• Select Your Topic Then Scroll Down
    Alcohol Bupe Benzos
    Cocaine Heroin Opioids
    RCs Stimulants Misc
    Harm Reduction All Topics Gabapentinoids
    Tired of your habit? Struggling to cope?
    Want to regain control or get sober?
    Visit our Recovery Support Forums

Opioids Big and Dandy Loperamide Adddiction Thread

Warning, Super Long Post Ahead....sorry, but i got alot to say on this.

Tchort while I understand your opinion on methadone/suboxone bein valuable to people with addictions, I really feel like its ridiculous to use that for such a minor addiction. Bupe and Methadone are strong opioids, and I feel the same way I would if somebody was sayin they had addiction to Kratom, or Codeine. Especially the OTC codeine pills in aus and the uk. It dont make sense to replace a weaker opioid with a stronger one. The dependence on those when they used in a SMT or MMT program is longer and stronger than the original dependance to begin with. It dont make sense.

All withdrawals suck, no matter wat, we all kno that, but now its like everybody is addicted to everything. Somebody posted in here about bein addicted to benadryl? WTF? Soon people is gonna say they addicted to OTC pseudoephedrine cough and cold pills too. These might be "addictions" but they are much more psychological than heavier addictions to strong street drugs. and when the drug itself is a relatively weak drug to begin with , the WDs is also gonna be weak compared to other drugs. sure somebody who never went thru heroin WD is gonna think that kratom WD is the worst shit in the world, but i feel like at some point, people aint got to be babied that much. We all want to be comfortable , but its like somebody with a stubbed toe tryin to convince themself and their doctor that they need oxycontin for the pain. It just aint necessary.

Even when you got bad back pain, the first treatment is to try physical therapy, go to a chiropractor, cortisone shots, massage, anti inflammatory drugs and THEN painkillers. It should be the same with addiction, if that addiction aint CLEARLY destroying the persons life and health. In a case where somebodys out of control and clearly causin damage to their mind body and spirit then sure bring on the mmt/smt, no questions asked. But if somebody is dealin with a non severe addiction to a weaker opioid why not try other options first to see if they work, and save the heavy duty shit for once there aint nothing else left to try?

I aint tryin to down play, simplify, or put down other ppls experiences since all pain is relative and to me heroin WD is horrible pain, when it cant compare to the pain of a soldier with his leg blowed off layin in the street in Iraq somewhere. HE is somebody who REALLY needs relief. So it aint like i think heroin and other strong opiate WD is somehow more deserving of treatment or comfort since there is always someone who needs releif more, but im just sayin, to a person whose extent of opiate use is some tylenol 3's with codeine, or a legal otc med like loperamide, or a weak plant pseudo opiate like kratom, they probably dont realize just how minor and weak their WD symptoms really are.

When you are sick, feelin like you want to die, with every muscle screaming in pain, your body on fire one second and deep freeze in ice the next, pouring sweat, eyes like fuckin dinner plates, confused, unable to walk a straight line, feelin like throwing up and shitting all at once while you dry heave cuz you aint been able to eat all day from the sickness....headache feelin like a meat cleaver is stuck in your forehead, so weak you cant barely stand up without your eyes fadin to black for a second and almost passin out, THIS is withdrawal, its torture, you want to put a .45 slug in your head. I dont think that slight restlessness, fatigue, and watever symptoms one poster mentioned (They even said that they didnt experience regular wds just a couple semi uncomfortable symptoms) really calls for introducin a strong ass opioid like methadone or sub. its counter productive.

Even when people have small ass habits for "real" (i sayin that in quotes since its arguable wat a real opiate is) shit that actually crosses the BBB and gets you HIGH, like hydrocodone, i still dont think its a wise plan to start on the maintenance programs. I see the ppl here post about it all the time, they be like "OMG, Please help me, I use 20-30mg of hydrocodone a day! I am so worried about kicking! I need meds for withdrawls, i want to get on suboxone!" its pointless.

