Need Advise for Opana Taper

Hello everyone, hope your days have been going well.

I live in a pain pill flooded part of the united states. I began using these recreationally when I was 13 years old, I am now 22. I have been injured several times and had them legally for a spell, which is what got my started. Obviously when I was younger I abused them but I was not really addicted. Last year this douchebag (sorry he is) got me started on Opana (the 40mg extended releases). At first I was happy, because they were more bang for ones buck, and still not addicted physically to any drug and never had been. Over the course of that year I did become addicted.

I'm pretty scared of withdrawl because of the horror stories I have read on bluelight about opana. I have tapered down from using about 40 mg per day to 10 mg per day. Actually now my tolerance is low enough that 10 mg per day actually gets me kind of high. I was wondering if someone with experience with this drug could chime in on a proper taper? I have of opana, alprazolam, oxycodone, hydromorphone, and suboxone at my disposal in unlimited amounts if necessary. I want to do this the right way and the safest way. I'm done getting high and tired of the lifestyle. I've had three friends die from overdose this year alone and I want out. I have been going to NA meetings and am truly ready to stop. Any help is appreciated, both support and help with a taper. Thanks bluelight.

Getting from 40 down to 10 is already a pretty big deal! Nice work there!

Of course, getting from 10 to 5, 5 to 2.5, then 2.5 to <2.5, these lower jumps will be difficult. I don't have any experience with opana specifically, although I do know a little from what others have told me, so I'll let someone more informed jump in.

I'm sure you can get through this though. Like I said, you've already done quite a bit. You have the end in sight! Best of luck!!!

Thanks for the encouragement, it means alot. Yeah I know I have a rough few weeks ahead of me but I'm trying to stay positive. I want to beat this, I see it as a challenge that will be hard but not impossible.

That's ideal! It will be challenging, for sure, but it is FAAAAARRRRRR from impossible. This really is the best possible attitude you could have. How long did it take to get from 40 to 10? And how did you taper down your dosages (did you just go from 40 straight to 10?)?

You got this thing friend! You got it!

It took me about three weeks to get from 40mg to 10mg. I actually switched from opana to oxycodone because oxy has a shorter duration therefore I thought that the withdrawls would not last as long. I would do about 30 to 45 mg a day at first to try to get stable then gradually pulled 7.5 mg off of that dose every three days or so. I eventually had to switch back because opana is cheaper where I live and I don't really like suboxone although if someone here recommends it I'm going to do what they say. I went about 2 days with nothing during that three week period because I just wanted to see how bad cold turkey would be and it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. It was still too much for me to deal with while studying and going to school but I was happy that I wasnt puking and stuff.

Three weeks was probably a little fast to do that too, it was pretty rough. I noticed though that snorting opana is really inconsistent. I would be doing a 40 a day and getting sort of high. I did my taper and would keep myself withdrawing moderately every day. Then once I got down to doing a fourth (10mg) split up into 2 or 3 lines a day, I was kind of getting high again. I suppose this could be that I switched to oxycodone (30mg instants snorted) and they have an incomplete cross tolerance. I'm really not sure. I have noticed though that one line of opana could do very little once and then later on a line the same size gets you ripped. I feel the drug is really dangerous for that reason. The wax matrix makes it very unpredictable.

Oh and just a little more background on the above post.

Before I started trying to quit, when I was still doing 40 a day, I would ocassionally snort about 16 - 24 mg of hydromorphone (dilaudid) instead of doing any opana. This could have temporarily raised my tolerance even more.

Another thing I forgot to mention in my very first post. One of my main reasons for quitting is that the combination of me drinking like 5 sodas a day and doing lots of opiates, cocaine, and almost never sleeping caused me to have some kidney problems. Nothing serious, but they noticed it in a urinalysis. I want to stop before it gets worse. I have totally stopped smoking cigarettes and drinking cokes and I have drastically changed my whole diet. Now I plan to tackle the opiates and get control of my life again. I should note that although I was doing quite a bit of cocaine, I have never been addicted to it and have not touched it in three weeks without a second thought.

Well, the best way to get off any opioid imho is with a short suboxone taper. In my case I chose suboxone maintenance, as I need to take it longer term to sort out some other health/life issues and need the stability I find with suboxone+therapy.

Whatever you do, stay at that 10mg for no less than a week, and try to refrain from using any other opioids, or ideally any cns depressant drugs, during the remainder of your taper (unless you need to use them for sleep, anxiety, etc, but don't use them recreationally.. there's always weed). First things first, and that is to stabilize at this relatively lowish dose @ 10mg.

It would be reasonable to drop is 2mg every four days, that should be totally painless. While stabilizing at 10mg you can also experiment with taking different amounts at different times (i.e. 3mg when you get up, 3mg at mid afternoon and 4mg at evening). Like I said though, I don't have much experience specifically concerning opana tapers.

Can you get suboxone/have you ever used suboxone/do you think it would make more sense to do a short term detox or a maintenance therapy?

I have used suboxone to go on vacations when I would not be able to find dope out of town. I actually have an 8 mg strip in the drawer right beside me. I have access to every opiate in every incarnation in unlimited amounts and xanax (alprazolam) is really prevalent here. That's part of the struggle of trying to quit in my area. I have people come knock on my door trying to sell me opanas and oxycodone pills. I do think I could benefit from a short suboxone taper, my fear is becoming dependent on subs and then trying to kick them which I hear is pretty bad because of how long it lasts.

Thank you for all your help toothpastedog, I really just needed to get some of this off my chest. It's good to talk it out sometimes.

Hell yea it is!!! Necessary, I'd say

Safe to say I'm more than happy to oblige. And you are very welcome. In another sense, it really should be me thanking you, for giving me something do that's useful But I won't get down on myself and this little extended vacation I'm on just yet... hehe

Anyways, you know, you can use that single 8mg suboxone for a fairly efficient super short taper. Like, ween yourself from 10 down to 5 mg then take a half suboxone one day and quarters for the next two then the otc w/d aids like loperamide and xanax to make it through the rest. If you had a couple more suboxones you'd be golden.

I think the biggest challenge though will be dealing with sobriety in your area, given all the drugs you mention, for any length of time after you're out of the acute phase of w/d. Given your situation, I might think it best to get on a sub maintenance plan. Of course, no one wants to be hooked on anything, but at least with suboxone maintenance, such as what I'm doing for myself, you can give a degree of stability to your life.

Do you think you could successfully avoid the drugs/urge in your given area? I mean, like honestly do you think it wouldn't be a problem a month or two down the road after you've come out of w/d? I just want us to be as realistic as possible hear.

Again, from 40 down to 10 is still a big deal. If you can just stabilize at this dose and come up with a really good plan on how to move forward through w/d and onwards from there. Best of luck, once again skuttlebutt!!!!

I'm not familiar with Opana- but one good rule of thumb that has worked for me is to divide your doses into AM and PM doses. So if you're going to start at 10mg/day, take 5 in the morning and five at night. I'm not sure what increments you can go down in- you said 10mg was a quarter of a pill and I believe you're doing lines. Can you get a lower mg pill? In any case, what I did was taper my morning dose first and then I tapered the evening dose. I find if I'm w/d a little during the day, I can always shift my focus. That's harder to do at night so that's my thinking there. Hope that helps and good luck. Remember- other people have indeed quit opiates- there's absolutely no reason you can't too.

I think toothpastedog had some good suggestions for you, such as using suboxone. While I have never had experience with opana myself, I do know of individuals who have come off of it through the use of suboxone.