What can be done to minimize hydrocodone withdrawal

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Answer 1

Answered in 4 hours by:

11/6/2011

Pharmacist: Clinical Pharmacist, Pharmacist replied 11 years ago

Clinical Pharmacist, Pharmacist

Category: Pharmacy

Satisfied Customers: 48

Experience: I'm a clinical pharmacist, and have completed 2 years of residency and have years of experience.

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Hello
Thank you for the question.
Tapering of narcotics is a patient specific situation that requires individualized plans. Without knowing your full history, I could not recommend such a plan. However, Medicare has put together a great tapering schedule that would be a good first place to start for most situation. Here is the website: http://hrsa.dshs.wa.gov/pharmacy/toolkit.htm
About 10 lines down on the page, there is a link to an 'Opioid Taper Plan Calculator.' This is a microsoft excel file. All you have to do is enter your information and it will put together a plan for you.
If you can tell me how long you've been on these medications and at what dose, I can put together a schedule for you as well.
I hope this helps.
Thanks!

Answer 2

Pharmacist: Clinical Pharmacist, Pharmacist replied 11 years ago

Thanks for the response.
I would recommend that you reduce your total daily dose of hydrocodone by 5mg every week until you're down to nothing. Currently, you are taking 40 mg of hydrocodone per day (10 mg per tablet X 4 times per day). In order to reduce your total hydrocodone dose, you'll have to cut some pills in half. Assuming you take the 4 tablets approximately 4-6 hours apart, I would recommend taking your lowest strength dose right before bed.
So your schedule should look like this:
Week 1 - 35 mg hydrocodone per day (3.5 tablets per day)
Week 2 - 30 mg hydrocodone per day (3 tablets per day)
Week 3 - 25 mg hydrocodone per day (2.5 tablets per day)
Week 4 - 20 mg hydrocodone per day (2 tablets per day)
Week 5 - 15 mg hydrocodone per day (1.5 tablets per day)
Week 6 - 10 mg hydrocodone per day (1 tablet per day)
Week 7 - 5 mg hydrocodone per day (5 tables per day)
As you may start to notice, you will not have enough tablets to take evenly throughout the day. I would recommend you supplement this with 500mg of tylenol or 400mg of motrin (as long as you can tolerate it and are not on any blood thinners).
If you reach a week that you start to notice that you cannot lower the dose, I'd recommend you go back to the lowest tolerated dose, and stay on that for 2 weeks and taper down to the next lower dose.
I hope this helps.
Thanks.

What can be done to minimize hydrocodone withdrawal

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