u/noctenaut

I’m British but have been travelling South America the last 5 years - had a bike accident in the first few months and was thrown on Tramadol (oral drops) and have had issues with the injury ever since, so remained on it, and I admit, overused it at times.

The formula I’ve been using is, as I said, oral drops at 100mg per 1ml (equivalent to 30 drops, or 3.33mg per drop). By January this year I was taking easily 60-70 drops 4-6 times a day. Sometimes more. I had several instances of waking up in public confused, only to find out I’d been seizing. Enough was enough.

By May, it became clear I needed to come back to the UK for a few months (where even breathing requires a prescription) and so by then I’d got myself down to 50 drops strictly every 5hrs (4x a day),

Since then I’ve been sporadically dropping it here and there, usually by 5 drops a time, and prepared to bring a little with me into the UK to taper the last part - and so came my arrival on June 1st where I was down to 25 drops 4x a day.

It genuinely shocked me how uneventful the drop seemed. I expected it to be much worse.

I’ll admit, I took a little long to make a further reduction, so a lot of what I had left was used up, but this week I did a big drop down to 10 drops. It’s been pretty uncomfortable and I realised during a (duh!) moment that the smaller dose I take, each reduction is much more pronounced. Since I’m not chipping away at the dose, I’m now chopping big chunks from it proportionally.

To make matters worse, I vaped a lot in South America (stupid decision I know), I’m autistic so I annoyingly use things for comfort - the vape being one. However, I didn’t even realise the vape I was using was 34mg of nicotine, in the UK, the maximum is 20mg, and just my luck that my South American vapes all ran out this week too.

So, I’ve given myself the double whammy of both nicotine and Tramadol withdrawal at the same time. I admit, I’m not rolling around in bed in agony and despair, soaked in sweat with a stomach eating itself - but I am finding it pretty bad in terms of anxiety, and since Tramadol is unique amongst opioids in that it alters mood, low mood too.

At this stage, I did the maths and I have about 400 drops left, and I’m currently taking 10 drops a dose, so in the coming days I’m going to have to make that final push of reducing by 1 drop a day. I’m feeling the withdrawal 10x more now. And I’m struggling. I also don’t even have my own room to ride it out in since my childhood bedroom is an office now lol.

So I guess I’d be grateful for some encouragement, or even just to hear anything another human has to say, about anything at all.

Several times a day I’m seeing people asking about lesions which are classically herpetic in nature. Even my partner who is a dermatologist has noticed it here too.

Or is it that this is a forum where people from all sorts of places descend on for advice? My partner says he very very rarely sees such issues in people (genital herpes however, is increasingly common in the young) but I’m talking more about singles and herpes in areas of the body other than the classic lips.

I’m British but have been travelling South America the last 5 years - had a bike accident in the first few months and was thrown on Tramadol (oral drops) and have had issues with the injury ever since, so remained on it, and I admit, overused it at times.

The formula I’ve been using is, as I said, oral drops at 100mg per 1ml (equivalent to 30 drops, or 3.33mg per drop). By January this year I was taking easily 60-70 drops 4-6 times a day. Sometimes more. I had several instances of waking up in public confused, only to find out I’d been seizing. Enough was enough.

By May, it became clear I needed to come back to the UK for a few months (where even breathing requires a prescription) and so by then I’d got myself down to 50 drops strictly every 5hrs (4x a day),

Since then I’ve been sporadically dropping it here and there, usually by 5 drops a time, and prepared to bring a little with me into the UK to taper the last part - and so came my arrival on June 1st where I was down to 25 drops 4x a day.

It genuinely shocked me how uneventful the drop seemed. I expected it to be much worse.

I’ll admit, I took a little long to make a further reduction, so a lot of what I had left was used up, but this week I did a big drop down to 10 drops. It’s been pretty uncomfortable and I realised during a (duh!) moment that the smaller dose I take, each reduction is much more pronounced. Since I’m not chipping away at the dose, I’m now chopping big chunks from it proportionally.

To make matters worse, I vaped a lot in South America (stupid decision I know), I’m autistic so I annoyingly use things for comfort - the vape being one. However, I didn’t even realise the vape I was using was 34mg of nicotine, in the UK, the maximum is 20mg, and just my luck that my South American vapes all ran out this week too.

So, I’ve given myself the double whammy of both nicotine and Tramadol withdrawal at the same time. I admit, I’m not rolling around in bed in agony and despair, soaked in sweat with a stomach eating itself - but I am finding it pretty bad in terms of anxiety, and since Tramadol is unique amongst opioids in that it alters mood, low mood too. I’ve cried about 10 times in my 33 years of life - but this week, it’s several times a day.

At this stage, I did the maths and I have about 400 drops left, and I’m currently taking 10 drops a dose, so in the coming days I’m going to have to make that final push of reducing by 1 drop a day. I’m feeling the withdrawal 10x more now. And I’m struggling. I also don’t even have my own room to ride it out in since my childhood bedroom is an office now lol. I’m lucky in that my family home has a huge field nearby but I just can’t bring myself to even shower, let alone heave myself out there. My body feels like it’s made of lead.

So I guess I’d be grateful for some encouragement, or even just to hear anything another human has to say, about anything at all. I know many other people are suffering much more than I am. I’m not the kind of person to need pushing, but right now I feel like I need a slap of reality, and that it’ll be worth it in the end. I’m getting married back in South America in January.

