, begin with one of the following:

1. Alter Your Focus: Move your focus from the pain, to a non-painful part of your body.
2. Dissociate: Pretend like the part of your body that is in pain, is no longer a part of your body.
3. Release Endorphins: Imagine that you have control over the pain numbing endorphins that your body produces, then mentally produce a ton of them.
4. Positive Imagery: Imagine a “happy” place in your mind’s eye. Anywhere, any situation that brings a smile to your face and makes you feel relaxed.
5. Counting: Count your breaths, count dots on the ceiling, count sheep, whatever. Just start counting.

Thinking that your mind can make you feel better without any drugs might sound like a load of crap, but trust me on this, it works. I remember about 8 years ago, I severely injured my hand in a work related accident. I had been clean from opiates for a few months, and I really didn’t want to go back to using them again.

When I was sitting in the emergency room, I told the doctor that I wanted to try and endure the pain without any medication. Without even knowing it, I used the above mentioned techniques, and it actually worked. I freaked out! I mean, I was sitting there with a two-inch laceration on the palm of my hand, and broken metacarpal bones, but I was cool as ice. Now that’s powerful!

Brittania Pharmeceuticals recently licensed US World Meds to sell lofexidine in the US, and it just recently (June 2008), completed Phase III of clinical trials in order to pass FDA regulations. The drug has been used in Britain since 1992 for the treatment of opiate withdrawals. See: http://britlofex.co.uk/

I’ve personally never tried clonidine for withdrawals so I have no idea how well it works, nor do I know if lofexidine is going to do what they say it will. So, I’d love to hear from anyone who’s tried either lofexidine or clonidine. Give us the good and the bad.

My view on opiate detox/withdrawal medications is that they only work if they’re used right. When I say “used right”, I mean that you’ve thoroughly done your research to see what the pros and cons are. Remember, pharmaceutical companies are looking to make a profit, so you need to look out for yourself. If you can use lofexidine to find a little comfort, then by all means, get a script. But, make sure you’re aware of all the side effects. If the doc says you need to take it for 3-months, but your research says otherwise, then mention it to him/her.

I don’t think that there’s any medication out there that doesn’t have some sort of negative side effect. Let’s find out what they are for lofexidine, so we don’t jump in blind-folded.

“A major problem faced by narcotics users and abusers is the well-known development of tolerance when an opiate is given repeatedly over a period of time. This is directly responsible for a number of the problems associated with narcotic use and abuse since increasing tolerance requires that steadily larger doses be used to achieve the same effects or degree of pain relief. This also underlies much of the crime associated with street addiction as the cost of maintaining a habit also escalates along with the dosage, often leading addicts to turn to drug dealing, prostitution or criminal activities to enable them to afford their daily dose.”

Sound familiar?

If you’re reading this blog, then chances are that you or someone you love has developed a serious tolerance to opiates. Whether you’re abusing opiates for pleasure or you need them to manage some sort of pain, or both. You probably know that the more you take, and the less time you leave in between your dose, the more you’ll need the next time around. Opiate tolerance is the real deal, and there’s really no way around it, but there are ways to slow it down.

The ultimate goal of this blog is to help you find alternative means to satisfying your need for prescription painkillers, but sometimes that’s just not possible. A large number of the emails and comments that I receive are from folks who’ve had some sort of injury that has made them dependent on opiates. They’ve sought out help from sites like mine because their tolerance has reached a level where the drug is no longer helping them, but rather hurting them. Like they say; “too much of a good thing is well, not good at all.”

Have you ever wondered why you’re still going through withdrawals even though you’ve followed the exact instructions on your script? You think that one or two pills every 4 to 6 hours is going to keep the tolerance from developing? Guess again.

The truth is that in order for you to prevent your tolerance from going up, you’d have to wait an entire 24hrs or more between doses. Ever heard of “half-life”? If not, you can learn here. For our sake, I’ll give you the cliff’s notes version.

“The half-life of a quantity whose value decreases with time is the interval required for the quantity to decay to half of its initial value.”

