Bupe How long do bupe withdrawals last?

[Rio Fantastic]

Hello all,

I've been on subs for about three weeks now, and I want to get off of them as fast as possible. I'm on 8mgs a day at the moment, and am planning on tapering right down to like 0.5 or 0.25 mg and then quitting altogether. I've never seen a subutex taper through before, so I have no idea what to expect when it comes to withdrawals. How do subutex withdrawals compare to heroin withdrawals & how long do they last?

Any help would be much appreciated

 

[treezy z]

i'm curious as well, i've been getting subs off the street for a while to deal with h addiction, would like to know what to expect should i run out. (well i know WHAT to expect, just not how long.)

 

[tacodude]

While this could be considered megathread material I do think a bupe or BupeMT/MethadoneMT megathread would be a good idea for those quitting opiates generally via the most common routes while weening with anything from morphine, tramadol, and even fentanyl weening questions could be asked no matter how insane one of those sound (Can you guess which? Hint: What makes it the worst might also make it the best). Any mod want to mull this idea over or do I have to suggest it directly?

 

[cj]

My withdrawal lasted over a month. The most intense part was the first 20 days. Then I seemed to be getting better for a few days before the symptoms came back. This went on for another week or 2 before I relapsed. Be prepared for a long kick.

 

[tacodude]

What was your dose when you quit? How long did you build your tolerance? And at what dose did you maintain on average?

If anyone has a response please try to include these bits of info into your posts if you have experience you are sharing?

 

[Rio Fantastic]

My withdrawal lasted over a month. The most intense part was the first 20 days. Then I seemed to be getting better for a few days before the symptoms came back. This went on for another week or 2 before I relapsed. Be prepared for a long kick.

Really? Holy shit, is this typical? How long were you using before quitting & did you taper?

 

[szuko000]

When I tapered down to 0.25mg every 36 hours I barely had any withdrawal and no PAWS. Everyone is different if you taper properly you may not feel anything. The issue is its usually a divide between people who did it properly had no issues or very few and those who for whatever reason had issues. Everyone i know personally didnt really have issues with subs provided they were truly ready same with methadone.

I say taper as long as you can and be prepared for an easy time. I went to work every day and had 0 issues what so ever. I was tired and in a bad mood for about 7 days really.

 

[cj]

Really? Holy shit, is this typical? How long were you using before quitting & did you taper?

I had been on them for 5 years at rougly 1.5mg. I didn't taper.

 

[Rio Fantastic]

When I tapered down to 0.25mg every 36 hours I barely had any withdrawal and no PAWS. Everyone is different if you taper properly you may not feel anything. The issue is its usually a divide between people who did it properly had no issues or very few and those who for whatever reason had issues. Everyone i know personally didnt really have issues with subs provided they were truly ready same with methadone.

I say taper as long as you can and be prepared for an easy time. I went to work every day and had 0 issues what so ever. I was tired and in a bad mood for about 7 days really.

This is extremely encouraging after all the horror stories I've read. Just wondering how long were you on bupe in total and what was your taper plan like if you don't mind me asking?

 

[Ziebug]

I'm so glad someone made a thread about this.... I'm a green lighter, started posting yesterday...... I've been on subs for a year, not my first time either, so I should have known it wasn't a real solution, but alas here I am again.... I've been on between 4-16 mg a day(depending on how bad my day was) for the past year and a half and I now have one strip left and I don't want to go back.... I'm curious about Kratom because I've read so many good reviews but too many good reviews also makes me apprehensive because I a dope fiend. And if something can be abused, I will abuse it, especially in the opioid family.... I don't have very much faith that I can make it eventually, I have gotten clean more times than I can count but it never sticks for long, so maybe Kratom should be my forever med... Idk, what happens when it's illegal bc our country likes to do that.....then I'm right back to freaking out and scrambling everyday again?

As for the original post: I've heard pretty conflicting accounts about how rough bupe Wds are... Some say they are cake compared to other hard opiates, but mine were pretty tough. I also detoxed from a 6month h binge so I can compare and physically h was worse and mentally subs were worse and mine lasted about a month, then paws for about 2 months after.... I made it though! I had been doing 8mg a day for a year and tapered down to 2mg( couldn't go lower without getting sick every time, but ideally you get way lower than that...) Since its been three weeks for you, yours may not be so bad... But that still a pretty high dose to jump from, not that I can say much. I also noticed last couple years my physical addiction develops much more quickly so I believe that the total time you've been doing opiates in general has an effect also. I've been on them for over a decade collectively(started at age 16, now I'm 28.....)so my question would be how long have you been an at least every three day opiate user? Then that might give you some idea of what your in for.....

