Opioids Fentanyl advice needed!

[eljaydub]

hi everyone, my husband is coming off of fentanyl, his last dose was sunday (2 days ago.) he took one 8 mg suboxone yesterday and wants to know how long that will prolong the process (assuming he does not take more.) can anyone help? he can’t use his phone so asked me to hop on here.

super thanks in advance for anything you can share with me. he’s deciding between taking more suboxone or powering through.

 

[idkwhatitis]

My personal advice would be for him to hurry up and call a dr/clinic to get on suboxone steadily. Depending how much he was taking that 8mg strip he took will only hold his wds fpr 24 hours or so and then they will begin to steadily increase. The stats sadly show if he doesnt stay on subs for an extended period of time he will break down and go back to street drugs

 

[iLoveYouWithaKnife]

^ I disagree. A maintenance program isn’t for everyone. Some people don’t like the idea of swapping one for another.

If your husband does not want continued use of Suboxone, but still isnt feeling good, I would recommend taking the smallest dose possible to just alleviate the lingering feelings he is having.
You said he took 8mg yesterday, I don’t know what time but I’m guessing you’re at around 24 hours ? If he still isn’t feeling good, I would try taking 4mg and see if that helps. Re-evaluate at 36 hours from that dose. He’s going to feel some uncomfortableness, but the less he uses overall, the better off he’ll be.

 

[eljaydub]

^ I disagree. A maintenance program isn’t for everyone. Some people don’t like the idea of swapping one for another.

If your husband does not want continued use of Suboxone, but still isnt feeling good, I would recommend taking the smallest dose possible to just alleviate the lingering feelings he is having.
You said he took 8mg yesterday, I don’t know what time but I’m guessing you’re at around 24 hours ? If he still isn’t feeling good, I would try taking 4mg and see if that helps. Re-evaluate at 36 hours from that dose. He’s going to feel some uncomfortableness, but the less he uses overall, the better off he’ll be.

thank you so much (both) for your responses. he does NOT want to swap one addiction for another. but obviously this is tough. goal is to get through the time period and get him on vivitrol. so i think we’re going to try halving the suboxone for 5 total days and seeing if he can get through. he’s using kratom (what he can get down) and weed. let me know if you guys know other things that can help.

 

[iLoveYouWithaKnife]

Yeah I would just use the least amount as possible. If he takes 2mg and doesn’t feel good, he can always redose and take another 2mg an hour or 2 later.

 

[treezy z]

thank you so much (both) for your responses. he does NOT want to swap one addiction for another. but obviously this is tough. goal is to get through the time period and get him on vivitrol. so i think we’re going to try halving the suboxone for 5 total days and seeing if he can get through. he’s using kratom (what he can get down) and weed. let me know if you guys know other things that can help.

When I went to detox in November they did a 5 day Suboxone taper that worked ok. I didn't think to ask about dosages however, it was ground up pills so couldn't tell visually either.

 

[rave23]

he does NOT want to swap one addiction for another

I don't know man, I'd sooner be taking Suboxone from a pharmacy than ride the rollercoaster of death that is fentanyl. Some people just don't have success with complete abstinence (i.e. don't make it past the one year mark without relapse), and a portion of those people do really well on suboxone for a while. I was one of them. I took subs for over a year, and basically started tapering as soon as I found a stable dosage (16mg in my case). Decreased really gradual over more than a year to 0.5 mg a day, then alternate days, and I was able to stop with only minor withdrawal symptoms. I couldn't have gotten off the fent any other way (i tried, trust me).

If the choice is between keep taking fentanyl or get on suboxone, then I think there's only one reasonable choice. If you can make it without any opiates, then that's even better. I personally don't know many addicts that maintain long-term sobriety without going through either methadone or suboxone for a while. Sure, there are some, but I find them to be the exception. I see it in treatment centres all the time. Person gets offered suboxone, declines it, thinking "I don't want to trade one addiction for another". Does well in treatment, gets released, and either relapses or dies in the next month. Meanwhile the people that go on suboxone have a safety net in place to learn to live "sober" in the real world again, and get to learn healthy coping mechanisms. By the time they have done so, the minor withdrawals from a prolonged and gradual taper are entirely manageable.

There's also a cynical side of me that believes that people that refuse suboxone treatment have reservations about getting truly clean (i.e they're planning on getting high again some time in the future). I only think that because I was that person at one point in time. And that's just what I did. After my last relapse with fentanyl, I was so desperate to get clean, knowing full and well that no amount of willpower would help me, that I sat through 3 hellish days of PWDs to get on the suboxone successfully, because I knew there was no way in hell I'd ever manage it any other way. I led a normal life on suboxone, I can't say the same about fentanyl.