Harm Reduction Buprenorphine For 10 years

[mrb1956]

I've been on between 8 and 4 mg. of buprenorphine for 10 years and my doctor suddenly retired and I've run out. He also prescribed valium and Xanax. And once lorazepam. I last took 8mg. of bupe on Xmas Eve and two days later felt withdrawal coming on.
Taking benzos especially lorazepam make me feel better. Is it possible to simply keep taking a benzos and let the bupe out of my system?
Money, lack of it, and the holidays have made it difficult to get a doc. Or someone who would know what I am facing. Sorry if this is the wrong place. It's been many hours since my last pill and I need to know if I'm putting my life at risk.
Please advise.

 

[Opi_Kid_Rock]

I can relate with you as I’m currently on 2mg Sub/Bupe per day taken in the morning and by next morning, I’m feeling really unwell. Do you get time off work if you plan on jumping off Bupe for good? It’s true benzos and long acting ones like Clonazepam have allowed me to sleep and take away the complete mental occupation of thoughts about being in a state of opioid withdrawal, however there’s always a risk of a benzo addiction which is worse I’ve read.
Doctors usually prescribe benzos for the short term of about 2 weeks I’ve noticed before.
What is your plan? Finding a new doc in the new year to enable yourself to get to a better place in life or can you afford to jump off now? Lots of threads on kicking opioids on here with all the over-the-counter meds one would need to try and kick. You going to any recovery support groups like CBT SMART Recovery or NA?

 

[mrb1956]

I'm taking the benzos I have left which seems to suppress the bupe withdrawal and am trying to find out if I can just taper off benzos and by that time the bupe should be out of my system or is the bupe withdrawal just waiting for the benzos to wear off and put me in bupe withdrawal. I'm stuck, started drinking again to extend the benzo plus on top of it all, I don't have enough money to get a doc. I'll probably go to the ER. I can't keep going on like this. I'm no kid 66 so that's a factor. My health is good in general but this isn't doing it any favors.

 

[Xorkoth]

Unfortunately, buprenorphine withdrawal lasts for weeks, up to a month, and if you take benzos for that long, you will end up addicted to benzos. And a benzo addiction is much worse than bupe. Benzos will not delay your bupe withdrawal, but you will still be in withdrawal after, say,2 weeks of daily benzos, but if you go much longer than 2 weeks on daily benzos, you will become addicted to benzos. And if you stop after 2 weeks, you'll still be in bupe withdrawal.

It's unfortunate you got cut off so suddenly. I actually use an online service to get my bupe prescription, I signed up and had my prescription in my hands the same day. I can't say what service it is, as that is sourcing, but bupe is pretty easy to get. My suggestion would be to get some and do a taper. You can rapidly taper down to 2mg/day with little trouble, as 2mg is when the receptors become saturated and dosing more really is just prolonging the half-life so it takes longer for withdrawal to kick in. From there, you can slowly reduce your dose, and then you can jump off at a much lower dose, and it will be easier for you, the withdrawal will be less severe and shorter.

 

[Jabberwocky]

I'm taking the benzos I have left which seems to suppress the bupe withdrawal and am trying to find out if I can just taper off benzos and by that time the bupe should be out of my system or is the bupe withdrawal just waiting for the benzos to wear off and put me in bupe withdrawal. I'm stuck, started drinking again to extend the benzo plus on top of it all, I don't have enough money to get a doc. I'll probably go to the ER. I can't keep going on like this. I'm no kid 66 so that's a factor. My health is good in general but this isn't doing it any favors.

One you're not guaranteed to develop dependence in only three or four weeks with benzodiazepines. Is it
possible? Yes!

One way you can limit the likelihood is to take benzos for 3 days and then don't take them for two or three days.

Another would be to get longer lasting benzodiazepines like Valium or Librium. Lower dose much longer acting and it leaves your body in a nice several days instead of 8 to 12 hours like lorazepam or alprazolam that's Ativan and Xanax.

