Bupe subs and benzos.. help

ok so here's whats going on.

Over the past 4 years i developed a pretty serious morphine/heroin/benzo addiction. i started injecting about 3 to 5 ccs daily, and was taking about 8mg xanax daily just to feel normal. i decided id had enuff. i found a doctor about a week ago and got prescribed 16mg suboxone a day. when i went for my first appointment i pissed dirty for benzos as i had ween'd myself down to about 30 mgs of Valium each day just so i wouldn't go into benzo withdrawals. i know the dr. definitely frowns on having any sort of benzo in my system and to make sure i can still stay on my subs i stopped taking benzos completely the day of my appointment.

Since then the withdrawals have gotten pretty bad. i have fits of uncontrollable muscle twitches. my limbs go numb. my brain seems to go to mush and i feel like im going fucking insane. its pretty much impossible for me to cary on a normal conversation with anyone and i cant stand being touched even by my girlfriend, and the anxiety is out of control. not fun. i really cant take it anymore. the subxone doesn't help what so ever for the benzo withdrawals or the anxiety.

Today i decided to take a 1mg klon just to take the edge off and so my body would stop twitching. my biggest concern is i have another Dr. apt on the 27th of this month and i know for sure i will have to do urine test. Im pretty sure it will be out of my system by then but i don't know 100% if ill be clean.

I guess i just want to know if there is anything i can do about the benzo withdrawals with out tapering because i cant afford to have anything in my system. i live in upper michigan and i went thru way to much bull shit to get on the suboxone and i don't want to mess it up for anything. ive been doing alot of research and all i can come up with is the withdrawals can last anywhere from 10 days to 2 years. so if any of you have any advice or suggestions on what i should do, it would be much appreciated..

I was forced to kick benzos that I needed for an anxiety problem a few years ago in rehab. Needless to say, I was prescribed them within a few weeks of being out of rehab because I couldn't handle life. I will be on benzos for the rest of my life more than likely and I am perfectly fine with that. Why not tell your doctor the hell you are going through? Or even get him to prescribe you benzos? The shrink that prescribed me Klonopin ended up being a bupe doctor, and had no problem prescribing me the two together for a year and a half. Good luck man, I feel your pain.

Just be honest with the doctor. Also, 16mgs is a high dose of suboxone to be on. I would atleast cut that dose in half. This way if you do get turned down by the doctor, you will have enough extra suboxone to taper yourself down.

You should take a look at the suboxone megathread to get some more information on bupe. You will see that people are on very low doses of it, and are getting by just fine. Most people are on 2mgs daily or less, and they had worse opiate habits than you described.

^^very true, my heroin habit was probably about 3-4 times more intense than the OP's addiction but I was able to get by on 2mg's of sub at first, and then within a week or two get down to 0.5mg doses(allthough I usually IV them).
But if you read through the sub megathread(s) and other threads relating to subs, I think you will see what possible benefits you can get from low dose suboxone, as well as possible negative "side effects/consequences" you can get from high dose subs.

I can tell you from personal experience that suboxone saved my life and I LOVE it. Allthough im currently not taking it anymore, but thats just cuz im able to take "breaks" from it when I feel like it.

Of course you must figure out what works best for you, im just giving you advice from my experience/perspective.

cold Turkey from benzos is dangerous. I'm surprised your doc expects you to cut them out completely all at once knowing your physically dependent. that sounds wreckless and stupid on the doctors behalf. and yeah they make you kick them in rehab too but they at least ween you with phenibarbitol or something.

I would tell your doctor what the deal is and I would like to hope he/she would help you ween off the benzos.

thanks guys.. yeah i thought 16mg was a little high im content with 8. ill probably just bring it up to my doc when i see him next see what he has to say. its just hard u kno, glad im not alone in dealing with this shit

nvan7891 said:

cold Turkey from benzos is dangerous. I'm surprised your doc expects you to cut them out completely all at once knowing your physically dependent. that sounds wreckless and stupid on the doctors behalf. and yeah they make you kick them in rehab too but they at least ween you with phenibarbitol or something.

I would tell your doctor what the deal is and I would like to hope he/she would help you ween off the benzos.

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i was actully in rehab last summer and they gave me Librium for the benzos and clonadine for opiates. the Librium actully helped quite a bit. even tho my urine test came back positive for benzos i told him i used some valium to induce sleep when i was having dt's from the needle. so pretty much i lied to make sure he would wright me a script for bupe. what im saying is before i had my appointment they made a big deal about not mixing benzos with the suboxone so im not sure if telling my dr. about my benzo withdrawals would be a good idea

birdflu said:

thanks guys.. yeah i thought 16mg was a little high im content with 8. ill probably just bring it up to my doc when i see him next see what he has to say. its just hard u kno, glad im not alone in dealing with this shit

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If I were you I would simply stay at the 16mg dose and just take 8mg's, saving up the other pills for a rainy day, or for an emergency, like you cant afford your sub doc anymore and you get kicked out of the program with no pills leftover to taper properly with. There are tons of reasons to have a few extra subs on hand when you need em.
Im assuming your doctor doesnt actually watch you take all of your daily doses, cuz then that idea would have a problem obviously, but I highly doubt that is the case.
For example, im prescribed 12mg's/day and only take 0.5mg doses. I use the rest to give to a couple of my now ex-heroin addict friends. And im still able to save up alot of subs on top of that. I probably have enough to last me over a year, if not longer.....I havent even done the math to figure it out....I just know im set no matter what happens at my sub clinic, or my financial situation. My doctor still thinks im taking the whole 12mg's(which I never took in the first place, I started myself off at 2mg's), and he says I can stay on them as long as I want, or I can taper off whenever I want.

Just somethin to think about.

birdflu said:

i was actully in rehab last summer and they gave me Librium for the benzos and clonadine for opiates. the Librium actully helped quite a bit. even tho my urine test came back positive for benzos i told him i used some valium to induce sleep when i was having dt's from the needle. so pretty much i lied to make sure he would wright me a script for bupe. what im saying is before i had my appointment they made a big deal about not mixing benzos with the suboxone so im not sure if telling my dr. about my benzo withdrawals would be a good idea

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I think its important to tell your doctor about your benzo situation, especially if he/she drug tests you regularly because he/she will find out sooner or later.

Allthough I am lucky, even though im on suboxone maintanence, I am also prescribed klonopin and temazepam daily(not high doses really but the point is that its rare for someone on sub maintenence getting 2 benzo scripts at the same time). My doctors seem fine with it as long as its being monitored by a doctor(my psychiatrist). So maybe tell your doctor about your benzo issue and if he/she is a good person/doctor, hopefully they would help you out and prescribe you some benzos so you dont have to go through hell but your benzo intake is also being monitored by a proffessional.