Let’s do a little math:

One regular strength vicodin has 5mg’s of hydrocodone in it. Let’s say that we take two pills at one time totalling 10mg’s. The half-life for hydrocodone (vicodin) is 3.8hrs. How many hours will it take for the drug to be completely out of your system?

@ 3.8hrs: 5mg’s left
@ 7.6hrs: 2.5mg’s left
@ 11.4hrs: 1.25mg’s left
@ 15.2hrs: 0.625mg’s left
@ 19hrs:  0.3125mg’s left
@ 22.8hrs: 0.15625mg’s left

…you get the picture

So imagine that you decide to take your regularly scheduled dose at 4-6 hour intervals. You can see how the stuff can add up.

There was another interesting quote from that article I read…

“However, many people are unaware that both enhanced effectiveness of narcotic analgesics AND prevention or reversal of tolerance is readily achievable through the oral use of up to 200-250 mg of Proglumide [(DL)-4-Benzamido-N,N-dipropylglutaramic acid]. [See Ott 1999; Watkins et al. 1984]“

Proglumide, a drug which inhibits gastrointestinal motility also has the ability to reverse or prevent opiate tolerance? I bet you’ve never heard about that before.

One thing that I noticed after all my years of opiate abuse was that, without fail, everytime I would try and detox from the drug, I would get sick about 7 days after my withdrawals. And I’m not talking about dope sick, I mean literally, I would come down with a cold or flu every single time. It was like clockwork. After going through that cycle a few times, I started wondering if the opiates were having some sort of negative effect on my immune system, so I started doing some research.

I learned about something called “immunosuppression”…long ass word huh? Anyway, for those of you that don’t know, our immune system works as a defense mechanism for our body. In the case of the cold and flu it acts to protect us from foreign viruses and bacteria that cause those God awful symptoms we all hate. When our immune system is suppressed, it fails to protect us from those foreign parasites, so we end up getting sick.

In recent years, immunologists have found a link between our own natural endogenous opioids (endorphins), and our immune system function. In a nutshell, our internal opiates help our immune system function better. But, what happens when we replace our own endorphins with artificial ones like vicodin? Our body lowers its own production, and uses the drug as a replacement.

For me, it seemed that as long as I was on the pills, I would never get sick. It was weird and great all at the same time. But, what I didn’t realize was that the vicodins were actually suppressing my own natural ability to fight off colds, and replacing it with an artificial imposter. All was well until I decided to quit. That’s when my internal opioids, which had been reduced to next to nothing, were all of a sudden expected to save me from all the bacteria and viruses floating around. Well, you know the rest of the story.

If you didn’t have a reason to quit before, I hope I’ve given you yet another incentive to work on getting and staying clean. You see, we have our own internal vicodin, our own morphine, heroin, oxycontin, etc… etc… that protects us and makes us happy. And guess what? It doesn’t cause withdrawal, it doesn’t make us lose our jobs or our families, it doesn’t land us in jail and best of all, it doesn’t cost a dime.

Stay healthy everyone!

*Note: Monitor your physical health closely. Try and find correlations between your opiate use and other physical conditions that you were never prone to before. One thing I’ve noticed is that if/when I would use large quantities of opiates in one sitting, the next day I would end up with a canker sore in my mouth directly above my cervical lymph node in my jaw. The lymph node would also be swollen. It would only happen to me during those high does sessions. Lymph nodes play a part in the immune system as well, so I’m assuming that the two are related. Has that ever happened to you? Do you have a story that you can share with us?

In my previous post I write about PAWS and the symptoms associated with it, one of which being depression. I wanted to dedicate an entire post to just this subject, because it’s been the reason for many a relapse episodes for me. It’s so hard to struggle with 7-14 days of hardcore withdrawal only to feel like an empty, unhappy soul once all the physical stuff is over. It’s like you’ve just went through the battle of your life, and right when you’re starting to feel regular again, you’re thrown right back in, but in a completely different way. It can be very discouraging.