A habit like that will cause some minor wd, but its foolish to get on a substance created to help users with addictions to a much stronger opiate, becuz it just digs you in a deeper hole. Its like the cure is stronger than the illness in this case. a doctor dont operate on a sprained ankle. the treatment gotta be appropriate to the problem, and i dont feel like maintenace is in proportion to the severeness or lack of it, of "loperamide addiction". People on heroin, oxycodone, dilaudid, morphine, wtfever, with serious, long term addictions, NEED suboxone and methadone becuz their addiction is so strong that none of the usual things can help.

So IMO there aint no reason that a person with a small habit* should not be feelin fine with a combo like clonidine, a benzo like klonopin/valium (xanax dont seem as helpful in WD IME), antihistamine like Vistaril, a muscle relaxer (flexeril, zanaflex) and some good rest, good food, and distraction like TV, magazines, and movies. If that person can smoke some weed too, shit, they are home free. (*And obviously, these doses of loperamide aint small at all they are huge, but i am measuring the addiction by how much it ruins the persons life, not simply the dose of the drug used. and this loperamide habit which seems to cause no negative effects other than the withdrawals from the posts ive read, could be considered mild. not stealing for it, risking their life for it, hurting people for it, doin shady shit, running their entire life around it, losing their mind when they cant get it, etc. that shit aint present here, so how bad can it really be. all this compared to the hell of a life that addicts of more traditional drugs of abuse, would put this loperamide problem in the category of mild addiction or "small" habit not small in size but small in severity. thats just my opinion.) wat Im sayin is, I aint somebody who feels like MMT and SMT are for everybody.

Any doctor with a brain behind their forehead will be able to gauge if a person addiction is severe enough to need that type of treatment, I dont think it should be the one size fits all treatment to every single semi-opiate "addicction" from minor, mild habit/dependence to life crushing , lying at the gates of hell, deathwish heroin addiction. Some sub doctors is just in it for the money, and write a script to anyone who walks in regardless of how severe or mild the addiction is, but ones with a lil more thought goin on in their heads might not prescribe it to somebody if their addiction dont call for it. a pretty good dr i went to explained this to me and it makes sense. He wouldnt just give sub to a person unless their dose of opiates was high enough and they had been addicted long enough to deserve it, otherwise it had the potential to create more harm than help in the long run.

There is other ways to treat it, there is non opiate comfort meds and shit like that, that can get you feelin just about fine thru the week that you have to deal with your light withdrawal symptoms. IMO If the withdrawal aint strong enough to make you physically unable to do your day to day lifeits better to just ride it out with your meds, good rest, and the shit i suggested before. why make it harder when you can just kick and get thru it. Like i said, if your WD symptoms make it impossible for you to leave the house, if you are so uncomfortable you cant work, cant do shit, then by all means u should get some sub or methadone, I am just sayin, why get on that and have to kick that too if you can just get thru the first couple days with some minor discomfort?

All Im sayin is that in some cases MMT and SMT just aint necessary. IF ANYTHING, a DETOX using LOW doses of suboxone would benfit this person who fits that profile, but staying on methadone or sub as a MAINTENANCE program is fuckin ridiculous. I dont feel like only heroin users shoud be entitled to gettin releif and comfort when they are kickin. It aint some kind of elite club or nothing. But I am just sayin that suggesting maintenance to somebody with this kind of habit (and not only loperamide in general, but just the general rush to recommend it to anybody with ANY form of dependence, even when its extremely mild) dont always require it. If a person smokes like 3 cigarettes a day, it would be stupid for them to get the nicotine patch or gum, they should just taper down their cigs and eventually quit. its the same thing here. I aint here to judge how bad or not ppls addictions are. and that aint wat im tryin to do.

but I am just tryin to point out that in general I dont think smt and mmt should be the FIRST option of treatment for everybody on any end of the addiction spectrum. And I aint only talkin about loperamide here cuz it got its own set of problems that come with it obviously,so i aint tryin to knock this person or say they are stupid or dont deserve treatment, i just dont know of sub or methadone is really the best option especially consderin that they can easily taper off with some help and other meds , and could avoid the kicking of the done or sub which would definately be worse than the wd from the loperamide would. So in case it aint clear, i am talkin in general about the way people think that the second they develop a minor habit that it immediately deserves the heavy duty anti-addiction artillery of methadone or suboxone. I dont want to make it sound like i feel like only some drugs deserve sub and meth. assistance, cuz everybody differnt, and there can be a heroin user who only chips and has a minor , small habit, and there could be a hydrocodone user using like 300mg a day , obviously the hydro user got a worse problem.

