• BASIC DRUG
    DISCUSSION
    Welcome to Bluelight!
    Posting Rules Bluelight Rules
    Benzo Chart Opioids Chart
    Drug Terms Need Help??
    Drugs 101 Brain & Addiction
    Tired of your habit? Struggling to cope?
    Want to regain control or get sober?
    Visit our Recovery Support Forums
  • BDD Moderators: Keif’ Richards | negrogesic

Why am I not in withdrawals???

X

xZeroxCoolx

Greenlighter
Joined
Mar 19, 2018
Messages
29
I?ve been on Opiates for 11+ years..

The last couple years I?ve been on methadone 10mg x6 per day and Opana IR 10mg x8 per day.

My pharmacy shut down and I wasn?t able to find anywhere to fill my prescriptions.. so I went back to the doc and had him write me a prescription for suboxone.

I have read all over that methadone withdrawals don?t peak until the 72 hour mark and I didn?t want to put myself in precipitated withdrawals.. so I waited.

It has now been a week.. other than serious pain where I had my surgeries done I feel fine..

Does anyone have any ideas what?s going on here??
 
I’m new here.. so if this is the wrong place for this question feel free to move it where it should be. Thanks!
 
You've never abused your meds? And you've never been without them before? Been on the same stable dose or only changed by slow increments upward this entire time?

If so, while I still find it hard to believe you have NO withdrawals, it just goes to show the power of the kindling effect.
 
The Opana didn?t work orally so I used it IV.. ran out of Opana every month..

The methadone isn?t really ?abusable? tho.. I did have myself down to 1 pill per day for about a week before I ran out.

I was over prescribed the methadone in my opinion.. other than a couple days when I was coming off the Opana I never took more than 1-2 pills a day.
 
xZeroxCoolx said:
Wait.. you think I?m making this up??
Click to expand...

I do not think you are making it up.
The problem is that Methadone (as well as Buprenorphine) has a long half life, around 40 hrs and after regular use it reaches steady state of 40x5: 200 hrs.
That means that when you stop taking it you will need almost 9 days for the blood level to reach zero. Usually withdrawal symptoms show up from 3-7 days.
Acute discontinuation will be followed by mild and progressive worsening of withdrawal symptoms with a pick close to a week later.
 
That is remarkable honestly. But the fact that you never abused your meds and thus never went into withdrawal from running out probably plays a role. You haven't experienced any kindling which may be keeping withdrawal at bay.
 
I definitely abused the Opana.. every month I would shoot up for like a week while I went through the 240 pills.. I just always had Methadone and Lyrica to fall back on and have never experienced withdrawals before..
 
My pain doc says it?s my duty to humanity to find a scientist that is studying human genes in relation to opiate dependence.. he says I might be the 1 person in a billion that either has a gene or is missing a gene that could be the answer to opiate dependence.
 
1 pill per day? As in 10mg per day? No wonder you didn't WD, you tapered yourself out....nothing strange about that.
 
I?ve seen people withdraw after jumping off at 2mg of methadone.. it wasn?t pretty and both relapsed within a week.
 
I had been on these meds for a decade plus.. I was expecting crippling withdrawals.. even with suboxone.. I?ve taken half a sub twice now just because the back pain is unbearable. It doesn?t really help though so I?m not taking anymore unless I start withdrawals.

I?m going to see my pain doc Thursday.. he said we have options.. especially since I didn?t develop a physical dependence. We will see what he has in mind.

Also.. I went to the medical marijuana doctor today.. he prescribed me 50mg caps 3x a day with a vaporizer for breakthrough pain.. going to be interesting to see how that works too.
 
How long were they taking 2mg of methadone before stopping?(this is a rhetorical question, I don't really care) If they had truly stabilized on such a dose then I flat out don't believe they were having "crippling" WDs, many people relapse after quitting opiates(especially after the WD are over) and make all sorts of justifications and rationalizations to justify their actions. The kindling effect plays a very large role in the severity of WD, the kindling effect says the more times you WD the worse it gets and you are saying this is your first time, also 10mg of methadone a day is a very small dose, and now you are saying that you are taking suboxone, the whole point of suboxone is to stop WDs and it does its job very well, because guess what? Unbearable "rebound" pain is one of the first symptoms of WD. And as another poster pointed out both methadone and suboxone have very, very long half lifes, If you had been taking methadone for a decade it could be a week before its actually out of your system, and 4mg of bupe for someone who is new to it could easily keep out of WDs for 2-3 days, another thing to consider, mg for mg burprenorphine is more potent than methadone, and tolerance to bupe manifests through a different action so you may have taken your taper farther and avoided WD BY taking the bupe, but if you keep on taking it then you are going to WD from that, so if you are truly WD free my best advice would be to STOP taking buprenorphine and find whatever cocktail of non-opioid drugs/physical therapy can get you through the day. Besides the extremity of your claims(but then again I think you may not realize what is being caused by WD since this is your first time), nothing you have stated sounds 1 in a billion odd to me personally, but I may be in the minority, If you believe you are special, then go find a geneticist, you won't find a better answer than what I have said on here.
 
