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Opioids Big and Dandy Loperamide Adddiction Thread

Loperamide Withdrawal

I did a search for a similar topic and couldn't find anything about WD from high doses of lope.

So I was just wondering -

I took high doses up loperamide (beggining at around 60mg, then increasing to 180mg and finally decreasing down to zero) for the first 45 days or so after I quit suboxone, and my addict brain is just wondering as to whether its more the lope I'm still experiencing WD symptoms from, or the bupe, which I haven't taken in nearly 4 months. Surely its a combination of both, and the fact that my opiate receptors have been saturated for years, but I can't shake off the belief that loperamide might cause methadone like WD's if taken for long periods at high doses.

For me, and maybe only me and a minority of people, loperamide taken all by itself causes full opioid effects - including pinned pupils, itching, warmth and a strong sense of euphoria.

So, has anyone ever been on lope for an extended period of time and then stopped it and faced WD's? Where they very slow and drawn out like methadone? Since a lope high lasts so long (6 - 8 hours of euphoria and 30 to 40 hours of the opiate fuzzies) I think its WD syndrome would be similar.

I also just need one more reason to not go and "cop" come lope, as cravings for diarrhea medicine have become to biggest challenge to my recovery.
 
I'll give you one reason to "cop" some lope...start tapering. Don't replace an OTC addiction with methadone or bupe. Just buy a shitload of generic lope, have some willpower, and taper like you would with any other opiate. Otherwise, just cold-turkey it. The withdrawals will be entirely physical. At least I think so anyway...I can't fathom the idea of intense mental cravings for diarrhea medicine.
 
What symptoms do you think you're getting from loperamide withdrawal? Afaik, it doesn't get passed the bbb, and I can't imagine you getting anything worse than some diarrhea.

For me, and maybe only me and a minority of people, loperamide taken all by itself causes full opioid effects - including pinned pupils, itching, warmth and a strong sense of euphoria.
First time I hear of this. Anyone else?
 
everytime I see one of these threads I think bullshit.......a very minuscule amount passes the bbb, but not enough to have any effects. It really baffles me how people are saying you can get high off this.
 
no, this certainly isnt the first i've heard of it....it's been discussed quite thoroughly that a small percentage of people do receive central effects from varying large doses of loperamide, and some people claim PGP inhibitors to help (wiki seams to agree)

certainly, don't go to bupe or methadone....the best idea is to taper, or perhaps use some kratom, but I wouldn't consider meth or bupe to be a step in the right direction, at all
 
everytime I see one of these threads I think bullshit.......a very minuscule amount passes the bbb, but not enough to have any effects. It really baffles me how people are saying you can get high off this.

I would normally agree but since I have personally never tried taking high doses of lope to get high or help a taper, I cannot say for sure that what the OP is saying is false.
I know from experience that just because you havent heard of it before, or that other people disagree, that doesnt mean its not true. Alot of people still tell me all the time that the fact im able to get a high everyday off of low dose bupe and still not be addicted to it and have no withdrawals is impossible but I know for a fact that is IS possible so I can see how what the OP is saying could be truth.
I also know that normally lope doesnt cross the BBB in any significant amount but there are other drugs you can take with it in order to drastically increase the amount that crosses. Maybe this has something to do with what the OP is saying, I dont know. But I simply dont see a reason for him to lie about this.
 
Lots of people use loperamide to get opioid effects to combat withdrawal. I'm on the tail end of doing that now. And if taken in sufficient amounts, for many people, it does provide opiate effects. Personally I never got euphoria off of it though. Just a heavy feel. It's actually a little uncomfortable for me unless I'm withdrawing and then it makes the withdrawal about 90% gone... quite effective.

Yeah, it's marketed as diarrhea medicine, but it's an opioid. Back in the day morphine was marketing as diarrhea medicine too... and as just about anything else, and it was over the counter. Does that make it bullshit?

To answer the OP's question, I do believe loperamide has its own withdrawal effects, which basically consist of weak opiate withdrawals, pretty much isolated to the physical. I find that quitting opiates (which I did months ago), once the acute withdrawals are past, leaves you with a lot of excess energy which can sometimes become very uncomfortable and make it hard to rest. Loperamide gets rid of this. All I know is that whenever I have taken loperamide a few times in a row (36-48 hours between doses when I'm trying to ease withdrawal), minor physical withdrawal effects come back after the last dose, every time. It's hard to say but I think I have narrowed it down to loperamide actually having its own withdrawal (assuming it's affecting you in the way we're discussing anyway). But compared to all opiates I've withdrawn from (kratom, morphine, tramadol, poppy seeds/pods, heroin), it's by far the easiest, really just kind of annoying.

Now, I only ever taken about 60mg at a time, or less. So maybe at 180mg, it would be worse. So I'd try to just cold-turkey, and if it becomes unbearable, "cop" some loperamide and taper. It should be easy to taper since it's not really "drug-like" (at least for me... it just stops me from feeling uncomfortable withdrawal feelings).
 
