Prescription Medication for Nitrous Oxide Withdrawal

I am in the middle of permanently withdrawing from Nitrous Oxide.

I have not used Nitrous Oxide in 46 days.
(and counting)

In the world of Drug Recovery, I understand that I am officially done with the "Detoxification Stage" and that I am now in the "Initial Abstinence Stage"

I want to share how I finally got to this stage.

Since there is little information online about withdrawing from Nitrous Oxide, I thought it would be helpful to others to if I shared how I've done it.
  
I was already in conversation with my doctor that I had a Nitrous Oxide dependency problem.

BTW: It took multiple years to get to that point, but I finally did it.

It took me several years just to line-up medical insurance and even get to the point where I was speaking to a doctor.

But thankfully, Obama-care was implemented and I qualified for a PPO plan for $50/mos.
(What a BLESSING that was!)

And when I finally got to the point where I could admit my problem to a doctor, he acknowledged my struggle by saying he understands how difficult it was for me to get to that point and that he was at my disposal to help me.

He didn't help me right away because neither of us really knew much about it.

Nobody really has any experience with this problem. 

Not me.
Not my family.
Not my doctor.
Not my counselor.

So it was a trail & error process.

It took a lot of deciphering on my own.

Nobody around me was guiding me out of this AT ALL.

The only thing I was hearing was "Just Stop"

But that's not exactly how somebody gets over a drug addiction.

After several months of relapsing, I finally made the decision to use medication to help me withdraw.

I talked to my doctor about it and he was willing to help me with that process.

We went back and forth on this topic - but eventually I was convinced to try these medications:

Gabapentin (aka "Neurontin"): 
600mg daily + 300mg
 
I don't like to take medication so I asked for a low starting dows.

I started on 100mg daily.
And slowly worked myself up.

Currently:  I take 2 doses of 300mg daily. The extra 300mg is "as needed" for moments of extreme cravings and triggers.

COMMENTS:
After a few days of use, I became a fan of the Gabapentin.  I noticed an immediate difference. That has really helped me. It takes the edge off and makes me feel calm like nitrous did for me.
I can function, focus and do work. I plan to be on this for a while. It feels great to me.

When I am triggered by people's bullshit or I get a craving, I just open up the 300mg tablet and put it under my tongue (so it bypasses the stomach acid stage) and will absorb quickly into my blood system.  This works within 20min and it helps me relax when I get triggered bad. I asked my doctor about doing it this way and he was okay with that.
 
Celecoxib (aka "Celebrex"): 
200mg x 2 times daily = 400 mg daily
 
I was dealing with serious body pain issues and nitrous helped relieve my pain. While withdrawing I experienced extreme pain and ibuprofen wasn't working - so the doctor prescribed Celebrex which is an anti-inflammatory - stronger than ibuprofen but a non-addictive / non-opioid option.

Recently I discovered that that Nitrous Oxide works similar to an Opiate - and when I looked up the withdrawal symptoms of Morphine - "Body Aches & Pain" is one of the symptoms.

So the fact that I was in a lot of pain makes perfect sense to me now.

The Celecoxib works for me to deal with that issue.

~.~
tag words: N2O, n2o, n20, N20, Nitrous Oxide, NOS, Laughing Gas, addiction, withdrawal, Opiate, opiod, Opioid, Opioids, cartridges, whippits, Whippits, Whip-Its, morphine, Morphine, drug, drug, neurotransmitter