Lastly, there is significant evidence that high dose vitamin C and by this I mean multiple grams a day multiple times a day significantly reduces or abolishes opiate withdrawal.

Vitamin C can't hurt, regular formulations can cause diarrhea but liposomal formulations don't.

 

[mrb1956]

One you're not guaranteed to develop dependence in only three or four weeks with benzodiazepines. Is it
possible? Yes!

One way you can limit the likelihood is to take benzos for 3 days and then don't take them for two or three days.

Another would be to get longer lasting benzodiazepines like Valium or Librium. Lower dose much longer acting and it leaves your body in a nice several days instead of 8 to 12 hours like lorazepam or alprazolam that's Ativan and Xanax.

Lastly, there is significant evidence that high dose vitamin C and by this I mean multiple grams a day multiple times a day significantly reduces or abolishes opiate withdrawal.

Vitamin C can't hurt, regular formulations can cause diarrhea but liposomal formulations don't.

Forgive me but I thought I responded to this but I don't see it. I have a very good working knowledge of benzos, since I was first put on .5 of Xanax for a short-term problem in 1990, possibly earlier.

 

[ClamHammer]

How are you doing after the last week? Any update? At this point if you haven't gotten back on Bup or an opioid the worst of the withdrawal should be over or about to be. It's already been 14 days since Christmas Eve! Even though it takes a few weeks more to really get near homeostatis, it does get significantly easier mentally when your symptoms are declining and getting less frequent.

As for the benzos, I can tell you from experience I used a long halflife one clonazepam to help my sleep for 3 weeks while I kicked opioids once. It helped tremendously but I took it liberally for 3 weeks to mask the withdrawal symptoms and 3-4 days after deciding i didn't need it anymore I got hit with a surprising benzo withdrawal in the middle of my workday. Then I had to kick that which was scary and unpleasant but reading about how bad benzo withdrawal gets I was too scared to take any to relieve the withdrawal I already had and make it worse.

So I would try to really have he mindset of using them as infrequently as possible in the smallest doses possible to just take the edge off when you feel like you really need it every couple days if you can, to prevent any future misery.

Lastly, I think you will find that if you manage to finish what you started here, you'll feel multitudes better than you did on Bup. While it is a miracle for avoiding acute withdrawals from other opioids, it comes with it's own side effects and I've met a lot of people on it for a decade+ that feel it affects their quality of life. And as cliche as this sounds, as soon as the acute physical is over and you can muster it, find an outdoor activity you enjoy that will get you some quality exercise. Sure you can hit a gym instead, but the adrenaline and whatever else you get from going out hiking, biking, or anything else you enjoy seems even more effective and easier to stick to doing regularly than the gym which feels like going to work for most people. A 10 minute walk around the block will suffice for the first week or two, but after that I'd be wanting to try to find an activity you can get 30 minutes to 4 hours of an intensity no less than hiking some hills. People will tell you post-acute withdrawal can last for a year, but if you're getting enough exercise in regularly you'll be indirectly working out your bodies natural opioid system and that will make your receptors return to normal a lot faster than someone who works all day and rests afterword and never gets their natural opioid systems going.

Good luck friend. Keep us updated!

Edit: I can't really tell, are you already dependent on benzos as well or are you just taking leftovers you have during this withdrawal?
Good news, either way the bup withdrawal isn't being slowed down by them since they don't affect the same receptors in your brain.

 

[mrb1956]

Unfortunately, buprenorphine withdrawal lasts for weeks, up to a month, and if you take benzos for that long, you will end up addicted to benzos. And a benzo addiction is much worse than bupe. Benzos will not delay your bupe withdrawal, but you will still be in withdrawal after, say,2 weeks of daily benzos, but if you go much longer than 2 weeks on daily benzos, you will become addicted to benzos. And if you stop after 2 weeks, you'll still be in bupe withdrawal.

