Opioids Going Clean Recs?

[MLrrs]

I'm on 160mgs of Roxys, and I've been on them for four years. I'm tryna go clean. What are some taper methods that worked for yall? Some people told me to buy subs and taper myself - how does this compare with going to MAT? Just tryna hear experiences and recommendations, so I can get an idea...

 

[Oleander]

I'm on 160mgs of Roxys, and I've been on them for four years. I'm tryna go clean. What are some taper methods that worked for yall? Some people told me to buy subs and taper myself - how does this compare with going to MAT? Just tryna hear experiences and recommendations, so I can get an idea...

Hey just read your post and wanted to tell you my experiences with getting clean. I’ve been trying to get clean on and off for 5 years and it’s not easy I can tell you that. I IV heroin and used to shoot coke as well. When you say “MAT” do you mean Medication Assisted Treatment? If so, suboxone is MAT, along with methadone and subotex. I’ve been on suboxone 16mg for 6 months now and have been on it before too at different doses, and can say from my experience with it, it works if you are truly willing to get and stay clean. I can have months of time where I’m just taking my suboxone and not using and I’m really trying to stay clean, and I can have other times where I’m using and taking suboxone sporadically, but I’m not really trying to kick it. You have to make it work if you want it to work is how I feel. No you don’t get high off of it and idk how others can shoot it up, I’ve never understood that. So if you’re willing to get clean and try something new I say give it a shot. Taper off your roxy’s slowly. Idk how many pills 160mg is but the first day you want to start, take one less pill in the morning or whatever and one less in the night, and slowly take less as the days go on. You can obviously figure out a schedule that works for you, I’m not too familiar with roxys or oxys tbh. But what I do suggest is you making an appointment with an addiction doctor, which is like a psychiatrist but with knowledge on addiction and the like. They can prescribe you the suboxone so your insurance can cover it (if you don’t have insurance you can always get Medicaid and that’ll pay for the subs too). They can also help you out with other things that you might experience when your detoxing, maybe things like problems with sleep etc. I would try to make an appointment before you start detoxing, or at least look into it. They won’t judge you at all for how long you’ve been using or what you use or anything. I really hope you look into it and if you have any questions regarding this, message me. Good luck!!

 

[Oleander]

Hey just read your post and wanted to tell you my experiences with getting clean. I’ve been trying to get clean on and off for 5 years and it’s not easy I can tell you that. I IV heroin and used to shoot coke as well. When you say “MAT” do you mean Medication Assisted Treatment? If so, suboxone is MAT, along with methadone and subotex. I’ve been on suboxone 16mg for 6 months now and have been on it before too at different doses, and can say from my experience with it, it works if you are truly willing to get and stay clean. I can have months of time where I’m just taking my suboxone and not using and I’m really trying to stay clean, and I can have other times where I’m using and taking suboxone sporadically, but I’m not really trying to kick it. You have to make it work if you want it to work is how I feel. No you don’t get high off of it and idk how others can shoot it up, I’ve never understood that. So if you’re willing to get clean and try something new I say give it a shot. Taper off your roxy’s slowly. Idk how many pills 160mg is but the first day you want to start, take one less pill in the morning or whatever and one less in the night, and slowly take less as the days go on. You can obviously figure out a schedule that works for you, I’m not too familiar with roxys or oxys tbh. But what I do suggest is you making an appointment with an addiction doctor, which is like a psychiatrist but with knowledge on addiction and the like. They can prescribe you the suboxone so your insurance can cover it (if you don’t have insurance you can always get Medicaid and that’ll pay for the subs too). They can also help you out with other things that you might experience when your detoxing, maybe things like problems with sleep etc. I would try to make an appointment before you start detoxing, or at least look into it. They won’t judge you at all for how long you’ve been using or what you use or anything. I really hope you look into it and if you have any questions regarding this, message me. Good luck!!