I aint tryin to discriminate against the users of certain drugs at all. just that if a habit aint that severe why use the treatment intended for a severe problem, I guess thats really all I am tryna say, and people should try an consider that sometimes it aint the best idea and realize that their use can be modified and treated with other options instead of automatically assuming they NEED sub or methadone when it prolly really aint needed at all...

.I dont know Im sorry if ppl feel offended from this, but it can just be really frustratin to read about people complaining about their 'horrible addictions' to weak-ass, legal opiods , when i have slept homeless , broke, and half dead due to heroin and completely destroyed parts of my life, relationships, and body due to my addiction. everyone feels their own pain and i cannot judge them for theirs ,but im just sayin, when you been to hell and back over this shit and then hear somebody like, Oh, well, i am totally addicted because i had slight muscle aches from the drug that i can legally purchase for almost no money at all, at any store in the country, its just like damn grow some balls, you aint got no idea wat its really like and just how low you can go. Like in Half baked when Bob saget goes "you addicted to WEED?! Have you ever sucked dick for WEED?!" LOL. similar feelin, just I never sucked dick for dope, but the point is the same, when you been destroyed by shooting dope you just cant comprehend how somebody can think that eating otc anti diarreah medication is really that huge of a deal....
 
Last edited:
8mg of sub is absolutely ridiculous for a "loperamide addiction." The OP even said that the suboxone didn't completely relieve the withdrawals, she still felt cloudy in the head or some shit. She was probably nodding from that dose of suboxone, I mean damn.

Anyway, I agree with Lacy that there really should be a certain line here when you consider MMT or suboxone treatment. Someone who is addicted to codeine or loperamide should definitely not take bupe or methadone, it would be complete and total overkill. If you want to taper in those circumstances, all you do is taper with the drug you are already using, no need to make things more complicated with a stronger drug.

I am addicted to poppy pod tea. I can't begin to imagine how much morphine I might be ingesting, but I use enough to get me nodding for several days then I quit to reduce tolerance. The withdrawals that I experience are my own personal hell, but I know that they are not nearly bad enough to require sub or methadone. Hell, I took .5mg of buprenorphine in withdrawal and I felt high from it so I know that would be overkill for me. I imagine that most codeine WD's would be of a lesser intensity than mine.
 
I'm pleased that not everyone assumes that all posters about loperamide are automatically trolling these days. I hasten to add that it's not a drug I've ever used, never mind abused but many moons ago I had a girlfriend who took it to help with diarrhea caused by cessation of a relatively mild heroin smoking habit. She genuinely found that the loperamide had an effect on all the withdrawals, somewhat similar to a low dose of fentanyl but longer lasting. While I realise that this is highly subjective and anecdotal I personally believe that a small number of people have a blood-brain barrier which is way more permeable to loperamide than the vast majority. Since, as Tchort points out, this drug is a powerful agonist when made to reach the brain these few would experience some genuine effects. I am annoyed at past trollers for murkying the waters but I believe the OP in this case. Incidentally my ex kicked the loperamide by tapering but incredibly it took her nearly twice as long to taper as the smoked H had!
Peace, Ethnobot
 
I read this topic awhile back and I didn't post in it.

According to my post records, I remember I was taking loperamide daily by January '09. I have a pain problem and a doctor problem. None of the doctors I have gone to can explain why I have pain in my groin and left testicle (ever since a kidney stone).. I am in debt from doctors who didn't help me, many who insulted me and called me a drug seeker.

