Quit taking Dilaudid and Hell.

Well I was taking Exalgo 8MG which is a 24 hour time release Dilaudid. At the PM Doc yesterday he said to make a choice Exalgo or Nucynta. Had to stick which what works for me so I chose to keep the Nucynta and ditch Exalgo. I'm also looking for a new job and need to get off everything eventually. I stopped taking Exalgo about 5 days ago.

I've been taking Exalgo for only 60 Days. I'm going through hell right now. Non Stop sneezing, running to the bathroom every hour, sinus issues and I'm sweating uncontrollably. Can't believe after just a short time I'd go through this. I know Dilaudid is one of the quickest drugs to get use to and hardest to kick.

During my 2 weeks in ICU after my neck surgery they would hit me with a dilaudid cocktail every 2 hours. Well when I got out of the hospital I had major withdrawls and that was only after 2 weeks. A few people I know experienced the same thing from dilaudid after hospital visits.

I hate pills. So I'm currently only taking the Percocet and Nucynta when I need it and not much really. I've kicked all the rest on my own. I'll eventually kick these two after my next surgery. I hate this feeling but know it's necessary.

Who else has kicked some pills lately?

JP I edited out a word in your post. There is a rule here at the forum concerning language. HW is a family oriented web site so we have to be careful what we post because since we do not know the ages of our readers. Susie

Post Edited By Moderator (straydog) : 9/24/2013 9:12:57 AM (GMT-6)

Im glad to see your feeling better but your causing yourself more harm by taking the nucynta on an add needed basis. If you were to keep it at a therapeutic level my guess and knowledge is saying you could ditch the percs altogether.

When your taking all the meds you have on an add needed basis none of them have an opportunity to build up to a adequate pain relief.

By taking 3 different narcotics with 3 different chemical composition that literally hit on different receptors of the brain your going to experience w/d from every one of them.

Your best bet if you have hopes of a successful surgery and being able to live without the narcotics then choosing one med and sticking with that one is your best chance.

You've not seen w/d until you've come off methadone.

The only plus about being on methadone is I dont dose but once in 24 and I dont require a ir med other then the lyrica and Florida laws tend to leave us alone. It's the only time I'm ever thankful riding on the coat tails of the addicts! Lol

That sucks! Did they tell you when it will be back in stock. I'm glad you feel better but I sure hope they take care of you soon.

JP, I guess we're suffering together.

your doctor should know that hydromorphone is one of the most potent opioids and tapentadol while good cannot even be converted by the morphine gold standard conversion rate morphine 1:4 hydromorphone

Hi,

Thanks for the information on your personal experience! I do realize that everyone's body is different and we all react differently to meds.

Back in 2003 I had surgery on my stomach and it ended up to being an unnecessary operation as I was misdiagnosed. If the surgeon had done his homework, it is quite possible that I could have been treated with steroids instead and it would more than likely have taken care of the problem. I was in-patient for a total of 19 days spread through 2 different hospitals. I was finally diagnosed with the skin disease pyoderma gangrenosum. This is treated with high dose steroids, (prednisone).

Even after my stomach surgery, the skin in the wound (it was left open and packed at least twice a day with wet dressings to heal from the inside out) and around the wound had increasing inflammation and infection. It was biopsied at the second hospital as well as a few other sites on my skin and finally got diagnosed correctly. During that 19 days, I was on morphine and dilaudid. When I was sent home, it was with both of those drugs also.

It took from November of 2003 until March or April of 2004 for the wound to finally heal and close itself. I was on the morphine and dilaudid for about 3 months. When I came off it wasn't overly difficult, but I remember the w/d's were A LOT of sweating and just feeling miserable!

My reason for posting on this thread, is that the absolute worst drug w/d I have been through was with Fentanyl patches. I was on 100mcg patches and realized that due to my body overheating it was causing the fentanyl to nearly overdose me as it was dumping too much into my system at once. I couldn't handle the w/d from that medication and had to call my doc within hours of taking myself off of the patch. I never knew that w/d's could start that quickly! I certainly learned on that one!

I have never been RX'd methadone and from what both of you here have said, I am so glad that I have stayed away from it. My doctor did suggest it in the past for a trial, but I refused it just because of the "stigma" associated with the name of it.

Trudy

I have been on Exalgo for over a year. I was on Kadian, 300-mg/day before Exalgo. My doctor started me at 16-mg/day. At 32-mg the pain began subsiding. My highest dose was 96-mg/day. The problem with Exalgo is, at least for me, is three fold. 1) After being on a dose for several months I began to notice pain in my muscles and joints in parts of my body where there has never been any pain before, this pain becomes more severe the longer my doctor waits to increase the dose. 2) Exalgo NEVER lasts for 24 hours. I go into the beginnings of withdrawal every day, and some days it gets so bad that I have ended up at the ER. 3) After talking with my doctor we began reducing my dose. At EVERY dose reduction I would go into SEVERE withdrawal every day, sometimes lasting up to 4 days to a month even though the dose reductions were the smallest reductions possible based on available Exalgo sizes. I experienced most all of the withdrawal symptoms shown for Exalgo!

