I've been having a ruff day. Extra pain, emotional outbursts. Just all over crabby. I finally put it together that I reduced my Percocet by half yesterday, and had tried to not take my morning dose this morning either.
I did some research, and it turns out that these are the symptoms of percocet withdrawal:
feeling as though you have the flu
gastrointestinal distress
anxiety
nausea
insomnia
muscle pain
fevers
sweating
runny nose and eyes
I have 1/2 of these symptoms, and they went away after I caved and I took my morning dose. I've only been on the Percocet for nine days after my surgery, but it seems that I've already developed a wee bit of a dependency!
Specifically, the symptoms that I had this morning were anxiety, muscle pain in my pelvic floor, muscle pain in my legs (which should have been my first sign that I wasn't just having a cranky morning!) diarrhea, nausea and depression.
For me, right now at least, I'm glad I have the percocet. I've had a really ruff recovery from surgery, and it was the only thing that touched the pain I was in. I just wish that I knew more about this drug. If I had known more, I wouldn't have gone down from 4 pills to 1 in one day! I would step down more slowly. If I had a heads-up about the potential to cause emotional effects, I would have been able to plan for that, too. I have a long history of needing extra support emotionally, so its predictable with me that I'll probably experience any emotional side effects that any drug might produce. I know how to nurture myself through this, but I was taken by surprise by the percocet withdrawal.
I've only been on the stuff 9 days, so I didn't have a lot of time to get dependent on it. According to the information I got this afternoon, it only takes 5-7 days for some people to develop a dependency.
I wish that I had some warning about this before surgery. Hopefully, this tread will give someone else the information they need about percocet before their surgery.
My plan for dealing with this now is to be super consistent with how I take the percocet. Taking them "as needed" is not going to work for me. I'm going to keep it to two pills a day for the next several days and then reduce it to one pill and then 1/2 pill. And when I reduce the amount I'm taking, I'll plan extra time for self-care on those days. (Big optimism that I will be able to reduce soon! :praying:)