Last edited:
I really appreciate the reply. I?m going to see my doctor tomorrow and we?ll go from there.
 
It takes a long time to experience withdrawal from methadone. I don't know where you got that methadone withdrawal peaks at 72 hours. But if you're on an average dose and stable on it long term, I wouldn't expect withdrawal to even be particularly noticeable for longer than 72 hours. But that's only if you're stable and take it every day and it's an appropriate amount for your tolerance or higher.

Nice username by the way. ;).

P.s. If you're posting with an iPhone you can stop apostrophes getting changed to question marks by going into general settings then keyboard settings and somewhere in there is an option called smart punctuation. Turning that off will fix it.
 
Thanks for the tip on the question marks.. I?ll find the settings eventually.

I had stopped banging the Opana about 2 weeks before I jumped off the methadone. I was at 30 mg for the first week and had went down to 10 mg for a week before I stopped taking it.

This has been a cycle for me for a couple years.. I bang Opana when I first get my pills and save methadone and Lyrica for when I run out of Opana.

If my pharmacy wouldn?t have shut down I would still be doing it right now..
 
May be off the subject but hope i can find an answer. I tried kicking dope. It was 15 hours since my last use and the only withdraws were that i was feeling hot. Any thoughts on this? I only ask because ive been through withdraws after about 9 hours and had the rappid heart rate, vomiting, etc... But this is different and i don't want to take subs too soon just because i waited 24 hours.
 
OMFGGGG, when they extract that gene from you and figure out how to inject it into other people I'd love to be guinea pig #1. Pleasepleaseplease!!!

In all seriousness though, thank the heavens (if you're into that). I can't take anything more than 2 days in a row otherwise I immediately go into relatively mild withdrawals. I'm super jealous.


JessFR said:
Nice username by the way. ;).
Click to expand...

Nice catch Jess. I totally just noticed this thanks to you. I just watched that movie with my gf because she's never seen it. I still love it but I can admit that it did not hold up very well.

Gotta agree, cool username.
 
Dan2573 said:
May be off the subject but hope i can find an answer. I tried kicking dope. It was 15 hours since my last use and the only withdraws were that i was feeling hot. Any thoughts on this? I only ask because ive been through withdraws after about 9 hours and had the rappid heart rate, vomiting, etc... But this is different and i don't want to take subs too soon just because i waited 24 hours.
Click to expand...

Might have been better to start your own topic. But in answer to your question. Interesting that you feel hot. For my usually one of my earliest signs of looming withdrawal is feeling like it's getting colder.

If you're only using H and it's been 15 hours then you're probably OK to take the subuxone. But, and this is a big but. Withdrawal can be weird sometimes. You're best off using the clinical opioid withdrawal scale (the COWS) to judge when to start subuxone. It's much more reliable than number of hours. And this is especially so if you've used any opioids of any kind other than heroin over the last couple days.

Cows is the best way to go cause it's as objective as you get with this kinda thing. Even if you're only on heroin how long it'll take till you're withdrawing hard enough also depends on how frequently you use and how much. There are a lot of variables which is why it's best to go by the symptoms. Good luck.

Tombs said:
OMFGGGG, when they extract that gene from you and figure out how to inject it into other people I'd love to be guinea pig #1. Pleasepleaseplease!!!

In all seriousness though, thank the heavens (if you're into that). I can't take anything more than 2 days in a row otherwise I immediately go into relatively mild withdrawals. I'm super jealous.




Nice catch Jess. I totally just noticed this thanks to you. I just watched that movie with my gf because she's never seen it. I still love it but I can admit that it did not hold up very well.

Gotta agree, cool username.
Click to expand...

Nah. It's a great movie. Everything bad about it is what's great about it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top