Its been a couple of weeks and I thought I would give an update. I am almost 4 weeks out and I feel the worst is over at this point but I did have a couple of real speed bumps in the last two weeks.

The pain I think peaked for me 1.5-two weeks ago and lasted about 4 days. I was still taking the Dilauded(Hydromorphone) and it was doing its job. I felt no need to increase dose or anything. I had a couple of rough nights but I made it thru.

Now last week was real trip. Sunday or Monday, I had tapered my Ativan to 1 pill instead of 2 at bedtime for maybe (which I thought was plenty of taper). I had one pill left on Weds.

I was also feeling much better and was considering going to work Friday since I was able to eat a little oral food, cream of wheat and chicken noodle soup. Tues I started getting sweats without temperature, not too terribly bad but it was concerning, I had my Onc doc followup on Weds so I waited to ask anything about it. By Weds AM the sweats were considerably worse. I asked the Doc not thinking to mention the Ativan and she had blood drawn to test thyroid and testosterone levels. She asked about my pain, I said considerably better, she suggested tapering off the Hydromorphone, but she did not give me a specific regimen or if she did it was on deaf ears. So I went home and immeaditaly started tapering from 3mg every 3hrs to something like 1.5 every 4-5hrs.

By friday I was in the fetal position on my bed, having extreme hot-flashes and vomiting like it was a second job due to an increase ropey saliva issue, it was building up in the back of throat to the point it was causing gagging. I figured that this was the portion of my throat that was healing/hurting at the time and it was what I had to deal with. I was also thinking that my glands (thyroid due to rads or testes due to chemo) had crapped the bed and causing the hot flashes. The doc had not called to give me my results of the blood test, and by the time I had my whits about me it was too late to call.

So all weekend I fought the sweats and the vomiting until Sunday am I started feeling a lil better. I did my best to stay hydrated, and was successful(kept my pee clear or light yellow<--Hydration science right there folks!).

Monday I call the Doc, got a nurse practitioner, and asked the blood results and she said every thing is fine. At this point I was flummoxed and asked why the hell am I getting the vomiting and the sweats out of nowhere then. She asked had I changed my meds? I said well yes and explain my 4-5 day taper on my Ativan, and my Dilauded reduction. She was quite surprised at what I thought was tapering, and quickly figured out that I had gone thru opiate/benz withdrawal concurrently inside of 72hrs.

Not fun. she said I will likely have some symptoms of withdrawal as I continue to taper off the hydromorphone for the next couple of days to a couple weeks. She said since I had halved to quartered the dose I was on and made it thru the shakes, the worst is over. Holy hell what a trip.

Today I feel great, some medium-level(3-4 out of 10) throat pain but nothing like I've had in the past. I actually decided to work a half day at the office.

So fair warning to all the folks on opiates and other addictive drugs, ask your doctor for a taper schedule and make sure you have enough to make it all the way thru the taper. Going Cold turkey or even semi-cold turkey on one is no joke. Doing it with two different addictive drugs at once is pure holy hell.