Subutex*

 

[DopeyOpey94]

Just get a bunch of Kratom and beneficial herbs/supplements, maybe a few benzos or muscle relaxers if you're able to and don't have a problem with them. Then jump off dude, ride out the wd's. Don't taper (at least not down too low because you'll just be torturing yourself longer than you have to.) MAT meds (Subs and Methadone, ESPECIALLY Methadone) just trap you even more than roxies, they have WAY worse and longer wd's, and you're literally just trading one addiction for another. It's like back in the old days when people went on Heroin to get off Morphine, even though Heroin is way more addictive and has worse wd's. It's just big pharmas way of locking you into a cycle of dependence. My best friend kicked Fent/Methadone/Oxys all at the same time, using the method that I mentioned at the top, and now she just maintains with Kratom and a couple supplements on a day to day basis which is much healthier, less expensive and has way easier wd's than almost any opiate. She's gotten a year and a half clean so far with her only "slip ups" being getting pain meds in the hospital twice for her immune diseases. I've had similar success with Kratom and wd'ing from most opiates including Methadone and Subs and I wouldn't wish those fucking wd's on anyone, especially Methadone, it's literally like you're in hell for weeks on end. If I had a gun I probably would have killed myself to end it. Subs aren't quite as bad but still worse than oxys for sure. Not to mention having to go to the clinic every single day for methadone and getting randomly piss tested all the time and having that shit on your record, it's not good. But to each their own. Do whatever you think will work best for you man, you know your body best. I hope you're successful in your endeavors, kicking any opiate is a bitch for sure. You can do it though. If you ever need to talk about it I'm here dude, I know how rough and alienating it can be. Don't be afraid to reach out for support because that is one of the biggest things that will help you is someone to talk to that understands what you're going through. Good luck brother!

 

[Keif' Richards]

I'm not being a dick my man, but your question is far too broad for us to give you an answer that will be truly useful to you. You haven't really given us a lot of information with which to go on. Yes, we understand that you're currently dependent upon Oxycodone, but what we need to know is your history, your situation and everything in between. Different methods are more appropriate for different situations.

There are many folks who are referred to maintenance who actually don't need it, believe it or not. There was a major roundup in Burlington, VT, in which they were determined to deliver necessary services to the Opioid-addicted population. In the process, they ended up getting a bunch of straight-up drunks on Buprenorphine treatment and now they're just passed out on the sidewalk all day after their morning drink. It's not appropriate for everybody. Initiating maintenance is initiating a new and different drug dependence in your life with the idea that this new dependence will be better for you.

It's not easy to just point and say this is or is not appropriate. Could you tell us more about your experience? Are you an addict? Maybe an addict? How long have you been involved with Opioids? Do you use other drugs? What have previous attempts at abstinence produced? All details are helpful dude. In the meantime, I will give you the most basic of breakdowns:

Severe Dependence with Repeated Failures: Methadone Maintenance, maybe Buprenorphine

Previous attempts at abstinence have failed: Buprenorphine Detox or Buprenorphine Maintenance

You've never really given it an honest try: Comfort Medications like Clonidine/Gabapentin/Cannabis and see if you can get it together

 

[xivixive]

great post keif. i too believe there are way too many people without a proper understanding of bupe that end up hurting themselves in the long run. either by trading for a worse addiction or jacking their tolerance up by not using appropriately thus making their original addiction worse.

theres no magic fix for anyone and finding the right one is difficult and requires trial and error. knowing the persons history and psychological state is super important.

 

[Coffeeshroom]

If I might add tot his. I do t know how strong your addictions is but I can get by doin H 3-4 days in row then knocked myself out for a day with benzos and then use 2mg subutex there after and then I won't touch sub's again, then for the next 3 days its just alight dose of benzos to get me through and by day 3 I have no H WD whatsoever. Maybe I'm just lucky with my regime or maybe it gonna cat h up to me, who knowz

 

[MLrrs]

Thanks everyone for all the help and advice. I don't know if I would call myself an addict, but I have tried getting off two or three times before, but it didn't work. I definitely didn't know how bad the wds for subs and methadone so thanks for letting me know. I definitely still have pain too. I wrecked my left leg mountain biking. Ive been told that since I have pain too that everything might be a bit harder but when I went to the doctor she still recommended subs. I'm just afraid of feeling both pain and being in withdrawal at the same time. Do yall have any coping strategies for either? My doctor said that I should find what works for me but idk what that is

 

[Nicomorphinist]

A lot of this would have to with the problem the habituation is causing. If it is the economic, social, and similar impacts of Taking Care of Business to assure you do not run out of narcotics, maintenance or detoxification with substitutes may be helpful. If it is worry about dependence on oxycodone, then the status of your leg injury and what it does to your functioning is the paramount concern.

