I'm so ashamed. Really, I am. I've known I needed to do something about this for some time. Now, I have no choice.

My mother died yesterday. For the past 2 and a half years, she had an ample supply of Hydrocodone 10/650 given to her by her doctor, first for leg pain, and at the end, for cancer pain. Since I have had hip replacement surgery that didn't take all my pain away, degenerative disc disease, mild scoliosis and sciatica, and doctors that would only give me meds like Neurontin or occasionally Toradol, my mother freely shared her hydro with me. I started out small... one a day. And, according to some of what I have read online, it's still a relatively small addiction... 6 or 7 on a bad day.

Now, my supply is almost gone.And, there is no way to get more. I don't think my doctors would give me any no matter how much I begged. I have 14 pills left. What I am thinking of doing is doing a slow tapering off with these. Maybe 1 pill only for 7 days, half a pill for 7 days, and 1/4 a pill for 14 days. Would this work? I am terrified of withdrawals. I am terrified of pain, too, but at this point, I have to do what I have to do. And, all this while making funeral preparations and mourning the loss of my mother.

Please help me figure out how I can wean myself off of hydro with the pills I have left!

I got through the day fairly well. I had only 2 pills. The worst thing was aching legs, like all the muscles in them were extremely tired. Hot baths and a couple of jiggers of Old Charter helped that! I am not a drinker at all, so those two were taken little by little over the course of the day. Tomorrow is my mother's funeral, and I am sorry to say I am glad to still have the crutch of two pills to help me through it all. I think once this is all over, it will be easier for me.

My mom had fentanyl pain patches,too - 25 mg. I was never even tempted to try them after reading the literature in the box! She had a few of those left, but I discarded them by flushing them down the toilet as the literature suggested. She also had oxycodone. Tried one of them once... didn't like it. I flushed those too. The few little blue hydro that are left seem like gold. It's the euphoria of the hydro that I like. They gave me energy and made me alert... something I needed when caring for someone who was sick. And, they relieved my pain so much. On my last doctor visit, last week, he mentioned Ultram, Cymbalta, and Topamax as things that might help my pain. That was when he gave me the Toradol I mentioned in my first post, but you can only take that for 5 days. That was my 3rd time to have the Toradol, and I did not mix it with the hydro. It's really funny how someone as leery of drugs as I am could get addicted! I know to be careful of Ultram, but what about Cymbalta and Topamax... are they addictive? I know I will need something else for this pain, and at least these would be my own scripts. I was supposed to see the doctor again today, but with everything that is going on after my mother's death, I rescheduled for next week. I took Neurontin with hydro for a long time, but from now on, I am going to be very cautious about what kind of medicine I take, as I know how easily I can get too fond of pills. Anyone ever taken Cymbalta or Topamax?

I don't think I will have a problem sleeping since I have gone on 4 hours of sleep each night for the past couple of weeks because of caring for my mother. I can tell with less hydro in my body today that the lack of sleep is catching up with me!