I found my own solution. I ended up on loperamide daily. This was only affordable because of a warehouse website I could order from where I got boxes of 800 2mg pills for about 5-6 dollars a piece.

With that said, taking it daily does produce a high. It seems like you don't even need cimetidine. I was taking enough to kill my pain problem, and to be real, sometimes enjoying the effects. The most i'd take any given day I think was up to about 150-200 mg's.. that was the high end. Usually, I'd wake up and take 100-120 mg's worth, then maybe boost it with 20-40 mg's more in the later day. This quickly became a problem, like with any opiate.

I am currently on day 6 of a hellish withdrawal. It is worse than the withdrawal from using pods for around a month, or any withdrawal I had from pain meds when my kidney stone ended. The worst part is the restless legs. I felt I had to quit because if I didn't wake up at the same time daily, I'd end up going to work or out and until my dose kicked in, I felt like I was in withdrawal. The hot/cold thing was really starting to bother me.. It was becoming a daily affair.. Even if I dosed at the same time every day, I got tolerant enough to it that I'd have started to need more. That's when I decided to stop.

I have been having quite a rough time sleeping. Classic opiate withdrawal. I post this for one reason: If loperamide gets you high, don't think of it as a ticket to easy-access daily opiation. The withdrawal gets worse than some other things I've been on. Like the OP, I've not been on heroin or anything, and the loperamide habit is the longest opioid habit I've had other than pods or poppy seed tea for a month or 2 at a time. At first I thought it was a godsend. I was bitter and angry that the doctors didn't help me, and I felt good about having something to take care of the pain. Now the pain is back, but I'm somewhat happy to be on day 6. One major thing I've noticed is that everything is brighter.. metaphorically and physically.. things are getting brighter each day. It's like color has returned to my world.

Now if I could just get some damn sleep.. This is a word of warning. If loperamide gets you high, good for you, it does for me too, but don't think of it as a no-strings-attached thing. Yes, I was stupid, but I was also desperate like many people looking up threads on loperamide. If you start using it, it's not as euphoric as other opiates, you gotta take a LOT to get a good high from it, and daily use will give bad withdrawals. Just my 2 cents. I decided to cold-turkey off of it.. The only aid I have is a bag of bali kratom.. I don't want to use that either, because I want the w/d to be done and over with, but I need 1 TBSP to be able to sleep.. I haven't been using it during the day. It's the only way I can sleep. Slowly, things are returning to normal for me.

So, if that's case #2 on bluelight of loperamide addiction, please know I'm not a troll and I'm only posting this as a sort of wakeup call to anyone who is currently in my former vein of thought.. This stuff will cause withdrawals if you use it a lot just like any other opiate.
 
First of all whoever suggested this person get on Subs of Methadone is giving the most terrible advice ive ever heard........


I agree with lacey


Ofcourse your gonna get withdrawals from something that is physically meant to brick up your shit..

I dont know what people expect if you take anything on daily basis I dont care what it is you are gonna feel different when you stop...

I would suggest either cold turkey or taper.....

If you would like to play with matches go ahead and try sub or done but dont be surprised if the forest burns down... These are way easier to quit then lope
 
sub or done does seem a little outrageous for a lope addiction. I'm not tryin to downsize the OPs problem, but the suggested alternatives are way worse.
 
People keep downplaying loperamide withdrawal, something most of the people commenting have never experienced. I have gone 2 weeks or so now without, cold turkey off of my near-yearlong habit, and I keep having suicidal ideations. My willpower is able to force them away, but the prolonged depressed emotions is rough to deal with.

Instead of thinking of this as "Oh someone is addicted to anti-shit meds", think of it as "Someone has been taking a long acting opioid for a long time and is having withdrawal".. I'm telling you from personal experience, it's worse than withdrawal from tramadol, kratom, and it seems to be longer lasting than pod withdrawal.

