Howdy gang! As i said, I’m on abooouuuut day 8/9ish. I messed up my timeline at the beginning as the first few days were… well. You all know. A shit show.
Random: i am well over the acute withdrawals. (-50/10 btw, it was as horrible as I anticipated.) i am MUCH better but still far from ‘healed!’. I have very little energy, can’t sleep for shit, the brain fog is intense. Nevertheless, i persevere.
My question: hot baths/Epsom salts. I am not a bath taker. Never have been. But I tried it on day 2 because of the utterly debilitating RLS and it helped! I have taken a bath or soaked my feet & legs in a hot bath with epsom salts a few times a day since then. I KNOW i am getting some relief because of this, but I was wondering if there is any actual direct medical benefit?
I’m not really sore anymore (thank god, bc BOY HOWDY I WAS SOOOO SORE.) but like… it feels good to kinda sauna the bathroom and sweat it out a bit, and continue aggressively replenishing with oral rehydration. I was just sort of wondering if it was helping as a placebo kind of thing, or if I am doing anything directly beneficial to getting back to homeostasis.
Thanks in advance if anyone has any input. And if not, well, just know I am reading any and every post on this site in solidarity. You are not alone. YES, YOU. Feel free to PM if anyone needs to talk! :)
I am so fricken relieved to be here. I don’t think I have much special or different to offer. I just remembered last Wednesday reading stories like mine, but they were a few days ahead, and being so damn jealous, scouring for any tips, tricks, whatever.
IMHO: they don’t exist. They might’ve made the physical withdrawal less painful (and it is painful. This is truth.) but … i know me, i want to feel my feels, to know intimately what this shit was doing to me.
There were two things that I feel are so incredibly important that I did that made all the difference. 1) Partner was able to stay with me the entire time. 2) hot baths.
Partner kept a a clear path to the bathroom, (and by that i mean he just made sure there was none available… cause there are times i would’ve caved.) i didn’t have access to any 7oh, i didn’t have my credit cards. This was it. The one time i DID find one laying around, it was on Day 5, and I was already on the uphill and didn’t want to do any of that ever again.
The RLS was the worst part for me, by far. I’ll admit I’m still pretty sore in…. All? Of my leg muscles? But like, very tolerable. A good workout sore. The hot baths made a MASSIVE difference - my partner drew me one on the absolute worst day of the RLS and it gave me some desperately needed relief.
That’s the only thing that really did, though. I take mag glycinate and melatonin and stuff, but… i also wanted to just cold turkey it and suffer through.
Yesterday was still not amazing, but distinctly better. I could keep down small sips or water. So my partner kept a Stanley close by with the lil ice cubes i like 🥲. I got some good calories in my body - peanut butter and crackers, some plain rice, later in the day a plain turkey sandwich sounded good, just, ANYTHING, because one place where i really biffed it ( because i hadn’t been planning on quitting this week just yet) is i lost about 10 lbs the first 4ish days. I did not do great about staying hydrated. Don’t be me, gang… on the hydration at least.
On the ‘breaking through to the other side’? Please do. It sucks. There is no way to cheat it. It’s worth it. It’s worth it. It takes a few days. It feels like a few decades. Get ahead of the Sched 1!!!
One minute at a time. ♥️♥️