^from everything I have read and my own experiences using lope for w/d or tapering half-dozen to a dozen times, this is spot on.

You are out of the loop, Mr. Phreezy!

There are lots of misconceptions about loperamide... usually in the form of 'it DOESN'T at all pass the BBB' or 'its just a regular opioid and has all the normal opioid effects'.

The reality is that it does pass through the BBB but *most* of it is exported back by P-glycoprotein. If you take a high enough dose, enough will not be exported back over the BBB to produce substantial and noticeable (albeit atypical and less euphoric) central effects.

When coming off ~150mg oral morphine/day I found 24mg of loperamide to kill about 80% of my withdrawals. Some argue that this quantity will "plug you up for days" and risk bowel impaction and the like but from my experience, this also wasn't true. Opioid users develop a tolerance to the constipating effects of opioids as well so when I was using loperamide to prevent withdrawals between using typical full-agonists or using it to taper, I went to the bathroom normally everyday without even difficulty let alone drawn out, painful constipation.

As the OP mentioned, loperamide has a very long duration of effects and half-life so if taken in sufficient quantities, I would expect a drawn out withdrawal. Since loperamide typically comes in 2mg pills, a slow taper reducing the dose by 1 or 2mg/day is very easy.

Also, OP- you aren't ever really withdrawing from bupe, loperamide, heroin, etc. but withdrawing from opioids and that is why by-and-large they all share the same effects and the only significant change in the character of the withdrawal between substances is the duration. This is evidenced by the fact that you can be fully dependent on bupe and take lope in the right doses and have zero withdrawal. You aren't withdrawing from bupe when on lope, or withdrawing from heroin when on bupe, etc.

An opioid is an opioid so you aren't dependent on a specific substance but on OPIOIDS.
 
Eagleman-

I may have not made it clear. I finished my lope taper more than a month ago and have been opiate free ever since. its just I am experiencing lingering withdrawal symptoms and wonder what their exact source is.

And all opiates are "diarrhea medicine."

phrozen -

Loperamide has been discussed extensively on bluelight, opiophile and plenty of other online forums. I have yet to find anyone (other than people with massive heroin habits) who have ever tried large doses (80mg+) of lope and NOT had opiate effects, or at least a dramatic reduction in their opiate wd's. Most people don't like the high. Some do. But lope seems to pass everyones bbb at large doses. Potentiators discussed on wikipedia never made any difference in the high for me - it crosses the bbb all by itself.

FattyAcid -

I never said I was considering using methadone or bupe. I used the lope to get off of bupe.

jamesBrown -

Thank you. Open mindedness is key when dealing with all the variations in peoples experiences with drugs.

Xorkoth -

I think i got the same dirty high you describe the first dozen or so times I took lope. There was no euphoria, just a filthy feeling opiate high that made my vision a little blurry and my eyes red.

But one day I took it and felt no effects for 3 hours. Then, I felt that dirty high for a little bit (30mins or so) and then it led way to a feeling of energy and euphoria. Worked the same way every time after that, though tolerance to the euphoria increases rapidly. I was chasing the immodium dragon.

I wish I hadn't ever gotten euphoria from it made tapering more challenging. But as I said before, I have already finished my taper and am more referring to the residual PAWS. Also I'm just curious.

My guess is if one were to tape lope at doeses over 120mg a day for a prolonged time, beyond the danger of bowel obstruction during use, the WD's would be comparable to poppy tea wd's. Long and very difficult.
 
Well Lope is certainly a god-send for withdrawal, but getting high off it? idk........maybe if you tooke a high enough dose with no previous opiate tolerance.
 
lol chasing the immodium dragon, sorry bro but i gotto laugh!
 
^from everything I have read and my own experiences using lope for w/d or tapering half-dozen to a dozen times, this is spot on.

You are out of the loop, Mr. Phreezy!

There are lots of misconceptions about loperamide... usually in the form of 'it DOESN'T at all pass the BBB' or 'its just a regular opioid and has all the normal opioid effects'.

The reality is that it does pass through the BBB but *most* of it is exported back by P-glycoprotein. If you take a high enough dose, enough will not be exported back over the BBB to produce substantial and noticeable (albeit atypical and less euphoric) central effects.

When coming off ~150mg oral morphine/day I found 24mg of loperamide to kill about 80% of my withdrawals. Some argue that this quantity will "plug you up for days" and risk bowel impaction and the like but from my experience, this also wasn't true. Opioid users develop a tolerance to the constipating effects of opioids as well so when I was using loperamide to prevent withdrawals between using typical full-agonists or using it to taper, I went to the bathroom normally everyday without even difficulty let alone drawn out, painful constipation.

