Suggest Ways To Wean Off Vicodin

Brief Answer:
many options.

Detailed Answer:
1) have slight withdrawal and a very slow decrease every 1 to 2 weeks (10% drop per week).
2) get sick. BUT get medications that damp down the sickness (zofran and clonidine)
3) go onto suboxone in a doctor monitored program. and slowly come off of everything over most of a year.
4) methadone maintenence is for NOT coming off of narcotics.

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Brief Answer:
mostly Yes.

Detailed Answer:
the bathroom a lot, no. But imodium certainly would (it is a narcotic; doesn't get OUT of the gut, but works as a narcotic inside of the gut). BUT clonidine blocks stress hormones from being put out. That stops much of the cold feeling, sweats and shakes. Doesn't do a lot for the aches some people have during withdrawal.

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Brief Answer:
as mentioned, doctor supervision is necessary

Detailed Answer:
withdrawal is very rarely fatal, but the medications mentioned are all prescription only. They're safe. But prescription only.

Withdrawal directly causes temporary cold symptoms like runny nose, sweats, shakes, and chills. BUT this is due to activation of stress hormones and not a bit due to an actual virus. as such, clonidine is pretty good. Zinc helps the immune system, but this isn't relevant to narcotics. vitamin C was something that popped out of a chemists head as an idea for colds since it is needed to make the lining of the nose. Didn't make much sense then; never been found to actually work since. If it did work, it wouldn't work on narcotic withdrawal.

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Brief Answer:
to summarize

Detailed Answer:
zofran is an antinausea medicine that works on the gut. It doesn't directly act like a narcotic, it just lowers gut motion. It is prescription only

imodium is a narcotic that doesn't get out of the gut. It acts like a narcotic to lower gut motility and stop diarhea it is over the counter

clonidine is a blocker of stress hormone release. It makes one feel like a limp towel--fatigue and sleepy. It lowers the stress hormones put out by withdrawal. It lowers sweats, chills, shakes, gooseflesh. Although not a narcotic, it is presciption only.

Suboxone is a narcotic. It is only available from specially licensed physicians.

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Brief Answer:
Very good questions.

Detailed Answer:
1) There's a huge number of drugs that probably require a specialist that actually kind of sort of help maintain someone off of narcotics. Methadone and suboxone by substituting for them and naloxone which blocks any activity of any narcotic at all (but throws someone with narcotic in their system into a horrible withdrawal).

2) BUT, ALL THE DRUGS WE"VE MENTIONED ARE ONLY FOR SYMPTOMS. Oh, I should mention also over the counter benadryl (sominex) as a sleep and runny nose medicine. If you don't have the symptoms, you probably should NOT take them. This is a bit borderline for clonidine. Although it is usually given ahead of time, it lowers blood pressure and often has side effects from this. It is a problem if someone has a LOT of nausea/vomiting/diarrhea/dehydration.

2 weeks is a very long estimate for withdrawal symptoms. It is less. sort of.
There is a lag, of up to 24 hrs before they start (you would know better than I; and if you don't .....)


Not everyone has significant withdrawal off of vicodin.

It is highly dose dependent, and nearly all of my legitimate patients are on a total of 30 mg or less per day and they don't get withdrawal. At 50 mg a day, there sometimes is a minimal amount for 2-3 days. At > 100 mg a day there will be. But it is less than with moderate doses of heroin or methadone. It is similar to withdrawal from suboxone BUT, the suboxone people feel worse from the same symptoms. The withdrawal off of vicodin is shorter duration than most other narcotics. It starts at about 12 to 24 hrs after stopping. It peaks at 2 to 4 days then declines. While there are some symptoms at 1 week, they are certainly not at the peak and they generally do NOT make the person want to take clonidine/imodium/etc.
But, they usually make the person want to take narcotics.

The brain gets reprogrammed to seek narcotics. There are thought disorders that occur in addiction, that can be shown to correlate with changes in the literal size of the brain regions involved in addiction. They reverse. It is not fast (months). Signs:
1) cravings, exactly analogous to being fat and craving donuts. They just found that different regions of the brain have different sizes in the obese. In drug addiction it is know this is caused by the addiction process. The scientists in obesity, however, concluded the opposite, that the brain size differences make people eat more and they can't help being that way. (these were scientists that are fat and eat a lot of donuts).
2) salience. everything reminds the addict of the drug.
3) justifications for using that Make No Damn Sense.
4) along with 3, making a chain of reasoning for why it is reasonable to knock over an old lady, steal her stuff, buy drugs. And then, and this is key, making the reasoning NOT DUE TO ONE'S OWN CHOICES. Making ones actions wrongly ascribed to situations outside of oneself.

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