It's unfortunate you got cut off so suddenly. I actually use an online service to get my bupe prescription, I signed up and had my prescription in my hands the same day. I can't say what service it is, as that is sourcing, but bupe is pretty easy to get. My suggestion would be to get some and do a taper. You can rapidly taper down to 2mg/day with little trouble, as 2mg is when the receptors become saturated and dosing more really is just prolonging the half-life so it takes longer for withdrawal to kick in. From there, you can slowly reduce your dose, and then you can jump off at a much lower dose, and it will be easier for you, the withdrawal will be less severe and shorter.

I don't understand this. I don't feel that bad as long as I can have some benzo in my system. I'm obviously addicted to them because I've been taking some form Valium, Xanax since 2012 with 4 to 8 mg. Buprenorphine. The Thing is, I took MY LAST 8MG. ON CHRISTMAS EVE. and still don't feel any of the typical symptoms of bupe withdrawal - No vomit, RLS or any of that. I'm gonna find a doctor that knows the answer to my question and that is, can I skip the buprenorphine and go to long half benzos and never take another buprenorphine again? Then start a long slow tapper off benzos.

BELIEVE ME, I am grateful for your help but I've been one buprenorphine and benzos since 2012. I'm obviously addicted and now I'm short acting benzo, lower than I need and zero buprenorphine. I'm hoping I don't have to take anymore buprenorphine.
I actually don't feel the profound apathy, that always hit me if I went without bupe, even when I was taking my full load of Xanax and valium.
Thank you all and any advice is welcome.
Thanks

 

[ClamHammer]

Alright then forget what I said about be careful with getting hooked on the benzos. If you're already on them then you need them and you don't want 2 withdrawals at once. I'd just try your hardest not to be massively increasing your benzo dose to counter the bup withdrawal or you run the risk of making your taper off those a lot longer. If you can take them in prescribed doses and feel okay that's ideal and it sounds like you're doing well with that.

If you're 2 weeks off the bup then you should be through the worst of it. Keep in mind the withdrawals for a lot of people are a lot more mellow than they would be from a high activity opioid like prescription painkillers or blackmarket opioids used to get high. Its a very low activity opioid that only affects the receptors a little bit. There are some people that are unlucky but it sounds to me like you're in the lucky group of us that get light withdrawals from it. Then your benzos are helping mask the symptoms which helps also. Not advice, but purely personal opinion: I'd forget about Bup. If you don't feel that bad and you're doing okay, the bup withdrawal should slowly but progressively get better and better at this point. When symptoms flare up, tell yourself it's from being sick or having a slight hormonal imbalance or something and ignore it. Shrug it off and tell yourself tomorrow might be better and next week will for sure. The last thing you want is to give up on an easyish withdrawal to have to try again later down the road and have it be much more difficult.

In the mean time, I'd focus on trying to figure out a stable and predictable benzo schedule that keeps you out of benzo withdrawals but isn't increasing your addiction to that any further. Once a few months have gone by and you don't have any bup withdrawal symptoms, then you can figure out tapering off the benzos as well if you want. But unless you're planning on going to an actual detox center, I wouldn't recommend trying to tackle both at the same time. If you're doing this on your own while still living your life going through a double withdrawal is going to make functioning much more difficult than one at a time

 

[mrb1956]

How are you doing after the last week? Any update? At this point if you haven't gotten back on Bup or an opioid the worst of the withdrawal should be over or about to be. It's already been 14 days since Christmas Eve! Even though it takes a few weeks more to really get near homeostatis, it does get significantly easier mentally when your symptoms are declining and getting less frequent.

As for the benzos, I can tell you from experience I used a long halflife one clonazepam to help my sleep for 3 weeks while I kicked opioids once. It helped tremendously but I took it liberally for 3 weeks to mask the withdrawal symptoms and 3-4 days after deciding i didn't need it anymore I got hit with a surprising benzo withdrawal in the middle of my workday. Then I had to kick that which was scary and unpleasant but reading about how bad benzo withdrawal gets I was too scared to take any to relieve the withdrawal I already had and make it worse.