I feel bad for anyone facing withdrawal from opioids. I've done it two times all the way through with months of clean time after, and I'm about to do it a third, so it CAN be done! hang in there!

Ps. I plan on asking my doc for neurontin and stock up on melatonin. Does anyone have any other med recommendations? ( no benzos please) does requip work for y'all's rls?

thanks for reading my rambling... Stay safe
ziebug

 

[Larc]

If you get subs legally from a doctor you should have no problem getting comfort meds when you jump off. These are likely to be baclofen, clonidine, and librium.

I was on IV heroin for 5 years followed by 3 months of subs. The comedown was nowhere close to a heroin withdrawal, how ever it was a bit more drawn out. Mainly just cold sweats, anxiety, and a want for opiates.

PAWS for me was fairly severe for 6 months and finally felt like myself after a year and a half or so. Depression and lethergy will be your biggest enemies. Force yourself to go outside, it helps alot.

Hope my experience helped. Good luck to ya, it wont be as bad as you think.

 

[szuko000]

I had been on 8mg of suboxone for 8 months every day before I tapered. It was my first bout with addiction and it wasn't too long, a year of shooting heroin multiple times a day after a 2 year daily oxy thing.

The most important part of the whole thing is that your truly ready to feel off. I'm not going to lie it was "way easier then I could have ever thought and no longer fear coming off methadone because of it" but that doesn't mean it wasn't difficult. The worse of it was a lack of energy which I supplemented by chugging espresso and energy drinks. I also lacked a desire to do much of anything so I felt I needed the caffeine and sugar to even get motivated. I didn't get any insomnia or much else.

So I went from 8mg to 4mg, that was easy as anything I didn't even notice a difference. I stayed at 4mg for 3 weeks as I wanted a good chunk of time to adjust even though I didn't feel it.

I went from 4mg to 2mg again with little effort. If I recall correctly there was mild withdrawal symptoms like sensitivity to cold. I remember grapes from the fridge feeling like ice. I would also wake up sickest in the mornings. I would feel sick until the subs kicked in when I was adjusting only. It's important to get use to and plan for the sickness but it does go away and it's pretty cool when you stop waking up sick.

Dropping from 2 to 1 was harder. It was harder because the sickness would come earlier so if I didn't go to bed before 1am I would kind of feel it. Getting sick on subs is a gradual thing so when I was tapering and people asked I would jokingly say it's diet withdrawals, it's kinda like it but it really lacks in the terrible quality the real kind has. It's more of a nagging sort of makes you want to stretch and not focus on anything. If you can smoke weed it will definitely help. I didn't need it to sleep but when I had it I was much better. Then on day 5-6 it would stop and I would be fine again.

The jump from 1 to 0.5mg was more of the same. When you get down to the low doses it hurts more. I can't remember at what point I felt it was just me. There definitely comes a time where you wonder if it's you or the drug. That's 500 micrograms, when I got to 250 micrograms I couldn't help but think I might have taken more lsd then I was suboxone at one point in my life. Could 0.25mg every 36 hours really produce any effect on someone? I felt like I was literally taking the amount needed to have neurological activity like I was literally dosing my neurotransmitters for my opiate receptors by hand and nothing else. At that point I stopped.

Stopping was hard because much like my coffee in the morning I looked at subs ever 36 hours as something that had to happen. I had been a daily opiate user for years, years of some opiate related activity every single day (almost). It was so strange to not take something I could associate with a mood boost or energy, so I was in a bad mood and all that good stuff for 2 weeks. I remember 10 days being happy it was double digits and telling my friend "I think it's over I can't wait for months and years. In like 6 months I could have a brain like it never happened"

All of this was in 2013 I was clean for like 2 years. I never experienced PAWS and never had an issue with anything. I am not saying my case is normal but it's me. I am currently on 70mg of methadone and I prefer to drop by 10mg at a time and wait 3 weeks to go down again. My girlfriends been doing that and she's at 40 both of us were at 90. You just need to want to get sick, you need to want to prove something. A knight doesn't chase a dragon not to catch it and he's not afraid to get burned when he fights it but you must be ready or you won't win.

 

[Rio Fantastic]

Thanks to everyone for the experiences and advice posted. My habit isn't nearly as bad as some others - I'd been on and off heroin for two years but never stuck it out, then a four month IV binge preceded the decision to go on subutex. I want to get off of it as fast as possible but my doctor thinks otherwise and wants to space it out, but I'm feeling a lot more encouraged and motivated to know that some people breeze through it since it's easy to get pessimistic when you read all the horror stories out there.