Sending love to everyone here.

I’m British but have been travelling South America the last 5 years - had a bike accident in the first few months and was thrown on Tramadol (oral drops) and have had issues with the injury ever since, so remained on it, and I admit, overused it at times.

The formula I’ve been using is, as I said, oral drops at 100mg per 1ml (equivalent to 30 drops, or 3.33mg per drop). By January this year I was taking easily 60-70 drops 4-6 times a day. Sometimes more. I had several instances of waking up in public confused, only to find out I’d been seizing. Enough was enough.

By May, it became clear I needed to come back to the UK for a few months (where even breathing requires a prescription) and so by then I’d got myself down to 50 drops strictly every 5hrs (4x a day),

Since then I’ve been sporadically dropping it here and there, usually by 5 drops a time, and prepared to bring a little with me into the UK to taper the last part - and so came my arrival on June 1st where I was down to 25 drops 4x a day.

It genuinely shocked me how uneventful the drop seemed. I expected it to be much worse.

I’ll admit, I took a little long to make a further reduction, so a lot of what I had left was used up, but this week I did a big drop down to 10 drops. It’s been pretty uncomfortable and I realised during a (duh!) moment that the smaller dose I take, each reduction is much more pronounced. Since I’m not chipping away at the dose, I’m now chopping big chunks from it proportionally.

To make matters worse, I vaped a lot in South America (stupid decision I know), I’m autistic so I annoyingly use things for comfort - the vape being one. However, I didn’t even realise the vape I was using was 34mg of nicotine, in the UK, the maximum is 20mg, and just my luck that my South American vapes all ran out this week too.

So, I’ve given myself the double whammy of both nicotine and Tramadol withdrawal at the same time. I admit, I’m not rolling around in bed in agony and despair, soaked in sweat with a stomach eating itself - but I am finding it pretty bad in terms of anxiety, and since Tramadol is unique amongst opioids in that it alters mood, low mood too. I’ve cried about 10 times in my 33 years of life - but this week, it’s several times a day.

At this stage, I did the maths and I have about 400 drops left, and I’m currently taking 10 drops a dose, so in the coming days I’m going to have to make that final push of reducing by 1 drop a day. I’m feeling the withdrawal 10x more now. And I’m struggling. I also don’t even have my own room to ride it out in since my childhood bedroom is an office now lol. I’m lucky in that my family home has a huge field nearby but I just can’t bring myself to even shower, let alone heave myself out there. My body feels like it’s made of lead.

So I guess I’d be grateful for some encouragement, or even just to hear anything another human has to say, about anything at all. I know many other people are suffering much more than I am. I’m not the kind of person to need pushing, but right now I feel like I need a slap of reality, and that it’ll be worth it in the end. I’m getting married back in South America in January.

Sending love to everyone here.

I don’t even know where it comes from, for me it’s just a natural reflex to say say it lmao

I have pretty bad image issues and my worst nightmare is somebody uploading a targeted photo of me online without my knowledge or consent.

Like, are we still doing this stuff?

I honestly wish Rory would take more of a firm stance when it comes to some things with Alastair, just as Mehdi has done this week tbh. Whether it be labour and Israel or New Labours pandering to right wing press.

The devil in me found it all a bit enjoyable. 🤣

(& my reasoning for not being too fond of Mehdi comes from my being mixed race English & Pakistani and having a strong distrust of anyone who previously endorsed Islamic extremism)

Honestly the day fast approaches when I’m going to end up in hospital because of my two lil guys lmao

The terror I had within me about having to come back for 6 months was bad, but it’s been 1 week and actually the city seems (to me at least) like a lot of development is happening, it seems somewhat cleaner, I don’t see the same scum lurking around everywhere I once did.

I could be wrong but it seems, at least to me, that some changes here have happened for the better.

What did I miss whilst I was away!?

Hey all,

Having a bit of a freak out - I had the Colombian Digital Nomad visa twice pretty in 2024 & 2025 - both times pretty much from early January to late December, so corresponding with the year. My income being £10,200 annually both times, from a British company I work remotely for.

**EDIT - £10,200 being around 45 million pesos. And it seems now that amount is below the minimum threshold to even file, let alone pay. So I might be ok after all.

I’ve recently seen some things here and there detailing Digital Nomad visa holders needing to register with DIAN and pay taxes as the visas allow stays in the country over 183 days (after which one becomes a tax resident) - both times I applied for and held the visas, there was absolutely nothing detailed by any part, immigration / government official or correspondence regarding this, and I even asked migración Colombia casually about this and they said don’t worry about it.

My last nomad visa ended in late December last year, 2025 and I have since returned to the county as a tourist for 6 months, and left a few days ago to go back to the UK for 6 months to gather documentation as I am marrying my Colombian partner in January.

To this day, I haven’t seen or received anything regarding the issue, the only contact I’ve had with Colombian taxes is that I was told I needed to pay 136.000 on my way out, although was a little unclear as to what it was for, the receipt they gave me simply says ‘differential tax collection) and I’m freaking out a bit now as like I said, I am due to return to marry my partner.

I’d be grateful if anyone had any insight on this - thank you. 🙏🏼