So I would try to really have he mindset of using them as infrequently as possible in the smallest doses possible to just take the edge off when you feel like you really need it every couple days if you can, to prevent any future misery.

Lastly, I think you will find that if you manage to finish what you started here, you'll feel multitudes better than you did on Bup. While it is a miracle for avoiding acute withdrawals from other opioids, it comes with it's own side effects and I've met a lot of people on it for a decade+ that feel it affects their quality of life. And as cliche as this sounds, as soon as the acute physical is over and you can muster it, find an outdoor activity you enjoy that will get you some quality exercise. Sure you can hit a gym instead, but the adrenaline and whatever else you get from going out hiking, biking, or anything else you enjoy seems even more effective and easier to stick to doing regularly than the gym which feels like going to work for most people. A 10 minute walk around the block will suffice for the first week or two, but after that I'd be wanting to try to find an activity you can get 30 minutes to 4 hours of an intensity no less than hiking some hills. People will tell you post-acute withdrawal can last for a year, but if you're getting enough exercise in regularly you'll be indirectly working out your bodies natural opioid system and that will make your receptors return to normal a lot faster than someone who works all day and rests afterword and never gets their natural opioid systems going.

Good luck friend. Keep us updated!

Edit: I can't really tell, are you already dependent on benzos as well or are you just taking leftovers you have during this withdrawal?
Good news, either way the bup withdrawal isn't being slowed down by them since they don't affect the same receptors in your brain.

I gave an update before I read your post. In short, I'm not feeling any bupe withdrawal, except maybe an odd type of sneezing that makes swallowing more of an effort but it doesn't happen much.
It's the benzo withdrawal that scares me. That's first. I'm gonna have a doc by this coming week.
I hope, but unless he's some kind of world wide expert, I am not taking another buprenorphine. My previous doc said there's nothing wrong with that, until you don't have it. Plus, he took no insurance but I can't blame him, ultimately I am responsible for ANYTHING I do.
Lastly, I think I was prescribed bupe too soon. I was having gout attacks and they're VERY painful and that got me started on Percocet from my gout doc also he offered me 250 Xanax so I wouldn't have to see him so often. I asked for half of that.
From that I dropped into the "wonderful world of opiates all script. At some point my wife called one of my sibs and I saw a guy that connected me with the current doctor who just retired.
I don't want to name him but his website is still up. Sorry for going on too long.
Thank you for your input!

 

[mrb1956]

Alright then forget what I said about be careful with getting hooked on the benzos. If you're already on them then you need them and you don't want 2 withdrawals at once. I'd just try your hardest not to be massively increasing your benzo dose to counter the bup withdrawal or you run the risk of making your taper off those a lot longer. If you can take them in prescribed doses and feel okay that's ideal and it sounds like you're doing well with that.

If you're 2 weeks off the bup then you should be through the worst of it. Keep in mind the withdrawals for a lot of people are a lot more mellow than they would be from a high activity opioid like prescription painkillers or blackmarket opioids used to get high. Its a very low activity opioid that only affects the receptors a little bit. There are some people that are unlucky but it sounds to me like you're in the lucky group of us that get light withdrawals from it. Then your benzos are helping mask the symptoms which helps also. Not advice, but purely personal opinion: I'd forget about Bup. If you don't feel that bad and you're doing okay, the bup withdrawal should slowly but progressively get better and better at this point. When symptoms flare up, tell yourself it's from being sick or having a slight hormonal imbalance or something and ignore it. Shrug it off and tell yourself tomorrow might be better and next week will for sure. The last thing you want is to give up on an easyish withdrawal to have to try again later down the road and have it be much more difficult.

