Day One......codeine and caffeine

[EmbarassedAddict]

Made it to 2pm on day one with no codeine or caffeine (I’ve been tapering down for weeks, been making attempts to taper and quit for months/years).

I may struggle once I’ve picked the DCs up from school, but I’ve got a nice loaf of specialty fruit bread to toast for afternoon tea to have with a cup of Rooibos tea. I’ve been for a long walk this morning and ordered a ludicrously expensive three day juice cleanse to start on Thursday. I know it’s utter guff, but if I blow it now, that’s £150+ pissed up the wall if I’m juicing around regular doses of Solpadeine Max washed down with a double shot espresso. Plus maybe it will do something for my poor liver that’s had all that paracetamol dumped on it needlessly.

I can deal with the diarrhoea, but this feeling of the vice around my head is my biggest risk. If it escalates to a full on migraine, I’m fucked and back to square one.

Well done! Brilliant, you should be proud!xx

I try and only have codeine and caffeine when I get a bad migraine as it’s the only thing that works. Have you been cutting out both at the same time. Just wondered how you have cut down. I do need to cut back a bit too

Dodie66 Codeine + caffeine + sumatriptan is the only combo that works for my awful migraines which I get three or four times a month. So I can’t just remove them from my life completely. Problem is, I take them for a migraine then I just don’t stop in between. I would love to just be at a point when I can just take as needed, not to prevent withdrawals.

I gradually substitute a Solpadeine Max for co-codamol, then co-codamol for paracetamol. The coffee, top up the beans in my machine for decaf then I never really ‘know’ when I’m off the full caff stuff. With instant, gradually reduce the spoon of instant for decaf, then eventually replace all the decaf with no-caf.

Same here. I get migraines several times a month with other headaches in between. I did get off codeine and caffiene completely but then had to put up with the awful pain when I had the migraine so I’m now back on them. Like you I tend to use them in between. Hard when we need them

Day Two........

Awful night of (no) sleep but still on the wagon.

I feel like arse.

Day Three.........

Struggling to know why I’m doing this to myself. I’m a lot nicer when I’m on the pills and coffee. I did nine months with no caffeine no painkillers and not a day passed where I didn’t feel like I was pushing shit uphill and my sickness absence from work pushed me into final warning territory. I adopted low-to-moderate-level addiction, I didn’t hate and scream at my kids in the morning and I haven’t been off work sick in a year and a half. I can’t see me sticking this out for more than a week or two, unless I find compelling evidence beyond feeling virtuous, and quite liking not having a full-blown dependency to maintain, to stay off them...

Morning, well done!
I need to do exactly what you are doing but not planning to give up the caffeine! I take cocodamol 30/500 for endometriosis and adhesions.

How much had you tapered down to before stopping?!

I’m struggling to do it and gave in and took some because I couldn’t put up with the pain, I have fibromyalgia as well as getting migraines. I’m planning on just taking a lower amount at the moment rather than leaving it off completely. Re the caffiene I don’t think I could leave that off completely but I am down to one a day

Polly147 and Dodie66 My neurologist as good as blames me for my migraines - he thinks caffeine and codeine are the antichrist. Even when I went off both for nine months, and it made zero difference to either the acute attacks or the chronic daily headaches, he was adamant I stay off it. I’ve ignored him for a while, but my in-built lifelong habit of self-blame becomes overwhelming sometimes so I’m trying again to try and ease the guilt.

I last took 2 x 8/500 mid-morning on Sunday with a half spoon of full caff mixed with a half spoon of no caff coffee, then nothing from Monday.

Day Four........

Outrageously expensive three day juice cleanse starts today. Not expecting it to bring about any miracles but it will give me something virtuous to put my mind on and if nothing else, the amount of weeing I’ll be doing will be a distraction.

Good luck!

Since having Covid in January, I’ve had chronic headaches which I’ve been treating with ibuprofen/paracetamol 3 times a day. This week I decided to go cold turkey as I realise the meds are just making them worse. I was doing so well until my 1st vaccine yesterday which has given me the headache from hell. Back at square one....🥺

I’ve got my second vaccine next week. I’m really worried. The first one made me feel rough as guts, so obviously I hit the pills pretty hard. Don’t know how I’m going to manage round two and keep this up...

Keep going OP. You can do this!!

EmbarrassedAddict let us know how the juice cleanse goes! Is it literally juices and no food?

Apart from feeling shite have you had much in the way of withdrawal symptoms?

What vaccine have you had? I had Pfizer and was ok after the 1st dose but people who have had the AZ said they felt shocking after the 1st dose but ok after the 2nd 🤞🏻

Well done on 4 days!

I’ve managed to get down to taking just 1 or 2 doses a day but I can’t face the thought of upset stomach and no sleep 🤦🏼‍♀️

Same here Polly147

Dodie66 how much do you take a day?
I can’t decide if the fear of how I will feel is worse than it actually will be!

Withdrawals - diarrhoea is still ongoing with intermittent abdo pain; my sleep is shocking and I have a perma-headache, but that’s kind of my baseline and how I got hooked on the pills in the first place to try and alleviate both, so I don’t know if it’s withdrawals or just ‘me’. Generally feeling like shite, fatigued, like I’m walking through treacle.

Polly147 Just juice and no food! At least I’m well hydrated. I’ve had the Pfizer. We’re finding that those who’ve had Covid and were really ill with it are reacting the worst to the vaccine. I’ve not had it (touch wood - I’m frontline health worker) so can’t gauge. I was mostly tired and headachy (a worse version of my usual self, basically) with an arm like lead.

I'd focus on quitting the codeine with medical help first tbh rather than doing both at once. It can give you enormous stomach ulcers like that woman in Australia. It can kill you.

If you are on juice only won’t that affect your stomach too?
Polly147 I usually have one or 2 doses a day.
I always take 2 with a cuppa in the morning to help with the fibro pain and to get my
joints and muscles going so that I can get up
I can get through the day without taking any more as long as I don’t get a migraine
I agree with CorianderBee maybe you shouldn’t be stopping then pills and caffiene as well, I find if I feel unwell sometimes just a cup of tea and a snack helps

The neurologist said go cold turkey the first time I did this 🤷🏻‍♀️ It was me who chose to taper this time because I think that’s more sensible. I have a medical condition that will hospitalise me if I get uncontrollable vomiting, which I get with an unmedicated severe migraine, which would be an automatic consequence for me of cutting out anything suddenly.

I’ve only just started juicing at 8am today - it won’t have affected my bowels yet (certainly wouldn’t have accounted for the overnight/early morning gripes).

Day Five.........

Less of a headache, maybe...?

Couldn’t you take paracetamol for the headache?

With everything I’ve taken over the years, paracetamol does absolutely nothing for pain for me. I may as well take aspartame tablets for pain relief.