As the OP mentioned, loperamide has a very long duration of effects and half-life so if taken in sufficient quantities, I would expect a drawn out withdrawal. Since loperamide typically comes in 2mg pills, a slow taper reducing the dose by 1 or 2mg/day is very easy.

Also, OP- you aren't ever really withdrawing from bupe, loperamide, heroin, etc. but withdrawing from opioids and that is why by-and-large they all share the same effects and the only significant change in the character of the withdrawal between substances is the duration. This is evidenced by the fact that you can be fully dependent on bupe and take lope in the right doses and have zero withdrawal. You aren't withdrawing from bupe when on lope, or withdrawing from heroin when on bupe, etc.

An opioid is an opioid so you aren't dependent on a specific substance but on OPIOIDS.

Yeah, I agree with everything you said here.

Whether through hydro, oxy, codeine, pod tea, heroin, bupe, and lope, I have been hitting my opiate receptors for six years now. Having them uncovered for the first time since I was 17 makes me feel like I just pulled a manhole cover off the top of geyser. Uncomfortable, but wonderful at the same time.
 
lol hahaha, i have only used lope for the shits..... so i got no input.... i dunno how i would feel about eating that much of it tho......
 
^its all in your head. Pharmacologically, its just an opioid with slightly unique properties... its just the stigma of eating Imodium that throws people off.
 
Well Lope is certainly a god-send for withdrawal, but getting high off it? idk........maybe if you tooke a high enough dose with no previous opiate tolerance.

I will never repeat myself again because i don't wanna become "the loperamide guy", but lope crosses the bbb. The only difference is it causes constipation at lower doses.

The high from loperamide is generally not as enjoyable as other opiates, and for many is not pleasurable at all. it takes me a few tries to get used to it and be able to recognize the good part. It doesn't force a euphoria on you like oxy - instead it slowly and gently creeps in. I'd compare it most closely to propoxyphene in terms of the feeling. It takes time to grow on you.

And my opiate tolerance isn't sky high because I had gotten down to a low dose of bupe for more than year prior to getting on the lope, but I have been on opiates non stop since 2004.

The day before i got on immodium, I went through 150mg of hydrocodone in one day and still didn't get as good of a high as I had hoped on the hydro. So I still got a tolerance.


God I am so happy I'm going to be over these damn opiates. I am so over debating the merits of diarrhea medicine online, hiding in the bathroom from my boyfriend to pop 90 immodium pills with sink water, not shitting for 6 days straight, plotting to rip off my grandma's prescriptions, spending hours drooling at pictures of opana online, befriending kids who had their wisdom teeth removed in highschool so i could jack their pills, going through screaming withdrawals during final exams, having my mom look at me like i was no longer her son and tell me she'd rather see me overdose right then than die a long slow death as a heroin addict...

never again.
 
I wonder, have there been any studies done on the effects of ultra-high doses of lope?....especially over long periods of time like in the OP's experience(45 days i think).
I dont know too much about this drug so I cant make any speculations even other than it might possibly cause some seriously debilitating constipation....other than that, i got no ideas of what, if any, negative side effects lope could have when used in such high doses over longer periods of time.
That may be something you might wanna look into OP, just in case.
 
I will never repeat myself again because i don't wanna become "the loperamide guy", but lope crosses the bbb. The only difference is it causes constipation at lower doses.

The high from loperamide is generally not as enjoyable as other opiates, and for many is not pleasurable at all. it takes me a few tries to get used to it and be able to recognize the good part. It doesn't force a euphoria on you like oxy - instead it slowly and gently creeps in. I'd compare it most closely to propoxyphene in terms of the feeling. It takes time to grow on you.

And my opiate tolerance isn't sky high because I had gotten down to a low dose of bupe for more than year prior to getting on the lope, but I have been on opiates non stop since 2004.

The day before i got on immodium, I went through 150mg of hydrocodone in one day and still didn't get as good of a high as I had hoped on the hydro. So I still got a tolerance.


God I am so happy I'm going to be over these damn opiates. I am so over debating the merits of diarrhea medicine online, hiding in the bathroom from my boyfriend to pop 90 immodium pills with sink water, not shitting for 6 days straight, plotting to rip off my grandma's prescriptions, spending hours drooling at pictures of opana online, befriending kids who had their wisdom teeth removed in highschool so i could jack their pills, going through screaming withdrawals during final exams, having my mom look at me like i was no longer her son and tell me she'd rather see me overdose right then than die a long slow death as a heroin addict...

never again.

Congrats on getting clean! I wish you the best of luck, my friend. We all know how hard it is to do what you've done, but you can now look forward to a fuller, realer life.

Don't be ashamed for championing loperamide. As Cane said, it works, and the only reason that it even has this stigma is because of people's willful ignorance about it due to its intended use and status as an OTC drug.
 
^its all in your head. Pharmacologically, its just an opioid with slightly unique properties... its just the stigma of eating Imodium that throws people off.

your totally right, thats something i normally would have picked up on.......
 
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