I agree with Straydog here hydra. Its a good thing to take a drug holiday once in a while. If your dose isn't to strong and the medication is moderate in stregnth, you can probably take 1 or 2 days off (Warning - I know you already know this but if you are on a high dose of a highly potent medication, you should never take a full day off without a doctors consent). As simple as it sounds, I heavily agree with Straydog that for some medications, this can really make a difference in the effectiveness of the medication (as it helps lower your tolerance a little AND it also gives your opioid receptors a chance to flush out and partially reset themselves.)
If you can't take 1 or 2 days off due to no dropoffs in the pain or from being on a very potent medication, you can tapper down your dose for 3 or 4 days and this will also have a very similiar effect. By tapper I don't mean go from taking 2 Norcos 4 times a to 1 Norco 1 time a day, but a more moderate drop like 1 Norcos 4 times a day for a few days. The key is waiting until you have a low stress period in which you won't be doing a lot of activities that give you higher risk for breakthrough pain.
As stated in my other thread, for the 3 days beofre my surgery, I dropped daily dosage by 50 percent. I did experience some mild withdraw, but after my surgery and at the time I needed my pain meds most, they were quite effective.
Note: Drug holidays aren't going to reset your tolerance and receptors back to zero by any means. However, dropping your tolerance by 10 or 20 percent would theoretically means 10 to 20 percent more pain relief over the next fews days. Every little bit helps, and PLEASE take what I said with a grain of salt, as your pharmacist is your best resource for script
s.