Throughout the years I learned a few things that helped me get through the depression which was at times suicidal. But a word of caution before I continue; Suicidal-depression is no joke. It’s a darkness that I wouldn’t wish upon anyone, and to this day I’m amazed at how I made it through some of the bouts that I did. I urge you get help immediately if you or a loved one is seriously contemplating suicide. For some it’s just a fleeting thought, but for others it’s the real deal. Don’t risk it.

Levels of depression can vary from person to person, but I’ve noticed that I’ve been able to fight off any level with just a few simple things.

#1: Get Yourself Around Some People. 
I can’t stress this enough. Don’t EVER stay by yourself when dealing with depression. That is why 12-step programs work for some folks, it’s because you have somewhere to go when you’re feeling down. It’s amazing how other people’s positive energy can rub off on you in a miraculous way. I’ve had many a times when I’ve been ready to either call it quits (in life), or jump ship and go back to popping pills, but before I start whaling in my sorrows, I call a few of my most outrageous buddies and we go do something loud, fun and crazy (without drugs). Before I know it, I’m wondering what the hell I was all down for. This single act alone can be enough to pull you out of the madness, but the hardest part is actually doing it.  When we’re depressed, all we want to do is lock ourselves in a dark room so we can feel sorry for ourselves. It’s masochistic in a way, yet the best prescription for being in the shitter, is the one thing we do not want to do. Force yourself! Your life may depend on it.

#2: Exercise.
I know I talk about this quite a bit, but only because it works. Exercise releases endorphins that are very similar to the drugs we’re trying to get clean from, so when you get a nice run or weight routine going, you’ll feel much better. There have been times when I’ve worked out three times in one day just to power through some God awful depression. Mix that with a good night out with some friends, and I guarantee you’ll be a different person by the time your head hits that pillow.

#3: Pray or Meditate.
This can be one of the most powerful tools in battling depression, but I’ve found that for me it’s also the most difficult. It is so hard for me to kneel and pray when I feel like crap. I’ve tried to make myself do it, but I’ve noticed that I’ll give up rather quickly. It’s much easier for me to force myself into calling a few friends to hang out, then to pray all by myself. But the funny thing is that when I do go out with my buddies, and then I come back home, I find myself very grateful and thanking God for the rest of the night. If you’re religious/spiritual, you can always call your friends and pray or meditate together. 

#4: Get Professional Help.
I’ve personally never been to a therapist for my depression. My close friends and relatives are all the therapy I need to get out of my slump, but I understand that those kinds of relationships might be scarce for some of you. So, I don’t see anything wrong with having a therapist to talk to when you’re down. Although I do recommend you find the right one. It might take you a few tries, but there will always be a professional out there that matches your personality. 

A Note about Antidepressants.
I’m very reluctant to suggest that you obtain any antidepressant drugs to deal with your depression. I think that most antidepressants can do much more harm than good. I’ve heard many stories about individuals who commit suicide because they were on some sort of antidepressants, and because of their substance abusing past, they end up mixing their prescription with alcohol or some other drug. That’s just a recipe for disaster. However, I am a big advocate of doing what works best for you. So, please do your own research if you or your Doctor decide that you should get on some pills. BE CAREFUL.    

I hope this post helps any of you dealing with post-withdrawal depression right now. I’d also love to hear your ways of dealing with it as well.

Some common PAWS symptoms are:

• Depression
• Impaired concentration
• Lack of initiative
• Stress sensitivity
• Increased sensitivity to pain
• Inability to think clearly
• Drug cravings
• and more…

In the past I had no idea what post-acute withdrawal syndrome was. I would just assume that everything was back to normal once the worst of it was over, but in looking back, I can vividly remember how out-of-touch I felt with life for the few months that followed. I say “out-of-touch” because that was the only way I could explain it at the time. I remember being very sensitive to stressful situations, I remember having a very hard time concentrating or thinking about a complex problem. But, what I remember most was the depression. It was just plain horrible, and had I known that it may have been a chemical issue (i.e. PAWS), then I probably would have had an easier time dealing with it.

