Morphine withdrawal occurs when suddenly stopping after using for an extended period, within 36 to 72 hours, symptoms will begin to show. The craving becomes extremely intense, and the person who is addicted may find it nearly impossible to overpower the craving.
When the amount of drug begins to reduced, then withdrawal signs and symptoms will begin, and they can be extremely severe depending on the history of drug usage.
Different bodies will react in different ways, and there are a plethora of discomforting symptoms such as vomiting, problems associated with breathing, high blood pressure and heart rate, and nausea that may affect people.
Although the people who are stopping may feel uncomfortable, fatigued, or tired, they are not in danger. The withdrawal process may take three to four days, and the symptoms may halt after a week, but the cravings associated with the drug may take days or years!
Morphine, a strong pain killing drug is in the class of opiate drugs.with withdrawal from morphine, if not treated, can last from five to seven days. Symptoms, that reach their highest peak anywhere from thirty-six to seventy-two hours can include nausea, vomiting, hot and cold sweats, diarrhea, muscular spasms, twitching, involuntary kicking, increased blood pressure, and heart rate.
Instead of stopping the consumption of morphine by themselves, a personal should use medical assistance like a opiate rehab. If they don’t, then they may undergo the above mentioned withdrawal symptoms, and end up relapsing to cope with them.
Although difficult, the withdrawal of morphine can be achieved by the use of medications that reduce the cravings for the opiate drug. Buprenorphnine is a drug that can be prescribed to help with morphine addiction. Another thing that can help is therapy.
This can take, depending on the length of addiction, anywhere from a few days and a few years for post acute withdrawal to go away.
Getting through Morphine Withdrawal
While the addiction to this drug can be caused by normal use of the drug over long periods of time, or by abuse of the medication, withdrawal is a predictable physical response to stopping the drug. Suddenly stopping morphine can cause intense cravings for the drug while slowing reducing it will help to reduce the morphine addiction withdrawal symptoms.
Unfortunately, morphine attaches to the reward system or the “feel good” portion of the brain. Once this part of the brain is awakened, the cravings can be so intense; the addict focuses only on needing the next fix. They then go into the cycle of always seeking the next high.
Keep in mind that withdrawal from morphine can be treated and so can addiction to any opioid with drug addiction therapy
After withdrawal, the addiction should be treated with addiction therapy or , which will teach the person how to deal with the resulting depression and anxiety symptoms. The patients will often times have extreme restlessness associated with the withdrawal of morphine, also to be addressed in treatment.
It is up to the individual to ask for help, because morphine addiction can be treated, and withdrawal can be accomplished with treatment.
Since opiates, such as morphine, are extremely addictive, medicines can be used to diminish cravings. However, this may be a time consuming process, and it can even take years.
The addiction associated with this drug can be a result of using the drug for a long period of time, or as a result of abusing the drug. While quitting cold turkey may cause intense cravings, slowly stopping may be more bearable.
The reason why this medication can be so addictive is because of the affect that it has on the brain. Since it causes people to feel good, it may be extremely hard for them to stop taking it, seeing as though they will no longer have this affect n their body.
On that note, the cravings that come with an addiction to morphine drug can be too strong to fight off. Therefore, many people will just focus on the amount of time that it will take for them to feel good again. This can be a major problem, and a lot of the time cravings can be completely overpowering. Additionally, this becomes a dangerous cycle of abuse, which can completely consume a person’s life.
The best way how to overcome morphine addiction would be in an opiate addiction rehab where the addict will go through a medical opiate detox for their withdrawal from morphine. If you think you have a morphine addiction this is probably your best bet because if you go they will use medications to help ease the pain of morphine withdraw.
I would make sure that I had an aftercare plan in place for when I left rehab because without a plan you will fail and relapse. The plan could consist of 12 step meetings or drug addiction therapy but it is must. I personally did both.
I went through opiate withdrawal in rehab several times but in the end it paid off big time and I am clean today without a desire to use. The reason for this is that I went to long term drug rehab. In long term rehab I basically learned how other people live their lives without succumbing to addiction. I found out rather quick that what I knew about living clean and sober you could put in a thimble.
In long term treatment you will live in a structured mini society with other addicts and alcoholics. While there you may work or go to school at least that’s the way it was where I went in Michigan. We were required to attend 12 step meetings and go to group twice a week. We also were required to attend one on one addiction therapy.
Addiction therapy
I think that my drug addiction counseling helped me the most because I was able to talk about all the messed up and degrading things I had done in my life and also the stuff that was done to me. I learned to trust my addiction therapist. Trust is necessary if you are going to make any progress because you may want to share some heavy duty stuff and you not want to leave the office wondering if they will tell anyone else what you just shared with them. I trusted my therapist very deeply.
You can be too if you simply take action and do it.
Good luck
My name is Art. I help people to recover.
{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }
i am an addict of opiates due to 8 surgerys in less then 2yrs, i wanna stop so badly the money i am spending is unreal, i am on my 3rd day and am currently using suboxin 2 help me but im still sooo sick because i use so much, can sum1 please help me and give me advice, i can not go 2 a detox or a rehab bc the father of my children will take them away from me and i will lose my job and i have one of the best jobs around and where i live jobs are very very hard to come by, can someone please help me!
Hi Jessica
If you are on your 3rd day things will start to get better soon as far as the withdrawal goes anyway so just hold on!. It can only stay in your system so long and you are near the end. I am not saying that will will feel great or anything cause your used to the drugs being in your system and how they make you feel. This will take time and depending on how long you used it could take quite a while before you get back to 100% which will probably not happen anyway because of your drug abuse; furthermore, we pay a high price for a low life!
