I have been posting on another thread where nobody seems to go anymore. Finally I found this page and am wondering, it seems more current and maybe if I post here others will respond? I have been taking hydrocodone for severe lower back pain for a long time now. I did not go over the amount that was prescribed until just very recently, and then not by very much. It's complicated - I went to visit with family and did not have my tranquilizers with me,so a few times I used the hydrocodone to calm my mood and enable me to get through the sad feeling that even though they do "love" me I still cqannot be fully myself with them. Very disappointing. Also, both of my sisters and I have severe insomnia, it was interesting to see that we all have this, and we all have some level of clinically significant depression. So while it was good to see them I really felt the need to stuff myself down at times and used the hydrocodone to help with that. Very short period of time, but it totally changed my body's reaction to the medication. Last week at home again, I had a lumbar injection that makes it so I don't need to take the hydrocodone for back pain so much, so I stopped taking the pills. I began having very very severe leg cramps, and my blood pressure went way up. I was already very constipated from taking the hydrocodone just slightly more often than usual while with my family, so there was a lot of pain associated with that but I did not want to take the hydrocodone because it would make the constipation worse. A full week without poo....very painful! I was so frightened by the leg cramps and the very high blood pressure (199/103) that I went to the medical clinic and had a nurse check my blood pressure - she told me to go to the ER. They checked me for Deep Vein Thrombosis and for blood clots. No blood clots, so they sent me home. The next day it seemed that the blood pressure was coming down, got down to about 168/87 and I thought whew! it's going to be okay. But later that day the blood pressure shot up to 220/108 and my son and I talked to a nurse on the phone who told me to go to the ER again. At the ER they gave me more medicine to bring the blood pressure down again and did an ultrasound to make sure the blood was still flowing properly through the renal stent I had done five years ago. Turned out the stent is still operating fine, so the doctor doubled the dosage of blood pressure medication I take at home and tomorrow (Monday) afternoon I go to see a doctor in the regular clinic. Today the blood pressure is down to 146/93, what a relief! But last night, the constipation which had somewhat resolved at 4 am with a fairly normal poo progressed to diarrhea with a weird greenish color....the day before the second ER visit,....and the night after the ER visit I suddenly began vomiting explosively a deep brick red substance that I think containted blood, it was very painful. Voluminous. The next day I had my son and daughter-in-law (we all live together thankfully) just toss the bathroom rug out in a garbage bag rather than even try to wash it ever. I've been reading about physical withdrawal from prescription drugs and I suspect this is what is happening to me - the leg cramps, the extreme anxiety, the weird reactions in my body. I don't know if the blood pressure is a withdrawal symptom or not, but it is definitely weird to have it happen at this time. I have not told the doctors that I think it might be a detox situation, although I have honestly told them I was taking hydrocodone and stopped taking it suddenly after having the lumbar injection. I don't want it on my record that I ever had a problem with prescription opiates because I may need them again in my life...I am 64 now, and it is entirely likely that there will be some other painful event in my life which would necessitate use of pain medication. If that happens I will obviously be extremely careful in future.....I don't think this would have happened if I'd had the tranquilizers with me when with my sisters and other family I had been disconnected from for so many years. Things I have read indicate that the length of time of detox depends on how long you have been using the meds and how large the doses...I was generally taking as prescribed, three times a day, for a long time (year or two?) but only exceeded the dosage during the three weeks when I took four or five a day to keep calm and to be able to sleep sometimes. So things I have read about detox seem to indicate that it should be complete within a couple of weeks, with the third or fourth day being the worst...so all this has happened in five days, and the third day would coincide with my first visit to the ER, the day after that was the horrible vomiting....so if I am interpreting this correctly, it should be over soon? This has been so frightening and so dark - at a few points in the process i have wished to die - that I cannot imagine how horrible it must be for people who have been using higher doses for longer periods of time. I'm hoping the blood pressure will be okay from now on....extremely high blood pressure can cause stroke...I have known people in