Lottie38 wrote:FrazzledFraggle wrote:...I've been experiencing pain in my inside lower legs/ankles/feet for weeks now since I quit, and it seems to be getting worse if anything. Can PAWS cause physical pain or am I adding 2 and 2 together and making 5? Also been getting needling pains randomly in fingers and toes since quitting.
FF sorry for delay - my legs seem ok now and I'm taking b and c fits. But I am so tired and lethargic I can barely get out of bed at the min. Don't know if that is PAWS too or alc neuropathy?! So many things. This drinking - why did we ever do it.
Hi Lottie and FF,
A couple of things in your comments caught my attention, and I thought maybe I should share my PAWS story.
I'm certainly a victim of PAWS
[7 Jan 2013: based on the discussion below, I think that I should define my own particular case as prolonged alcohol withdrawal syndrome, rather than "post acute"] - I meet the qualifications for "kindling" (repeated detoxing resulting in more serious and prolonged withdrawals - here's a link to a Wikipedia article about that:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kindling_%28substance_withdrawal%29 ).
I've been abstinent for 12 days now. I was drinking sometimes two bottles of wine a day for almost two months, set off by an onslaught of crises, after months of sobriety. Certainly not my first binge...I've detoxed many times in the past few decades.
I have definitely experienced increased pains in every part of my body. The intensity seems to move around. First my knee is painful to walk on, it improves, and then my left shoulder starts aching...then my neck gets stiff! Then I have painful bowels.
I've also developed my first case of interstitial cystitis (irritable bladder, constant urge to go)
out of nowhere! I remember that the cystitis first occurred during the middle of the two-month binge, when I quit drinking for about 5 days, and it stopped when I started drinking again! That's part of the reason I continued until the holidays, so that I could stave off this sometimes painful cystitis, that even woke me repeatedly.
It took 8 days AF for the cystitis to come back this last (and I mean LAST) time. Oddly enough, I have finally discovered that a simple aspirin stops it for hours, even if I drink coffee with it, leading me to believe it's rebound inflammation.
Today I was given a stronger anti-inflammatory (a COX2 inhibitor) that the doctor prescribed, who explained that alcohol has an anti-inflammatory effect while it's in your system, but it can result in painful (and dangerous) rebound inflammation in every tissue of your body when it's withdrawn...which explains my painful joints, inflammed bladder, stiff muscles, IBS - thus tying all my symptoms together under "runaway" inflammation. So far, no more cystitis! <knocking on wood>
Lottie,
[this is not about PAWS] during my first few days of withdrawal, I have always got frighteningly exhausted and weak, but ignorantly I never connected it with withdrawal (I used to stop drinking for weeks at a time, just because I had no reason or stress to drink). Actually, I used to think I was getting ill.
But this time I actually measured my blood sugar, and I was severely hypoglycemic! (Down in the 50's mg/dL after eating!) I was advised on another site to try a
glutamine supplement. Dr. Priscilla Slagle says that it tends to activate the liver to release glycogen into the blood (raising blood sugar) and reduce the overproduction of insulin that the pancreas has been conditioned to do to offset the alcohol, as well as repair the lining of the intestines (which alcohol has damaged). It all sounded too good to be true, but I tried it during the first few days, and though it may have been a placebo effect (I doubt it, since I often don't respond to medication the way I'm told I will), I soon felt more energy and strength - and not the nervous jitters of caffeine.
[Glutamine is an amino acid, and I've often read that one should not take just one or two aminos for long periods of time as they will displace the other essential aminos.]In addition to multi-vitamins and minerals, especially B's and magnesium, I also take large doses of niacinamide and Vitamin D, both of which supposedly help reduce inflammation and lift one's mood. Actually, I think it's working. This withdrawal has been rough, but not as rough as I fully expected, given my setup. The doctor also has me on a low dose of a benzodiazepine to control my hypertension and anxiety.
The hardest part is the variability of the symptoms - one day I may feel great and optimistic, and the next I feel like s***. There was even a point at Day 5 or 6 that I felt drunk again! And I'd had no booze! Day 10 felt fantastic - I woke up from beautiful dreams and delicious sleep -
I thought I was all over it and I was really excited. 
[This is where I personally believe my acute phase ended.] And soon after...I felt like I was going through withdrawal again! Insomnia and bad dreams if I slept at all, anxiety, aching, cystitis, nausea...
Hope this helps with your bumpy ride on the withdrawal roller coaster!
I hope yours is much shorter than mine has been - but this is something I have done to myself, knowing in the back of my mind that each binge would have a more wretched withdrawal. I hope this is my very last. <And I hope saying that didn't jinx it!
>
Arc
As I understand it there is firstly the acute withdrawal phase (acute in medical terms meaning sudden onset/short duration). This may last several weeks. Most immediate physical withdrawal symptoms usually disappear in the first week or so but some linger on. Posters frequently mention having cold symptoms in weeks 2 and 3. Psychological symptoms such as increased anxiety and insomnia take a bit longer (assuming no underlying health problem).