It’s difficult to think that your life could be affected for so long after drug use has stopped, but the truth is that the mind-altering chemicals that we put into our bodies today, can have a very lasting effect on our brain’s once that use stops. There are a ton of ways that you can help yourself get through PAWS, like exercise, eating healthy, taking vitamins etc…, but I think the first step is to identify that PAWS is the real deal. I hope I’ve done that with this post.

The older I got, the more I researched the cause of my addiction. I read articles from all different viewpoints and opinions on the subject.  It wasn’t until a couple years ago, that I started entertaining the fact that maybe I was lacking some sort of natural chemical that was causing me to pop vicodin’s. That’s when I stumbled upon this idea of endorphin deficiency, so I began my research just to see how deep the rabbit hole would go.

As humans, our brain creates natural chemicals that are nearly identical to the active ingredients found in prescription or illegal opiates and opioids. Those chemicals are called endorphins, dynorphins and enkephalins. They serve to alleviate pain, when necessary, and to give us an overall sense of well-being. The production of these endogenous (internal) opioids is increased during times of excitement, pain and orgasm. But, what happens to you if your body has trouble with the production of these natural opiates? That’s what I wanted to find out.

Growing up, I was always an introvert by nature. I felt different in that it was hard for me to deal with crowds. I was hypersensitive to everything around me, and very emotionally sensitive as well. I would get sick easily, I felt deep emotional connections to strangers when I would see them in a state of pain. I always just figured that I was a “Mama’s Boy.” It wasn’t until I tried opiates for the first time, that I realized something had been missing in my life. When on an opiate buzz, I was talkative, unafraid and outgoing. I felt like I could hang with everyone on a social level, I felt invincible. Now, before you start telling me that anyone would feel amazing after a few vicodin’s, I would have to say that that is completely false. After I began my love afair with opiate’s, I naturally thought that everyone else would love it too, but I was wrong. A lot of my friend’s hated the stuff. They said it made them feel sick, queezy and anti-social. I couldn’t understand why, maybe it was because their brain’s already had all the endorphins they needed, and any outside opiates would result in “overkill.” Either way, I could care less, I had found my niche, and that’s all that mattered.

Fast forward to the present day, after years of opiate abuse, I’ve finally figured out better ways to deal with my endorphin deficiency without an external source of opiates. Super extreme workouts where I do wind sprints until I feel like I’m going to throw up, are one way that I give my endorphin system the boost that it needs to keep me feeling good. Or, taking risks or overcoming fears that shoot adrenaline through my body and hold me over for a day or so, have become the norm. I’m fast becoming an entrepreneur because I need that high-stress level to continually release my much needed fix day in and day out. And, my massive consumption of anything chocolate has started raising some serious eyebrows. I’ve become a slave to activities that push me to my utter limit. That’s the only way that I can feel normal. Otherwise, I fall into states of depression that put me on that pill-popping path to self-destruction. It’s the easy way (drugs) or the hard way (extremism), no in-between.

I recently stumbled across this website which explained my ailment in utter detail. All of those characteristics that I had grown up with are mentioned on this site as symptoms of low endogenous opioid levels. It was a light-bulb moment for me, and I hope that it opens some of your eyes into what exactly many of us are dealing with.

“If you’ve tried opiates/opioids, and already know they can make you feel ‘normal’, that’s another confirmation that listening to me is a good idea. The key concept here for you to understand, is that by consuming opioids from an external source, you are properly compensating for your endogenous opioid deficiency by consuming a substance that is nearly identical to what your body is lacking.”

Modern medicine has been severely handicapped by DEA regulation of the very drugs that can help us cope with endogenous opioid deficiency. Doctor’s are forced to focus on other areas of the brain (seratonin/dopamine), and prescribe drugs (Zoloft, Paxil, Prozac etc…) that only mask the issue. Don’t get me wrong, I hated having to use vicodin to make me feel better because it was only a temporary solution, and when I would stop, I would be worse off then when I started. But, I also hate having to be so damn extreme in my ways, in order to jumpstart my brain into producing it’s own opiates. Sometimes, I’m unable to exercise or do acupunture to feel better, so I slowly start backsliding into depression. What about those people who can’t exercise at all, what kind of relief do they get?