In the mean time, I'd focus on trying to figure out a stable and predictable benzo schedule that keeps you out of benzo withdrawals but isn't increasing your addiction to that any further. Once a few months have gone by and you don't have any bup withdrawal symptoms, then you can figure out tapering off the benzos as well if you want. But unless you're planning on going to an actual detox center, I wouldn't recommend trying to tackle both at the same time. If you're doing this on your own while still living your life going through a double withdrawal is going to make functioning much more difficult than one at a time

I agree. I'm trying to find someone who will put me on the right benzo, Klonopin or Valium, something with a LONG halflife. I'm basically retired so I have some time to get well but am planning on getting some kind

How are you doing after the last week? Any update? At this point if you haven't gotten back on Bup or an opioid the worst of the withdrawal should be over or about to be. It's already been 14 days since Christmas Eve! Even though it takes a few weeks more to really get near homeostatis, it does get significantly easier mentally when your symptoms are declining and getting less frequent.

As for the benzos, I can tell you from experience I used a long halflife one clonazepam to help my sleep for 3 weeks while I kicked opioids once. It helped tremendously but I took it liberally for 3 weeks to mask the withdrawal symptoms and 3-4 days after deciding i didn't need it anymore I got hit with a surprising benzo withdrawal in the middle of my workday. Then I had to kick that which was scary and unpleasant but reading about how bad benzo withdrawal gets I was too scared to take any to relieve the withdrawal I already had and make it worse.

So I would try to really have he mindset of using them as infrequently as possible in the smallest doses possible to just take the edge off when you feel like you really need it every couple days if you can, to prevent any future misery.

Lastly, I think you will find that if you manage to finish what you started here, you'll feel multitudes better than you did on Bup. While it is a miracle for avoiding acute withdrawals from other opioids, it comes with it's own side effects and I've met a lot of people on it for a decade+ that feel it affects their quality of life. And as cliche as this sounds, as soon as the acute physical is over and you can muster it, find an outdoor activity you enjoy that will get you some quality exercise. Sure you can hit a gym instead, but the adrenaline and whatever else you get from going out hiking, biking, or anything else you enjoy seems even more effective and easier to stick to doing regularly than the gym which feels like going to work for most people. A 10 minute walk around the block will suffice for the first week or two, but after that I'd be wanting to try to find an activity you can get 30 minutes to 4 hours of an intensity no less than hiking some hills. People will tell you post-acute withdrawal can last for a year, but if you're getting enough exercise in regularly you'll be indirectly working out your bodies natural opioid system and that will make your receptors return to normal a lot faster than someone who works all day and rests afterword and never gets their natural opioid systems going.

Good luck friend. Keep us updated!

Edit: I can't really tell, are you already dependent on benzos as well or are you just taking leftovers you have during this withdrawal?
Good news, either way the bup withdrawal isn't being slowed down by them since they don't affect the same receptors in your brain.

I am dependant on them. I took one everyday to enhance my bupe. I'm not sure it's true but so much is psychological. Drop two benzos in my hand, I immediately become clam, as if I've already taken them. And I have history before that.
Thanks for your input.

 

[ClamHammer]

Awesome, it sounds like you are pretty self aware and based on what you've shared it sounds like you've got a great plan. Don't be a stranger to this thread, sometimes it's nice to vent about a day that was randomly rough on the withdrawals and sometimes its also nice to share when things are improving. And for other's that have been in your situation and are terrified to let go of the Bup, your story will motivate. Very impressive you stuck through it and made it so far. I also appreciate your accountability in the previous post. I truly believe an addict that can be accountable for what they cause themselves and others gets along much better in life using and sober. Unaccountable drug addicts that want to blame everyone else for their problems, have excuses for everything, and rely on everyone else are a dime a dozen and they aren't well tolerated by others. I worked in a rehab setting for a few years and the clients that came in with mindsets like yours were generally the ones that did really well Keep it up!