Right now I am down to 8-mg/day. Every day now for almost a month now I have been going through these withdrawal symptoms!! It seems like the manufacturer has built in things to make your body crave a higher and higher dose. Why do I say this? Because Exalgo seems to CREATE pain in areas of my body where there have never been any pain, and they also have made the symptoms so severe when you try to reduce the dose that you go back up to the previous dose.

Why do I believe what I have written here? At 96-mg/day my pain was becoming worse and worse and worse in areas of my body that I have never experienced pain in before, but on 8-mg/day my pain is almost tolerable- it is VERY MUCH less severe at 8-mg/day than it was at 96-mg/day and the pain in the areas of my body that were caused by Exalgo is completely gone on 8-mg/day!!!! BUT I am still dealing with, and have been dealing with for almost 30 days now are the SEVERE withdrawal symptoms EVERY SINGLE DAY that NEVER SEEM TO GO AWAY!!! The 8-mg tablet is the smallest dose, so I am at the point where I am going to try stopping completely because I can not take the many numerous side effects of taking Exalgo.

The green stuff that is in your cares radiator, ETHLYENE GLYCOL, are you aware that Exalgo contains both POLYETHLYENE GLYCOL AND POLYETHLYENE GLYCOLS AS WELL AS BUTYLATED HYDROXYTOLUENE, or BHT? These poisons are in Exalgo!!!! The claim is that ethylene glycol is not the same as polyethylene glycol, but just look at all the chemicals that are in our food that are claimed to be safe, but years or decades later we learn that they are toxic to us!! The two are similar chemicals given different names. People that want to kill feral cats in their neighborhood call ethylene glycol "green milk" because it tastes sweet and the cats will drink it, THEN IT KILLS THEM!!!

Here is a list of some of the ingredients in Exalgo. This is what I have learned while researching Exalgo.

BHT
Turns out this additive, used in all the above products, has a scary MSDS (Material Safety Data Sheet) that says the following:
• Do NOT let this chemical enter the environment.
• Combustible.
• Ingestion causes Abdominal pain. Confusion. Dizziness. Nausea. Vomiting.
• The substance may have effects on the liver.
• The substance is harmful to aquatic organisms.

Polyethlyene Glycol

Organ system toxicity (non-reproductive)
Concern Reference
Classified as expected to be toxic or harmful Environment Canada Domestic Substance List


Cellulose Acetate : May be harmful by ingestion, inhalation, or skin absorption.

FERRIC OXIDE RED
INGESTION:
SHORT TERM EXPOSURE: no information is available
LONG TERM EXPOSURE: no information is available

Hypromellose 2910
Potential Acute Health Effects: Slightly hazardous in case of skin contact (irritant), of eye contact (irritant), of ingestion, of inhalation.

Potential Chronic Health Effects:
CARCINOGENIC EFFECTS: Not available.
MUTAGENIC EFFECTS: Not available.
TERATOGENIC EFFECTS: Not available.
DEVELOPMENTAL TOXICITY: Not available.

Lactose Anhydrous
Potential Acute Health Effects: Hazardous in case of ingestion. Slightly hazardous in case of skin contact (irritant), of eye contact (irritant), of inhalation.

Potential Chronic Health Effects: CARCINOGENIC EFFECTS: Not available. MUTAGENIC EFFECTS: Not available. TERATOGENIC EFFECTS: Not available.
DEVELOPMENTAL TOXICITY: Not available.

Lactose Monohydrate
Acute toxicity: No data available.
Skin corrosion/irritation: No data available.
Serious eye damage/eye irritation: No data available.
Respiratory or skin sensitization: No data available.
Germ cell mutagenicity: No data available.
Toxicity: No data available.
Persistence and degradability: No data available.
Bioaccumulative potential: No data available.
Mobility in soil: No data available.
Results of PBT and vPvB assessment: No data available.
Other adverse effects: No data available.

TITANIUM DIOXIDE
Organ system toxicity (non-reproductive)
Concern Reference
Classified as expected to be toxic or harmful: Environment Canada Domestic Substance List
Classified as medium human health priority: Environment Canada Domestic Substance List

Triacetin
Potential Acute Health Effects: Slightly hazardous in case of skin contact (irritant), of eye contact (irritant), of ingestion, of inhalation
Potential Chronic Health Effects: CARCINOGENIC EFFECTS: Not available. MUTAGENIC EFFECTS: Not available. TERATOGENIC EFFECTS: Not available. DEVELOPMENTAL TOXICITY: Not available.


Do we really want to be ingesting so many ingredients that are toxic, or with data “not available” only to find out years or decades later that they caused the illness that we now have?

I posted this thread back in 2013.

It seems to be resurrected over a year later.

I don't think Nucynta should be labeled as an opiate because I've never gone through withdrawl when I stopped taking it or was strong enough to help with pain on it's own.  I take it in tandem with Percocet.