Opioids 5 year Oxy/ Sub user hoping to have cheated withdrawal, risky UNRECOMMENDED method.

[DECEASEDWITHIN]

Greetings everyone!
I am a new member here and am very curious as to receive some general advice, suggestions etc. regarding my situation. For two years I fell hard into oxy and snorted between 160-240mg a day. My habit was out of control, at least for my size since i'm a small girl at about a 110 lbs, until I finally found out about suboxone. Long story short, cleaned up my life, quit the oxy, and stayed on the sub for an Additional 3 years. That makes 5 years of opiate use, if including suboxone as an opiate.

I needed to quit, I'm recently engaged and I want to plan a family in the future but sub has been holding me back, especially because my method of obtaining them has not been through a doctor. Imagine searching for these f#ckin' things for 3 years! IT SUCKED. Now I decided to quit in a method that would probably never be advised to anyone, especially a former addict. I came up with a plan to flush my system completely of suboxone by returning to my DOC, but blues this time instead of oxy, for 2 months. I know this was extremely risky but I have tried to quit sub for years with no success, ALWAYS wimp out. So I flushed my system from the sub and got high for two months, enjoyed every second of it but spend way too much money. (although it was worth it for me in the hopes that my plan would work) Next I jumped back onto sub after two months on blues after I allowed myself to begin to withdraw. I continued a sub dosage of 2mg the first day, 1.5mg the second, 1mg third day, .5 fourth day, then jumped. I woke up the following morning(day 5)feeling fine and still to this time (24 hours later) I am ok. No I am not perfect, but I'm not experiencing hot/cold flashes, high anxiety, jumpy skin, or any other extreme symptom.

Mind you I have a small supply of klonopin and Clonodine ( and a blood pressure monitor to stay safe), but have only taken a half of a .01mg clonodine in total today and haven't needed the klonopin. What is everyone's opinion?, will the sub withdrawal hit tomorrow( due to the 37hr half life) or will I have avoided that since I did not take sub for a long enough period of time, the second time around. I'm shocked that I don't feel bad right now but I don't want to get ahead of myself. Thank you to anyone who takes the time to read this, it has been a long and painful journey to this point.

Quick Note: During my prior sub self treatment I never went over 1mg a day, usually staying more closer to .75-.50mg

 

[DECEASEDWITHIN]

I do want to add that I have been building up a strong confidence against the drug which may also help. I quit cigarettes a year ago which helped to give me back that feeling of control and now i'm looking at opiates as the same thing, just another habit that I can successfully conquer.

 

[Pegasus]

Maybe you won't feel the full brunt of it, but I think you haven't given it enough time yet to say you're out of the woods. Bupe is very powerful and there is definitely still some kicking around your system. Loperamide/ Immodium (an opioid that binds in the gut but not brain) is something that you can try to ease any w/d you do feel. It takes a while to kick in, but appx. two hours after a dose of 3-4mg, you should feel a bit better.

 

[DECEASEDWITHIN]

Thank you for the advice, I did hear about taking loperamide which I will consider if anything goes downhill. So far i'm still in the clear, but i'll update as it happens. I'm hoping that I have at least lessened the intensity if nothing more, the ridiculous schemes ppl (obviously including myself) will create to try to feel better are extreme haha.

 

[cj]

Please keep us updated I am watching this thread with extreme interest as I am in a simiular situation

 

[DECEASEDWITHIN]

I definitely will! I'm actually really excited. This is my first 24 hours without taking any opiate in 5 YEARS i'm slightly in awe by the whole situation. Crimson I wish you the best of luck as well, feel free to share your method/ideas as well. This is all a giant experiment to me and i'm hoping the results are positive.

 

[luckyshot04]

When I got kicked out of the sub clinic, the only way I could get over was by using my DOC. I know take 1mg of sub daily, yet to break that.

 

[DECEASEDWITHIN]

What i'm hoping will be my saving grace is that I only took sub for four days at decreasing doses once I switched back from the DOC. If this is the only sub buildup in me and most of the older sub is out of me, i'm hoping this will continue to be a bearable ride! Luckyshot if you can get down to .25mg you have the best fighting chance. Also, you can do that over a period of weeks to avoid feeling uncomfortable.

 

[Swain]

You do realize what the half-life of buprenorphine is don't you?

 

[DECEASEDWITHIN]

I discussed that thoroughly in my first post if you reread it. My point is I've only been on the bupe for four days this time around, not months on end. Of course as well I expect discomfort, that is a given, but as of up until this point I have not been hit with any symptoms besides fatigue, but this may also be a combination of coming down from the blue's bender to clear out my system. I can completely understand if this sounds ridiculous but i will know within the next two to three days if i'm a nut or if it works.