Keep an open mind people. The point of warning people is because people seem to consider loperamide a way to get off of opiates. The warning here is that you can get just as habituated and dependent on the loperamide, and if it gets you high, the w/d will be just as bad as any other opiate, and quite possibly worse than many because it lasts like 12 hours. I was finally able to sleep 5 hours on day 8 or 9, and the sleep disturbances lessened. The kratom I was using to ease the withdrawals ran out, and the only withdrawal symptoms I have left are the dysphoric feelings and depressed thoughts. I don't enjoy fighting off thoughts like "I wish I'd just die. I wish no one would care, so I'd not feel guilty about doing it" all day long. It's not a healthy mindset. If people use it longer than I did, or at higher doses per day, then some sort of opioid addiction therapy with something to help the mental state might be called for.

Don't downplay the withdrawal because it's called imodium. That's as foolish as this hypothetical situation:

"Help, I can't stop tripping on DXM"
"But that's just a cough medicine, grow up"

If DXM wasn't readily recognized as a dissociative at high doses, people would be just as skeptical if someone had a problem with it. Try to put away your preconceptions when dealing with people who have a problem, because they don't fuckin help. I wish anyone going through withdrawal or addiction to loperamide (probably because it seemed like a godsend during some other form of withdrawal or pain) the best of luck. The major withdrawal symptoms will last about a week, or did for me anyway, but the malaise seems to last much longer.
 
No its not...24-32mg is a really high dose. 8mg is a moderate dose.

Suboxone is over-prescribed like crazy.
I was prescribed 32mgs to get off of a heavy Oxycodone addiction [150mg/dose; up to 390mg/day] and found that I only needed 2mgs to hold me over.
I do not feel as though 8mgs is a moderate dose.. I think many doctors see the 8mg pill as one dose and prescribe too much- making people think that they need more than 8mgs when in reality (if they experimented) they most likely wouldn't.
Just my opinion.
 
I disagree with those who say that switching to suboxone is a bad idea. Sure it's a lot stronger than lope, which isn't even meant to be used as an opiate and is an OTC anti-diarhea medicine, but I'm sure it's still a hell of a lot safer taking 2mg of sub each day instead of 100+ Loperamide pills. That much Loperamide CANNOT be good for your body at all, probably much worse for your organs than a regular opiate habit. So even though suboxone may cause a stronger addiction, I still believe it is a safer alternative health-wise. I honestly can't understand though how you can develop an addiction to a drug that doesn't even touch the opiate receptors in your brain, I didn't even know loperamide does anything to quell opiate withdrawals, except to stop the diarhea.
 
^They should stop the opioid use in general, not switch to bupe. Lope doesn't activate the opioid receptors in the brain but does activate the opioid receptors in the small intestines i believe. Still, in the big scheme of things, lope is one of the weaker opioids and should be looked at as one.

rentmitchum, you say lope should be looked at as similar to tramadol, codeine, pods, uh maybe, i don't think so but whatever, those are all pretty damn weak opioids. pods are pretty potent though, but none of those even touch withdrawal from potent opioids. try going through a diacetylmorphine withdrawal if you think a lope withdrawal is so damn bad.
 
^They should stop the opioid use in general, not switch to bupe. Lope doesn't activate the opioid receptors in the brain but does activate the opioid receptors in the small intestines i believe. Still, in the big scheme of things, lope is one of the weaker opioids and should be looked at as one.

rentmitchum, you say lope should be looked at as similar to tramadol, codeine, pods, uh maybe, i don't think so but whatever, those are all pretty damn weak opioids. pods are pretty potent though, but none of those even touch withdrawal from potent opioids. try going through a diacetylmorphine withdrawal if you think a lope withdrawal is so damn bad.

She obviously should stop but someone who gets addicted to lope and can't stop must have some serious problems or no self control so I don't think she'll be able to stop if she hasn't already. The point I was trying to make is that all that lope she is taking surely is waaay worse for her body than taking subs or having a more "regular" opiate habit. Taking over 100 anti-diarhea pills a day will probably destroy her stomach in no time and she'll be having to use a poop bag for the rest of her life. Switching to subs or any real opiate will still be way better for her health than popping all those lope, even if it does worsen her addiction. When you're popping over a hundred OTC anti-diarhea pills a day to get high, how much lower can you really go? Having a lope habit like that is pathetic and I don't even think of lope as an opioid, even a weak one. A weak opioid is codeine or hydrocodone, not lope, lope doesn't even touch the bottom of the scale in terms of getting you high and still is surely more hazardous to your body than even a strong opiate like heroin or oxy when taken in the amounts she is taking.

