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methadone, buprenorphine and other opioid pharmacotherapies

That's not universally true. I ended up wretchedly sick after injecting suboxone, you couldn't pay me to do it again. I was kind of pissed off after half of bluelight assured me that there was no way the naloxone would overpower the buprenorphine, but surprise! Nothing like sitting on the toilet, sweating through your clothes and pouring out both ends.
 
Crankinit said:
That's not universally true. I ended up wretchedly sick after injecting suboxone, you couldn't pay me to do it again. I was kind of pissed off after half of bluelight assured me that there was no way the naloxone would overpower the buprenorphine, but surprise! Nothing like sitting on the toilet, sweating through your clothes and pouring out both ends.
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Well - sounds like you went into precipitated withdrawal. That could only happen, I'm fairly certain, if you still had something on board your receptors when you injected the 'box. In that case - the bupe will throw you into precipitated w/d just as effectively as the naloxone. Injecting subutex (buprenorphine only) will throw you into w/d if your receptors are occupied with other opiates..
 
My friend just had an allergic reaction to the naloxone in suboxone and had to go to hospital.

Please be careful when trying sub's for the first time, or when giving out doses to people ;)
 
ayjay said:
Well - sounds like you went into precipitated withdrawal. That could only happen, I'm fairly certain, if you still had something on board your receptors when you injected the 'box. In that case - the bupe will throw you into precipitated w/d just as effectively as the naloxone. Injecting subutex (buprenorphine only) will throw you into w/d if your receptors are occupied with other opiates..
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At the time, I hadn't used any other opiates in months. The suboxone was the only thing in my system.
 
My gp wasn't quite as understanding as he made out to be and he reduced my oxy prescription by heaps over just a week. I was in constant WDs. Really sick and unable to function. So I upped the dose myself and told him why I had done it. He said he wouldnr be my gp since I couldn't adhere to his dosing schedule. So I've gone back to IVing the last of the hydromorph that I had. I've been trying to get in touch with a private clinic (I have insurance) to help me ASAP but no-one will answer. My gp won't help, I'm nearly out of hydrmorph and I've been suicidal. I told my gp i'd been injecting because I needed help and now he has turned his back on me. I've tried calling some detox clinics but they've told me I need to see their intake doctors first. Their intake doctors won't answer their phones.
I don't know what else to do?
I am so close to ending it :'(
 
full of opiates said:
My gp wasn't quite as understanding as he made out to be and he reduced my oxy prescription by heaps over just a week. I was in constant WDs. Really sick and unable to function. So I upped the dose myself and told him why I had done it. He said he wouldnr be my gp since I couldn't adhere to his dosing schedule. So I've gone back to IVing the last of the hydromorph that I had. I've been trying to get in touch with a private clinic (I have insurance) to help me ASAP but no-one will answer. My gp won't help, I'm nearly out of hydrmorph and I've been suicidal. I told my gp i'd been injecting because I needed help and now he has turned his back on me. I've tried calling some detox clinics but they've told me I need to see their intake doctors first. Their intake doctors won't answer their phones.
I don't know what else to do?
I am so close to ending it :'(
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dont do anything silly man if worst comes to worse go to the hospitable and tell them whats going on im sure they will put you into some sort of clinic to help you through you WD's.DONT DO ANYTHING DUMB MAN ITS NOT WORTH DIEING OVER DRUGS! be safe PLUR please let us know whats going on PLEASE!
 
Thanks for your comments guys. I was feeling pretty awful last night. When I woke up this morning I had bad WDs. Felt like I had the flu & started vomiting. Luckily I was able to get in to see a gp (at the clinic where my usual arsehole gp is), who deals with pain med patients a lot. She could see I was in WD. I told her the whole story. She has given me a script for some valium & oxy (I can only pick up a certain number each day from the chemist) to tide me over and is making some calls to try and get me into a detox clinic. I have to go back and see her again tomorrow. She said no-one will help me with depression until i've detoxed from the pain meds, so this is really the only way I can do it. I hope she can get me in somewhere quickly.

It was really shameful :( she asked me if I'd been doctor shopping & forging scripts etc. I've never done anything like that! I've only ever taken what I was prescribed. Only I was IVing, and that's where I f#@+ed it all up. I only ever did it for pain relief. I was never getting high off it.

Anyway, I still feel sick and miserable but I feel a little better than last night. At least now I have someone trying to help me (unlike my old bastard gp), and I'm not as physically sick as I was. I wish I'd never been honest with him.

Thanks for your kind messages last night. I don't post heaps but it was really good to know there was actually someone out there listening. Now I don't feel quite so alone.
So yeah, thanks.
 
im really glad to hear your ok and have found a decent doctor :) you should fucking report your last doctor what he did to you sounds like something that needs to be reported even if you are a "drug user" if your ever feeling shit from WD's have some codeine,i was feeeling pretty average yesterday and although i dont like to admit it i think it was due to opiates :\ i dosed a huge dose of codeine and after a somewhat scary experience (welts started to pop up on my arms after some intense itching,ive gone pink from having too much codes before but neever welted up)i was feeling dandy and today i feel fine.no sweating running to the toilet feeling sick ect ect
 
I've swollen up and itched like fuck from the massive histamine release that codeine has. If you're taking large doses of codeine make sure to have an anti histamine like promethazine or diphenhydramine.