Do not let this scare you because I have been through it several times and trust me its a process and I can tell you this that if you do not pick up things will get better but my question is this How do you intend to stay clean after your detox. Addiction does not just go away, staying clean is an ongoing process every day.
good luck
I, unfortunately, started taking morphine recreationally and now I wish id never touched the stuff. I had no idea the hold it can have on a person and so quickly. Is is possible to feel withdrawl effects when you are still taking it, meaning if I took some and a few hours later started shaking and having moments where my body is on fire but my skin has chill bumps. I am slightly terrified because I’ve never dealt with anything like this and like the post above rehab isn’t an option. I just don’t wanna feel like this..please help..
Hi Heather thanks a lot for your comment.
First of all it is kind of hard for me to say with so little information. I have no idea how many mg you take and how often. To make a better assessment you would have to give me more info.
With the limited information I would have to say no it is no withdrawal.
Good luck
A few months ago I had acute pain in the cervical area of my body; it was so intense that all I could do was scream. I drove to the hospital and after being checked for a coronary event, I was sent to the medical floor where they pumped me through of morphine. After I was released, I was given 30 mg of Morphine Sulphate. I reversed titrated but… ALSO, at the same time, I have changed the way I eat; no wheat, nothing that can spike the blood sugar.
Now I feel like Mitt Romney. Flip, flop, flip, flop…I spent last night flipping and flopping like a fish 0ut of water.
I did not do Morphine on my own, a doctor prescribed it. I am fairly insensitive to most pain killers; I get no high from them and DON’T WANT A HIGH! Hell, if I wanted to get high there are legal ways of doing it; but I hate not being in control.
Oh well…this is my third week. A little sugar under the tongue does help.
I’m not only getting rid if morphine, but I’m getting rid of several different food stuffs AND Fentanyl (short time use). I’ve survived five heart attacks, open-heart surgery and a MASSIVE hemorrhagic stroke. I was told by “experts” that I would never walk, talk or work again. A cryptic aneurysm had burst flooding my brain with blood the size of a half dollar. So what I am going through right now is although NOT a picking, tells me that I have the inner strength to beat this. I was VERY serious about sugar. One of the things I have discovered about the brain is it want a “reward,” so I took a spoon full of sugar and WOW, the pain in my stomach disappeared almost instantly. But sugar is one of the things I had to give up. Okay, I’d rather kick sugar (because sugar is easy to give up and there are artificial sweeteners).
Our daughter went to rehab and has been clean for a year. Her addiction started out by being prescribed pain pills due to many surgeries. She has been in and out of the hospital in the last few months due to kidney stones, stints put in etc. The doctors put her on morphine and are sending her home with it for pain. My question is: what are the chances she’ll get hooked on drugs again? She said it will be under pain management thru me. Thank you in advance for your response.
She may become addicted because morphine can be addictive in a week or two, but wean her off asap!
It is not pleasant to kick, but it can be done.
I quit smoking while having my first heart attack. So I kicked a hard to kick drug while recovering from my first coronary event.
Hi Dawn thanks for sharing this.
I would say her chances of becoming addicted again are real good in case you do not know it addiction does not just go away it is arrested when we stop using. Addiction is very patient and is there lurking in the background waiting for use to take something and then bam it has us.
The only way to prevent this from happening is that you dole them out to her as prescribed and this still could be a problem.
I do not know all the circumstance of her addiction but keep in mind that her addiction does not know the difference between taking them for pain or too get high but it knows as soon as they are in the body and like I said it has been waiting.
I would be very careful because it could lead her to get more if she can.
Good luck
i detoxed for about two days, but had to go back to work. i can’t miss anymore work so i’m scared to try and stop again…. i’m prescribed to it for serious back pain, but i dont want to be addicted. i don’t have any money for rehab, or time. & honestly I’m scared that it will make me lose my job, and I’m already behind in bills. Can my doctor help me???
Hi Sarah
I can not really can not say for sure but he may be able to prescribe you something to take the edge off or refer you to someone if you are honest with them, so I would say give it a try. I can only tell you what I know for sure and that is if you continue to use your job may be the least of your problems.
Good luck
Yes…there are drugs that can help you get the morphine monkey off your back. HOWEVER, if you are still suffering from severe back pain you are going to the wrong kind of doctor.
I also had back problem…neither medical doctors nor osteopaths did diddly for me. Enter my Chiropractor. FIVE TREATMENTS LATER AND I AM ALMOST TOTALLY PAIN FREE! They have new devices that were invented by NASA to help their astronauts with their pain after getting back to gravity.
I had SEVERE pain in my back that would not let me sleep until I virtually passed out from exhaustion. Enter a Chiropractor that knew what she was doing. No harsh pushing or pulling, no twisting of the head, just painless thumps on and aside the spine.
As of this moment, I am PAIN FREE.
The biggest problem I was also suffering from was the inflation that accompanies back aches. Two Alieves every few hours did the trick on that.
I have been on diluadid 4mg 4x a day for about 11 yrs now. I constantly deal with pain everyday. Due to an auto wreck and other injuries to myself n surgeries i have had over the years. I know I am going thru wds. I am a single mom raising children however i also suffer from heart problems i was woke up around 5 this morning with my heart racing and sholder and a headache i have taken benadryl n valium to try n help but is not getting much relief. i am afraid if my ex gets wind of this that he will try to take my kids from me.
Hi Shvonna
I need more info such as were you being prescribed them and are you looking to stop using dilaudid altogether?