But I need a comfort med to get off the comfort med. lol.
Sometimes that's the case. I tried using kratom to finish off a suboxone taper. I was down to a super-low dose of sub, about 1/2 mg a week broken up into every other day, when I hit a wall. Went into severe w/d that never seemed to end. I went cold-turkey for about 3 weeks and the withdrawals hadn't eased up at all, so I ordered some kratom, since it's short-acting, unlike Sub, to try to finish. What happened was that the kratom did a great job on some symptoms and nothing for others, and eventually I went back on Sub, but still at a low dose, this time 1mg weekly divided up into every other day. But the kratom had potentiated my habit, I think, and now I can't go the full two days without needing something in the meantime. So I have a double habit, albeit at a very low dose of both. Since my doctor, who has retired, said he'd keep me on for longer as a private pay, and I can stay on the Sub, I'm trying to stop taking the kratom altogether, but I'm still taking a little on that second day. I don't know the dosage of the caps I get, but I usually take two when I get symptoms, which lasts 8-12 hours, then I take another two the second night as well, and the next day I got back to Sub. One thing I've really noticed is that the Sub gives me some energy and gets me out of bed and functioning, where the kratom doesn't. It makes my legs stop shaking, makes me stop yawning and my nose stop running, but I could lie in bed all day and do nothing. Part of my issue may be that I've been on one opiate or another for virtually all of my adult life, and the Suboxone for about the last ten years. On top of that I have many other life-challenging health problems that are affected when I go into w/d: end-stage cirrhosis, severe COPD with oxygen dependency 24/7, and a spinal deformity that keeps me from standing up straight that I'd have surgery on if my lungs could tolerate the anesthesia. I think that's why doctors aren't that concerned about whether I remain on Sub indefinitely; it's probably only going to be a few years at the most. That's what I told them, that with the limited amount of "quality time" I had left, I didn't want to spend months suffering from withdrawal symptoms. If it were only a dependency on something short-term, where I could kick and be done with it in a few days, I'd be all for it, but not when it just goes on and on and on...