 

[Ziebug]

if you have the option to taper with your doctor, that's great.... Go down to as small as possible a dose bc, I think if you try too soon it might suck, not saying it definitely will.... I unfortunately do not as I got kicked from my program for failing my dt... So if you have option taper, taper, taper... I tried to stretch out the forty I had but I suck at it... alas, only I can get myself out of the mud puddle I decided to jump in...
Good luck, ziebug

 

[chitownskag]

^^^ lol I can't taper for shit when I moved out of state to a small town in AZ I had to get off bupe with one scrip of 90 n It barely lasted me longer than a month trying to taper lol

 

[szuko000]

The biggest thing is you will get sick, that has to happen and there is no avoiding it. You must accept that and learn to deal with the minor sickness you have for the few hours before you can dose again. Tapering is not to avoid getting sick but rather to spread it out. The way I did it was much harder then most can handle because at 12am or about there was no denying i was starting to get sick but it wouldnt wake me up until about 7am and I would be sick at 7am legit but that was always the best part of the day because i would dose at that time and either wake up or nap for an hour and wake up fine. And the reason i waited like 2 weeks after i adjusted to lower again was to avoid PAWS. I figure 6-8 days for my body to adjust to the lower dose and 2 weeks for my mind to be ok with it. By that information if I didnt do it the way i did i would have been suboxone withdrawal for about 1.5 months and in PAWS for about 3-4 months, as that is about the length of time i spent sick and recovering it was just done over like 6 months slowly instead of stopping and dealing with it for 6 months all at once.

But dont kid yourself you will get sick and i mean you will be noticeably sick before you dose. Just find some motivational music to get yourself pumped for it remember all the things humans have done such as running toward a machine gun post and hoping you dont die. People go through amazing things and this is your chance to be able to say "i made opiate withdrawals my bitch" and when others say "oh man it was so hard" you can laugh knowing that there is something different about you and you have that spirit that heros have to stare down a foe much bigger then yourself and conquer it.

 

[Ziebug]

I like that.... I also enjoyed the dragon/fire analogy from earlier in the post( don't know how to quote, tried and failed...its hearing stuff like that that can help, when I'm alone my own head beats me down, so thank you... now as for comfort meds, I'm not with a sub doc, are there other kinds of clinics that will prescribe withdrawal meds? I'm ready to fight but it'd be nice to have a good sword. ��
ziebug

 

[szuko000]

I like that.... I also enjoyed the dragon/fire analogy from earlier in the post( don't know how to quote, tried and failed...its hearing stuff like that that can help, when I'm alone my own head beats me down, so thank you... now as for comfort meds, I'm not with a sub doc, are there other kinds of clinics that will prescribe withdrawal meds? I'm ready to fight but it'd be nice to have a good sword. ��
ziebug

Making up inspirational shit to compare myself to in an effort to personify a fight that I was going engage in. I think its important to not only think of it as a tangible thing that can be conquered, I always like the dragon imagery since its already the "accepted" physical form for opiates and they also have plenty of stories of being terrible foes that kill innocent people and only a handful of warriors can conquer them. It just worked for me coupled with songs that would get me pumped and feel like i wasnt sick enough because i wanted the pain because i am alive and feeling pain is just as important as feeling pleasure. Ideas like that are critical because soon that becomes part of you and all of that will make you successful.

As far as withdrawal and rapid taper I never went to a clinic that would let you rapid taper. The sub program i was on wouldnt even taper me because i was still a "risk" you should have seen the look when i said "no fuck that i am done i am not coming back i am taking this script and its the last one" and they actually tried to tell me i would relapse and that was the nail in the coffin i was not going to stop until i was done. I had 3 months worth of subs stock piled by the time i stopped.

But clinics and doctors want to make money, you get that from people who dont get off. Most places will want you to stay for a year or more. At least in my experience.

 

[pinpoint]

Ex-Suboxone patient here.

I was on 4mg/day for approximately 3 years (2009-2012). I tapered and jumped off at 250mcg. It was unpleasant to say the least. Approximately two weeks of acute withdrawals. Following those two weeks I had a month and a half of fragmented sleep, crushing depression, anxiety, fatigue, mild to moderate RLS.. basically PAWS. I don't actually know how long it would've taken to feel normal because at two months I finally said fuck this and started my affair with kratom. Fast forward a few years and I'm off everything opioid-related and feeling 100% normal so take that for what it's worth. It's certainly not a fast process but you won't be fucked for life.

If I could change one thing I would go back and continue tapering to double-digit mcg doses.

 

[Ziebug]

Glad I'm not the only one who thinks it easier said than done, I have a half left now, bout to be in my battle ��