3 tips to come off medication after a long-term illness

While quite a few long-term illnesses last the rest of your life, there are countless ones that don’t. At some point, you’ll overcome it and get back to a normal life. As exciting as a process like that is, there are a few things you’ll need to consider when you’re doing this. You’ll need to take steps to get back to life without a chronic illness.

Coming off your medication is one of the more notable, which can be tricky when you’ve been on it for a while. That’s especially true when it comes to painkillers and similar relatively addictive medications. With the time you’ve been on them, you’ll have to figure out how to get off medication after a long-term illness or chronic condition.

While that’s best figured out with your medical provider, three tips can help with coming off medication after a long-term illness.

1. Get the help you need

You could need some help to get off your medication, especially with meds that are addictive. It’s not uncommon to need help from addiction specialists, such as MAT Texas, to help with this process. In other cases, you could just need advice and support during the process.

No matter what kind of help you need, you should get it. It makes the process of getting off long-term medication much easier than you could’ve thought.

2. Have realistic expectations

In many cases, you’ll expect to come off the medication quickly and for everything to go back to what it was like before your condition. That mightn’t be realistic, however. It could take longer than you’d think, and your post-illness life mightn’t be exactly like it was before the condition.

Have realistic expectations about the process and be prepared for it to take a little more work than you would’ve thought. Speak with your medical provider to figure out the specific steps and determine what your expectations should be. You’ll be much better prepared once you do.

3. Taper off medications

You can stop taking some medications almost immediately, but that isn’t the case with many others. It could be dangerous to come off some of these without some planning and forethought. You’ll need to taper it off over time.

Going cold turkey could lead to multiple issues, such as:

• Withdrawal symptoms
• Symptoms of your illness coming back
• Seizures

By coming off the medication slowly, under medical supervision, you shouldn’t have to deal with any of these.

Figuring out how to come off medication after a long-term illness seems like it’ll be complicated. It doesn’t need to be. You’ll not only have the help of your medical provider but there are multiple tips you can use to help with the process.

Getting the exact help you need, tapering off the right way, and having realistic expectations will all help with the process.

While doing this properly could take a while, you already have most of the hard work done. You’ll be back to your pre-illness life before you know it.