 

[Swimmingdancer]

I don't see why this is such a "risky unrecommended method" aside from the fact that it involves going back to your "drug of choice" as opposed to another short-acting opioid that perhaps you weren't so fond of, and that it is done without any medical supervision, which makes it easier to get back into addiction if someone is not truly ready to quit. That little voice in the back of your head saying things like "I just want to feel the high one last time," "I had a hard day so I'll just take a bit extra today," or "I'll start my taper/Suboxone/whatever tomorrow," can be hard to ignore if you haven't done some serious work on your mental addiction and are the only one controlling your drug intake. Most doctors in North America are so afraid of giving anyone who has ever admitted to having an addiction anything other than methadone or Suboxone and I really believe that other oral opioids can be used to successfully taper off opioids (or maintain! gasp!).

As for your particular method, I know that switching to morphine or oxycodone for a few weeks and then to a quick Suboxone taper is one technique used to get people off methadone. Not sure how well it will work for getting off Suboxone, but please let us know your results.

I agree it is too soon to judge, but I do think there is something to be said for the fact that you feel fine after a quick 4-day taper and 24 hrs with no Sub at all - presumably this was not something you could comfortably do back when you were taking Sub long-term, correct?

 

[DECEASEDWITHIN]

Swimming Dancer, In all honesty I posted "a risky method" because I don't want to encourage others to follow my choices in case it could cause any harm. Fortunately the risk of being reattached to my DOC has not happened since I was successfully able to stop exactly on the date I had planned to and then followed my strict four day course sub regimen. I appreciate your response and you mentioning that it has helped with methadone was good to hear. This is the FIRST time that I ever made it 24 hours ever, and on top of that without any symptoms, so you are correct that I could not have done this before, not in any feasible way. The crippling anxiety is not present at all and that is what used to hold me back from quitting sub.

 

[laCster]

good luck! getting sober is no easy task, and requires you to push outside your comfort zone and build character.

iit is hard to decifer your post because of the big paragraphs, or maybe im fucked up hahah

your sub use wasn;t all that bad, but you still have to take into account the addiction to oxy. WD symptoms depend on mny different components, including how long were you using sub in total? how many days were you completely sober?? we can only speculate on how bad your WD is going to be, but WD is coming your way.

definitely use the clonidine and kpin, but make usre not to get addicted to benzos.

eating right and exercise really helps even though you might feel like shit, force yourself to go on a walk or go to the gy4m

 

[DECEASEDWITHIN]

Thanks everyone! I'll update tomorrow and let everyone know how it's going.

 

[wvdude]

Thanks everyone! I'll update tomorrow and let everyone know how it's going.

You may not read this until tomorrow but wanted to mention..........I don't know the longest you've stayed clean in terms of days but depression kicks in very hard.
You mentioned starting a family, quitting cigs a year ago, etc. All these motivating things you now speak of will come into question as withdrawal sets in. Don't let it scare you though and know it's just the withdrawal and your brain healing. Hang in there as many have and I can tell you first hand it gradually gets better with each passing day. I can say that first hand.

 

[Swain]

I'll be frank, withdrawals are the least of your worries. That is the easy part. Staying clean for the rest of your life is the challenge.

I am not referring to you when I say this, but it irks me when people say "I am gonna quit heroin" or "I quit.. blah blah" Or "i know I can quit" and all they seem to think quitting involves is detox. Like "Yeah itll take me 6 days to quit" as if you detox and go on hapily ever after lol.

The real part of recovery starts after you detox. Thats where I mess up personally.

 

[wvdude]

Staying clean for me has also been a chore and probably most others. It was always kind of exciting, so to speak, at first to kick. When the first week or two have passed then I was left with the low mood and feeling like now what do I do with myself. I stuck it out the last time and was stronger mentally after about 3 months. I had used 6 years low to moderated usage with brief sober periods.

 

[DECEASEDWITHIN]

Thank you everyone =) I completely understand that staying clean will be the hardest part. I know being on sub wasn't being "clean" but it did give me three years of a much more normal life than the road I would have gone down if I stayed on oxy the whole time. Just to note: I never strayed from the sub during those three years for any other opiates until I decided to come off suboxone and began my "experiment" so to say. I'm trying to use what I learned from quitting cigs towards this process since my mind would try to trick me even with nicotine.

As for an update, I feel fine again today!!! I really hope it stays that way but we will see. I had some trouble falling asleep and woke up earlier than normal but with more energy today. I had minor body soreness and took half a clonodine which corrected that issue. So far so good as for the withdrawal aspect!

 

[uno22]

Good luck

 

[DECEASEDWITHIN]

Thanks Uno! I'm hangin' in there =) still no symptoms that have thrown me for a loop, minor sweating and slight stomach discomfort, and it has been over 55 or so hours now since my last sub dose!!!