I'm talking mostly of opinion and don't have any proof of how much damage taking 100+ lope a day can cause to your body but it's just common sense that if she keeps taking that much anti-diarhea meds she will end up in the hospital with a serious bowel obstruction and will have to walk around with a poop bag for the rest of her life.
 
Last edited:
^well the lope itself might not be too bad, but the inactive drugs that are probably in those pills are. i don't know what inactives(if any) are in them though.
 
They are pretty small pills, at least its not like taking 100+ Advil or something. I'm not saying its good in any way, but it could be worse.
 
They are pretty small pills, at least its not like taking 100+ Advil or something. I'm not saying its good in any way, but it could be worse.

Well obviously it's not as bad as taking 100+ Advil. 100+ Advil would kill you, I used to know a middle-aged heroin addict who popped 30 Lortabs at once and had to be rushed to the ER due to internal bleeding in the stomach. Once his stomach got pumped and sowed up they told him that his stomach and liver were damaged so bad by it that he doesn't have more than a year or two left to live. Taking a shitload of OTC pills is ten times worse than taking a sub or even shooting up smack. I'd much rather have a bad habit with pretty much any "real" drug than have to pop 100+ Lope's every day, or even worse 30+ APAP every day.
 
Immodium A-D Caplets:

2mg Loperamide

Inactive ingredients:

Dibasic calcium phosphate, magnesium stearate, microcrystalline cellulose, colloidal silicon dioxide, FD&C Blue #1 and D&C Yellow #10.
 
I know this thread is ancient, but I'm on the back-end of some lope wd.

Short story -> hydro -> bupe(sub) -> lope

I just used a very short period of bupe (5 days of 2mg) to get me through the tough part without getting hooked on the bupe again, and i 'think' it helped.

pretty much everybody here knows how little is known about this, and it really sucks. (for me)

i honestly think i'm finally through it all now though, because i haven't eaten an opiod (including lope), in 5 days and i'm not losing my mind. :-o wooohooo!

i am, however, still lurking around BL and a few other boards with a surplus of wd information, reading the same posts i've read dozens of times before during different phases of this superfantastic process.

the ONLY thing i could add to what Tchort threw down, is that there are two kinds of lope on the market in pill form (others in tab and liquid suspension).

the inactives in Immodium branded and higher quality generics (CVS/Walgreens) are the ones he listed above this post.

there is another generic, mostly in grocery and wal-mart type stores that usually costs about %60 in bulk. the inactive ingredients are different, and they usually take longer to completely digest and enter the system. (4 hours to kill WD instead of 2)

Inactive Ingredients: anhydrous lactose, carnauba wax, D&C yellow no. 10, FD&C blue no. 1, hypromellose, magnesium stearate, microcrystalline cellulose, polythylene glycol, pregelatinized starch

I have no idea which inactives would be healther than the other, but at 100+ tabs, NOTHING IS INACTIVE!

PS. my daily intake when i first came off hydro was 70 2mg (140mg). It was almost 1:1 with my hydro mg input. (15x10/325)

Because there's no euphoria, as was stated, it was much easier to taper. BUT YOU HAVE TO COUNT THEM OUT! Don't just throw a handful in your mouth at a time. I made that mistake and it cost me about 2 extra months of bullshit.

I know this 'supposedly' won't work for everyone. But it's really hard to believe since it did kill my WD almost completely during what would've been up to a 2 month bupe WD.

Just one more PSA kids. Try going directly to lope BEFORE hitting up the bupe(suboxone). The half-life of the bupe is a double-edged sword that hurts like HELL on the backside.
 
Top