It’s important to understand the problem before it can be addressed, but the “understanding” part has been hampered for years and years. We can only hope that someday there will be safe and effective drugs that address this issue, and that in the near future,  we can see recovery centers open up that focus strictly on increasing the brain’s natural ability to generate opiates instead of just covering up the real reason why we get hooked on vicodin, oxycontin and other opioids.

Anyway, long story short, it worked!!! Boy did it ever! There are three things that I remember vividly about the experience; #1. I felt like I was on heroin, #2. I was afraid to go to sleep in fear that I would stop breathing and #3. I had the worst headache the next day.

I couldn’t believe that I was so high from something that I had bought from the grocery store, it blew me away. But, after that night, I vowed never to try it again,  and I never did.

Not too long after, I found this website: http://poppyseedtea.com/. If you haven’t already read through it, please do. I don’t know these people personally, so I can’t vouch that the site is authentic, but after the experience that I had with the tea, I wouldn’t be surprised if someone hasn’t already overdosed on the stuff.

I contemplated including a few paragraphs on how poppy seed tea can help with opiate withdrawal, but It’s hard for me to recommend something that can be so dangerous. Some of you might be laughing right now, but you’ve got to believe me, that stuff had me flying. So, imagine if I was to tell you guys to try and detox with the poppy seed tea. What if you were to get a batch with really high morphine content? Combine that with the concentration of God knows what other materials are mixed in from the processing plants, and the risk gets to be too real.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.

What is Rapid Opiate Detox?
Rapid Opiate Detox or Ultra-Rapid Opiate Detox (UROD), as it is know in some circles, is basically a medically assisted detoxification procedure. It shortens the length of time that a patient has to suffer through the worst symptoms associated with acute opiate withdrawal. The patient is placed under anesthesia in an intensive-care unit (ICU), and is administered a shot of Narcan (Naloxone) to precipitate detox. If you haven’t heard of Narcan, it’s basically a drug that pushes all of the opiates from your brain’s receptors and sends you into full-blown withdrawal in seconds. It’s also used during any type of opiate overdose, to pretty much bring the person back to life.  Remember the scene in Pulp Fiction?

One form of Rapid detox called the “Waismann Method” or “Accelerated Neuro-regulation” (ANR) was invented by an Israeli doctor by the name of Andrew Waismann in 1994, hence the name “Waismann Method”.

How Much Does It Cost?
The price tag on a procedure like this is anywhere between $10K-$15K. It’s definitely not cheap. All the more reason to do your due diligence before even thinking about going through with it.

The Risks
Anytime, you have to go through a procedure in the intensive-care unit, you better believe there are going to be some risks involved. Especially if that procedure includes anesthesia as well. We all know the dangers involved with anesthesia, so I don’t really have to explain that one. Also, I’ve read that the process can be very taxing on the body, which I probably could have guessed just through common sense. Many addicts have complications that may be unknown to the doctors who carry out such a procedure. Complications that could be life threatening, if they go unnoticed. Be sure to tell your doc, if you have had or do have any heart, kidney, liver or any other major health problems.

The Controversy
I recently read a thread on Opiophile.org in which a patient depicts his experience with the Waismann Method of detox. He’s not happy, to say the least.

Clare Kavin, who runs the Waismann clinic in Beverly Hills is a moderator for Opiophile.org. She gets a chance to respond to the patients allegations, but after reading the entire post, the question still remains about whether rapid opiate detox is a viable alternative to other forms of opiate withdrawal treatment methods like buprenorphine (suboxone) or methadone maintenance.

The internet is full of malpractice articles, so like I said before…DO YOUR RESEARCH. You do not want to end up on the table with a doctor who has a bad record, so check your doc’s history.

In Conclusion
Although there is a ton of negative press on this subject, I can’t imagine that rapid detox would last this long if it wasn’t effective at all. However, I am yet to find anyone who has gone through the procedure with praise and thanksgiving. I think the best people to ask, are the ones who have been through it. So, please leave your comments here if you’ve gone through rapid opiate detox.