Journal

Is this narcotics withdrawal?

22 Comments

The last Lortab I took was a single pill (7.5mg Hydrocodone, 500mg Acetaminophen) on Wednesday at around 2:00 pm. I’ve been trying (unsuccessfully, as the buffer-fu thread here may indicate) to manage the pain with plain-jane ibuprofen, magnesium salicylate, and Excedrin PM (500mg Acetaminophen, and I forget how much antihistamine).

Upshot — there’s less pain than a week ago, but that’s ’cause I’m getting better.

Upshot #2 — today I’ve alternately felt excited, angry, depressed, angry, sleepy, suicidal, depressed, bewildered, angry, and like I’ve got a cold coming on.

Is this narcotics withdrawal, or am I just having a bad hair day? I mean, now that I HAVE HAIR I suppose I’m vulnerable to that.

–Howard
p.s. No, I’m not going to commit suicide. That mood passed.
p.p.s. I’m putting off “cleaning my firearms” for a different weekend, just in case.

22 thoughts on “Is this narcotics withdrawal?”

  1. It’s possible you’re having minor withdrawal symptoms, if you’ve been taking the Lortab for quite a while. I had to be on seriously bad-arse painkillers for about a month after I had sinus reconstruction surgery, and actually came out of that addicted (in a minor fashion, admittedly) to codeine tablets. When my prescription ran out I had to wean myself off ’em and I had some fairly similar symptoms going.

    On the bright side, if it is similar to my case, then the symptoms should pass in a week or less.

  2. IF you were going to have withdrawal problems, I would have expected it Wednesday evening/night. Unless you are having an atypical reaction to it, I wouldn’t think the relatively short amount of time you were on the Lortabs would be enough to bring on a major physical addiction.

    You are more likely to be feeling sort of roller-coastery because of a combo of pain, lack of sleep and frustration because you aren’t getting as much done as you wish you were.

    Trust me, I know how that feels. The only thing that will really cure it is Tincture of Time. :/

  3. What kind of firearms? I have a .22 and a 1911 .45 but am looking for a nice Garand or ’03 Springfield. Nothing like a nice .30-06.

    1. Funny you should ask. I have a Garand.

      I also have a black powder Colt Army .44 replica (not disassembled currently, but also out of service — no caps, and the nipples need to be replaced), .45 black powder Derringer replica (similarly out-of-service-until-I-buy-caps), a Ruger .22/45 target pistol (but only the .22 barrel etc. for it), a .22 bolt-action rifle, two 12-gage pump shotguns, and a 12-gage semi-automatic shotgun (unplugged for a full five rounds of shotgunny goodness.)

      –Howard

      1. 1860 New Model Army? I love that pistol. I have one myself … used to carry it for Civil War re-enactment. (I ended up hand-checkering the grips because I found the stock smooth grips too slick.)

      2. Oh cool. My .22 is also a Ruger 22/45. Bought it with a custom 10″ barrel on it. Real sweet. Was just looking at a Uberti Colt SAA in .45LC. Since moving out to NM, am thinking of getting into cowboy action shooting. Looks like it’ll be more fun than indoor stuff back in Fla. The black powder stuff also looks like fun.

  4. I’m still trying to figure out how to clean my ChainSaber™ V. Somebody forgot to ship the instructions when they gave it to me. Not that I’m complaining or anything.

  5. Sounds more to me like you’ve had a lot of stress that, for one reason or another (like, say, being on opiates, having an injury, and trying desperately to function as normally as possible in spite of that), you haven’t been able to process the way you normally would. It builds up. As for the cold coming on, you might just have a cold coming on. Or allergies.

    (I have a few long-term medical conditions which see me taking moderate amounts of coedine et al. in fits and starts, because nothing else available really works; my experience of withdrawl is normally more of a jittery-edgy thing.)

  6. Sounds like withdrawal to me. There’s another symptom I’d mention, but I don’t want to plant it in your head STOP TRYING TO GUESS WHAT IS monkeys poo poo pink elephants.

  7. Yeah, sounds like withdrawal. I’d by the ‘built up stress of trying to deal with a career hampering injury’ bit, if it weren’t for the cold symptoms–and that you seem like you’ve dealt with that stress well enough.

    Don’t worry, Howard. Drugs are your friends. Or, they thought they were, and now they’re leaving angry, drunken messages on your answering machine at 2am wondering why you never call anymore and don’t you care anymore i thought you cared and what was all that if you didn’t really mean it?

  9. Medical opinion

    Withdrawal is a part of it. The experience varies from wetware to wetware, including the time lag. (I know, because when I’ve been on the receiving end of the “Doc, I need juat a few more” stories for 28 years now…

    However, the adjustment and work stress is also a part of it. My medical advice – get the buffer to a comfortable level, then take a weekend OFF doing things that give you joy. In other words, reward yourself for your healthy choices of the past month. That feeds the pleasure center with something other than Lortab, and quiets the withdrawal and stress beasties.

    —drkenfp (ready to be dunned for not having a nifty icon)

    1. Re: Medical opinion

      —drkenfp (ready to be dunned for not having a nifty icon)

      You could really use a Dr. Scratchnsniff icon, ya know, to match up with the other two animaniacs icons above. 😉

      You’re probably not a p-sychiatrist though.

      (j/k. it’s just fine to not have an icon. 🙂

      1. Re: Medical opinion

        Nope – not a pshrink. 🙂

        drkenfp = Dr. Ken F.P. (Family Physician), which means that I went through 3 years of training to become like the old country doctor. It’s fun; I recommend it, even in today’s insane health care system.

        And now I have an icon, so no more icon envy. 😉

        —drkenp (and that’s as off topic as I wanna get on Howard’s blog)

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