 

[mrb1956]

Awesome, it sounds like you are pretty self aware and based on what you've shared it sounds like you've got a great plan. Don't be a stranger to this thread, sometimes it's nice to vent about a day that was randomly rough on the withdrawals and sometimes its also nice to share when things are improving. And for other's that have been in your situation and are terrified to let go of the Bup, your story will motivate. Very impressive you stuck through it and made it so far. I also appreciate your accountability in the previous post. I truly believe an addict that can be accountable for what they cause themselves and others gets along much better in life using and sober. Unaccountable drug addicts that want to blame everyone else for their problems, have excuses for everything, and rely on everyone else are a dime a dozen and they aren't well tolerated by others. I worked in a rehab setting for a few years and the clients that came in with mindsets like yours were generally the ones that did really well Keep it up!

Thank you for your support. I'm sure my drug use has had a negative impact on both my longevity and the quality of my life. I'm on the back nine, in about a month, I'll be 67! so much wasted time and I'm LAZY. I BELIEVE in the merits of meditation and tia chi and did practice them but in January of 1982 I got a contract to work for Bell Labs (it was in the process of being broken up at the time anti-trust and the Bell System wasn't fighting it but that's a story for another website. Long story short, I was maybe 25years old and I could work as many hours as I could stand - a goldmine. For the first 2 months I generally worked at least 16 hours 6 days a week and collapsed on Sunday. Obviously, I couldn't keep up that pace, I had to be able to think. I cut back but this was the 80s and cocaine was around and I loved that but it never became a problem.
Life doesn't just happen, it is the result decisions you made in various situations that put you were you are today.
I made a lot of "unskillful" decisions and now I'm old and still have to get through this so I'm able to get any kind of job to keep my partner and me afloat. Thank God she's brilliant.
I've had some physical pain today and my blood pressure must be on the roof but, right now I feel awake and only a little jittery. If I get this strong electric burning in my chest, it's off to the ER. I could stand it when I was younger but not anymore I'm just too thin and weak. I'm 5' 10 and am maybe 130 lbs.
My apologies for rambling.
I appreciate all the help I'm finding here.

Thank you ClamHammer

 

[BK38]

Unfortunately, buprenorphine withdrawal lasts for weeks, up to a month, and if you take benzos for that long, you will end up addicted to benzos. And a benzo addiction is much worse than bupe. Benzos will not delay your bupe withdrawal, but you will still be in withdrawal after, say,2 weeks of daily benzos, but if you go much longer than 2 weeks on daily benzos, you will become addicted to benzos. And if you stop after 2 weeks, you'll still be in bupe withdrawal.

It's unfortunate you got cut off so suddenly. I actually use an online service to get my bupe prescription, I signed up and had my prescription in my hands the same day. I can't say what service it is, as that is sourcing, but bupe is pretty easy to get. My suggestion would be to get some and do a taper. You can rapidly taper down to 2mg/day with little trouble, as 2mg is when the receptors become saturated and dosing more really is just prolonging the half-life so it takes longer for withdrawal to kick in. From there, you can slowly reduce your dose, and then you can jump off at a much lower dose, and it will be easier for you, the withdrawal will be less severe and shorter.

Exactly what I’d do, with a dose of Valium 20mg a day, taken in the am and pm. Valium would best as it has a very long half-life.

 

[Jabberwocky]

Forgive me but I thought I responded to this but I don't see it. I have a very good working knowledge of benzos, since I was first put on .5 of Xanax for a short-term problem in 1990, possibly earlier.

Okay, Xanax is not all benzodiazepines. Unfortunately, alprazolam trade named Xanax is one of the quickest to which people do develop tolerance and or dependence. However, many people take benzodiazepines for three to four weeks and don't develop withdrawal symptoms or dependence.

Obviously your mileage may vary, however it's not guaranteed.

As an example, many people are given librium throughout the initial week of alcohol withdrawal and then a 2-week prescription that may be tapered may not to help with continuing withdrawal and or prevent relapse.

I myself have been prescribed such a 3-week course with no withdrawal whatsoever.

 

[mrb1956]

Librium, that's an interesting idea, for later. Problem is they want you to come in periodically to have you liver enzymes checked. A relative of my took it for years and it worked very well to avoid clinical depression.