valerieP's Journal

This is Valerie's husband Tomaso, I'm writing this for her as she is going through withdrawls from the methadone. She was on it for 3 weeks, and she had been trying to step down the last 5 days or so due to massive nausea, reflux, etc. We saw her pain management doctor yesterday, and collectively made the decision to try oxycontin. He thought everything would be fine transitioing from methadone to oxycontin and did not mention side effects or anything we should be worried about, our mistake for not asking I suppose.

Anyhow, we're 52 hours or so into Valerie not having taken any metadone and she has been in withdrawl for the last 14 hours at least. She has been aching all over, it was hard to find a pulse and hard to tell if it is regular and she has been having trouble breathing, taking 3 short quick breaths where she would normally take one. She has described it as involuntary, and it looks similar to a muscle spasm to watch. She thought it was a panic attack this morning; we no longer believe this to be the case. She slept fitfully for bout 4 hours earlier, but she seemed okay while she was doing so.

We called the prctice handling her pain management and they called in lorazepam, dicylcomine and colonidine. The lorazepam seems to have helped with her breathing when the clonazepam couldn't, so maybe it is something to do with anxiety.

This is all very scary for us. She's trying to not make the kids worry, but is scared herself and I have no damned idea what I should be doing. I guess on the positive side the oxycontin seems to be working, but maybe it is just so much of everything else happening, she can't feel her back pain.

If anyone has some words of wsdom to pass along, please let us know. And if anyone if switching from methadone, make sure you ask about withdrawls. This sucks a whole lot,nobodyy should have to go through this..