Another hint is to wait until you need it, then take it. If you have really built up you'd be suprised at how often you are dosing. I got to the point where I would leave for work with three Norcos in my pocket. The problem was often I was not in pain, I would just feel the pill in my pocket, or see it in my desk or I'd have a drink handy and it was just a reflex to wash down another. Unless you really let hydro wear off, you don't feel the true pain relief that comes with a dose - When really needed.

The was codeine and its derivatives work, the brain does not really use a new dose until there it begins to clear out in your brain. This is more so with true codeine than hydro but let me put it this way. If you take one dose at 10:30am, then go to lunch and take another dose at noon, that noon dose will have very little effect. Then by 3:00 that wasted dose from noon has worn off and you need another dose - making three doses in 4.5 hours. But if you take a dose at 10:30 - write it down on a little sheet of paper. DO NOT dose again for four hours. the second dose would be at 2:30 at the earliest. And that dose will do more for your pain than that third dose would have if you took one in between. I know weird but true.

My advise is this. We all will eventually build up. Some earlier than others. But the first thing to do is find out what you are taking. Write it down, keep track. Go ahead and allow yourself say six doses in a day, if that's what you do now, but write it down. If you take 6 a day, that's once every four hours. If you sleep for 8 hours you are already one ahead to start the day. After a week of making sure you limit yourself to 6 a day, shoot for five. That mean instead of 1 every 4 hours, try to make it 4.5 hours. Eventually 1 every six, then 8, then 12. Most folks would find 2 a day workable. Then maybe a holiday. A holiday from 2 a day, will be much less painful than a holiday from 8 a day. Shoot mabe you'll even skip the WD issues. But keep track, write it down, you will feel good about getting those doses down. And it will happen. Good luck