The pain is more significant I would think. People have a human right to freedom from pain, and treating pain often requires more than one modality -- in other words don't let anybody tell you that non-pharmacological modalities alone can take care of a fouled up leg, and certainly do not let them tell you that cannabis, as helpful as it is for many pain patients of many types, is an apples-to-apples replacement for narcotics.

Methodologically sound, comprehensive studies by non-politically-obligated organisations the last 220 years or so have found the true iatrogenic opioid addiction rate for compliant patients to be anywhere from 7 per 100 000 (an old US CDC study) to around 1.8 per cent and to have held more or less steady from the first studies of laudanum around 1800 to today. Chronic pain actually reduces the rate further, apparently. It does indeed happen, of course -- and that also means that the inverse can happen as well. A doctor, or in the case of chronic pain, often a team of medical professionals, can very well turn an unsupervised opioid user with a habit into a compliant pain patient just as much as they can, if they are very feckless, turn patients into addicts. In both cases, if the patient wants off the narcotics after resolution of the issue, there are multiple ways to do that.

Have you considered ketamine as part of both reducing narcotic use and pain management? Using that and other methods of narcotic potentiation by usually reduce the absolute quantity of narcotic required for given purpose and I suppose one could say do a fraction of the taper for you without extra pain from the leg. It is also possible to use ketamine to replace the narcotics outright to avoid many of the symptoms of withdrawal, as well. In my experience that level of ketamine regimen would anaesthetise the leg pain possibly altogether whilst you were on the ketamine.

Depending on the type of pain, clonidine not only reduces withdrawal symptoms but is also used in pain management. neuropathic pain in particular. Both clonidine and ketamine in my experience leave the symptom of diarrhoea largely untouched so that may need to be prevented with an additional medication, but that could just be me.

It may have changed a bit with more clinical experience with buprenorphine, but as I recall methadone is usually the suggested detoxification or maintenance agent for Opioid Substitution Therapy in cases where the patient is in severe pain from injuries and other matters. Narcotic withdrawal increases sensitivity to pain beyond baseline, so yes, it is going to be rather onerous in theory.

This is when there are the two choices, that is. This is one example of a number of reasons why, at a bare minimum, physicians and patients should have either extended-release dihydrocodeine or extended-release morphine as options as well.

Efforts in the past to find an analgesic which could be used with low risk in recovering and former narcotic addicts for emergency, acute, and chronic pain didn't really come to a conclusion and were abandoned as far as I know. There was interest in myrophine and azidomorphine for this purpose for a while as well as research on cyclazocine, but this failure may be evidence on the side of strong analgesia and narcotic euphoria being part of the same thing, above and beyond the obvious fact that people are going to feel better when they are in less pain. Most assuredly physical dependence at some level is related as the same opioid receptors mediate it; but there is also rebound even when one stops paracetamol. In all cases that is why medications are tapered, or should be.

Ideally the detoxification, maintenance, and reduction medicine cupboard ought to, and does in various places, also include levomethadone, immediate-release morphine, immediate and extended-release hydromorphone, piritramide, dextromoramide, levorphanol, dihydroetorphine, high-dose dextropropoxyphene, high-dose extended-release tramadol, one of the methadols, and dipipanone. More places are trying diamorphine (heroin) on prescription and an intermediate modality betwixt the straight-across heroin replacement and maintenance with long-acting and extended-release opioids would be something along the lines of a Smack Contin, which in truth would be very hard to distinguish from MS-Contin as heroin, like all 3,6 diesters of morphine, are converted into morphine rapidly, and hydrolysis and acid attack are two very efficient routes by which the body does this. If giving out H presents politically insurmountable problems in a locale, then I suggest an option of morphine and one of the other 3,6 diesters of morphine such as dibenzoylmorphine or nicomorphine. The heroin analogue of dihydromorphine, diacetyldihydromorphine (Paralaudin) also known as dihydroheroin, and the heroin analogue of hydromorphone (acetylmorphone) could be especially helpful for such cases. The come-up of smack and the effects of D. Paralaudin has legs to a greater extent than the others -- the usual duration of effects is 5-7 hours in my experience, at least for analgesia.