my own age group who had a stroke and lost the ability to communicate clearly or to move and take care of themselves. Also I had an aunt who in her 80s had to detox from opiate prescription pills and she ended up dying.....very scary. I wish there were a way to link this message to the earlier ones I posted but I don't know how to get the two threads connected. My earlier posts show my frantic fear and real terror in going through this. Just looking at this one it doesn't all come through so clearly. Earlier this morning I was looking up rehab centers in the area and thinking that maybe I should go to one...as of tonight I am thinking that I might be able to get through without that level of assistance. I will be 65 in about a month and a half.....but I will tell you, when I was in my early twenties, I gave up heroin cold turkey and this nearly reminded me of that misery. That was worse, of course, but some of the process feels similar. So I kept thinking, if I could kick that I should be able to get through this! Very VERY few people even know about my past and what I went through then...I look back and I think, well, perhaps I still have that strength of will, but nobody should have to go through that alone! Yet if I can get through my life without having it on record so much the better when I am old and frail and need medication.....I don't want to not be able to access it when it gets to that point, what if i have some inoperable cancer? I'd want to be able to die in relative peace....So odd, here i am going through this weirdness and so much anxiety and pain but still planning ahead for the day I die. In the future. the FAR future.....ugh. I hope that by then we will have enlightened policies that will allow death to be eased by chemical intervention when necessary to avoid extreme and extended pain and misery. I fell like i am sucking up the misery now so that maybe if things go well over the next 20 or 30 years my death at last can be more humane.....so you can see that I am still thinking of death and wishing for death, just putting it off till it is at a more socially acceptable age and to prevent my young family from being hurt by it when I do go. How different my life could have been if I had achieved what I wanted in life. I want to cry and probably will later over this, that my life was never the way I needed it to be. And now it seems too late. Now it seems like a matter of trying to find enough joy to keep me going until it is acceptable to die...not suicidal as i was when I was younger, but still really looking forward to the end of it all. Waiting eagerly.....Anyway, the insomnia that has plagued me ever since I was a small child is also a problem for my siblings, they all have this insomnia too. I saw it while I was with them over those three weeks, we all sleeping intermittently with our coping rituals - my sisters with their TVs on all night, me on my computer, my need for a votive candle so that as I would wake up over and over I could feel that there was some spiritual protection...we would sleep for a few hours and then I would hear them, knowing that they probably also heard me, wandering through the house getting something to drink, going to the bathroom, wandering bak to bed tossing turning finally sleeping again for a brief time...I hope that once this is done I might be able to sleep a full night like "normal people do" - (oh, DO they?)....so back to business here. I don't feel like eating yet after all that vomiting, but did eat some jello and sipping some iced tea a small amount over the whole day. I know I should have more fluid intake but there is still some nausea and some fear that if I put things into my body they will have to come out and I don't want more vomiting. Still scared. Still a great deal of anxiety. OK, tomorrow (Monday) afternoon, the medical doctor at the clinic to firm up the increase in blood pressure medication and discuss the lumbar injection and going off the hydrocodone as if it were just a normal transition.....then Wednesday afternoon the psychiatrist to talk about what happened while with the family, talk about using the tranquilizers a bit more than as prescribed for these few days without causing her to fear prescribing them for me in future...(wish my luck)...and advocating for perhaps a sleep med temporarily....hasn't wanted to prescribe a sleep med for me but the insomnia is extreme, perhaps when she realizes it is in the whole family she will consider it more favorably....put the hydrocodone that remains away in a place where i am not going to easily access it but not toss it out because it is so hard to get and i may need it again for the back pain if the lumbar shot fails.....not wanting to leave it open to use it but not willing to toss it out entirely even after what has happened this week.....if anyone see this i would be open to suggestions and i hope my detailed descriptions here might help someone else who may not know exactly what it happening to them - being able to identify what is happening is so important... love love love to you all may we rise above the judgements of the brittle world to be free