Full of opiates hang in there. Hopefully you get into a detox soon. At leAst you have oxy and Valium to tide you over. Be careful Just remind yourself that WDs will end. Even stopping cold turkey you'll be feeling much better after a week and you'll be pretty much back to normal after two weeks.

I went through a methadone heroin and cocaine detox 2 months ago. I'm feeling much better now. I would have been feeling better sooner but I binged on Xanax when I came out of the detox and had to go through WDs from them too. Be careful with the Valium.

Good luck dude.
 
Thanks for your messages guys. The 2nd gp helped me get into a clinic really quickly (that deals with detox and depression), so that's where I am now. The 30mg of OxyC twice daily she prescribed me (for 2 days) was still so low that it just dragged out my WDs. So I took my last 30mg OxyC & then IVed the last of my hydromorph (24mg) yesterday morning, just to avoid WDs.

At lunch time the gp rang me to say she'd found a place in a private clinic for me (which is a friggen miracle because most of the ones we contacted told us 2mth wait just for an assessment). So last night i came down here to a clinic in melb. Its been about 32hrs since my last HM IV so I am feeling really shitful. The doc here gave me maxalon, valium & clonidine to help with the WDs but I can't start on the Suboxone until the morning 'cause the other opiates have to be out of my system before I can have bupe or I'll go into precipitated WDs. Then I go on a 10day rapid bupe detox. So tonight is going to be a very long and painful night. Last night I was awake til 4, sweating and cramping. Tonight will be so much worse :'(
I'm glad I am finally getting some help but this isn't any easier than going gold turkey at home, so far.

If I'm struggling when I go home (& things go ok with the bupe this week), I might think of finding a new private gp who I can talk to about bupe maintenance.
But its not a path I really want to go down, but I just want a normal life again. I didn't ever do any of this to get high, I was just trying to deal with an injury!

Anyway, I really want to thank you guys for your advice & support.
 
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Just wondering what the thought process is in doing a rapid 10 day bupe taper if your aim is to get on a program. You should just look for a program to get into.

And getting the HM out of your body, which is initiating the wd process, then jumping on bupe only having to then wd from that seems counter-productive. Youll likely feel even worse, physically and emotionally, having to go through it twice in such a short time.

Clearing out the HM is going to be quicker and easy with the headstart you have rather than the drawn out experience with bupe.

Some more food for thought is stay inpatient but forget the bupe and stick with the clonidine annd valium to drive you home through the wds.

Best of luck however you go mate.
 
Getting off opiates is never easy, but it's a lot easier to get off those with shorter half lives such as hydromorphone, oxycodone, morphine etc. than maintenance drugs such as buprenorphine or methadone. If you're going to do a rapid detox, don't go onto a program, as tentram said that's going to be a lot harder to get off than what you're going through now. I know it doesn't feel like it can get any worse, but it can, and for much longer.

There is no magic bullet here, that's why people are addicted to heroin in the first place. It's fucking hard to get off. It's a shame that medical professionals think it's all in the head, or we only go through "mild, flu-like symptoms" when trying to quit.

If you want out, do it now. It's only going to get harder and harder.
 
I wish I'd read your posts this morning...
I did have an awful night. I was in the bathroom most if the night. The maxalon they gave me didn't do much. I didn't realise just how addicted my body was to the hydromorph... I had an idea, 'cause i've been tapering & tried cold turkey before myself. But yeah. Not fun.

This morning I've just layed in bed aching & feeling really down. They told me at 9 I had to go & get my meds (4mg suboxone & nurofen), so I just did what they said. They crush up the tablet into a fine powder & then watch you put it under your tongue (so no chance of spitting it out or anything). I'm only feeling mildly better now and its been about 2hrs.

I really don't know why they make you go through WDs from your DOC then make you take bupe for a week. I just trusted that they know what they're doing, and am grateful that someone is trying to help me. So I'm doing as I'm told. I was just happy they were giving me something that would help with the WDs...

It says something on wiki under bupe about how it is being used in rapid detox, but I'm not sure what the logic is. I probably should be asking more qns, but to be honest, I was just so relieved someone was helping me. I've been feeling so terrible. The last 3 years have been really hard (going through all the pain/injury, through all the pain meds as each stopped working, losing my (really great & well paid) full time job because I couldnt work, compensation claim refusals- even with several specialists backing me up, waiting for surgery, actually going through some major surgery & rehab, then discovering I am now addicted to the friggen meds!) but the last 3 weeks have really been hell! Since I admitted my problem to my gp, all of a sudden I'm being treated like scum.

The only reason I mentioned possibly a maintenance program is because I realise now that I have an emotional dependence on pain meds, and I dont know how I'm going to fill that hole. If you know what I mean? I want to be off them, I really do. I only ever took them for pain, but I came to depend on them.
I'm just worried I'm always going to be looking for something. Some magic pill that will make me feel better...

Thanks for your comments guys, I am going to ask to see the doctor to ask what the logic behind the bupe detox is? Surely just some counselling is what is needed after you have gone through WDs already?
 
Not many addicts wanted to become addicts. A lot of people have gone through exactly what you have.

A short bupe taper will make getting off completely a little more comfortable for you than cold turkey, and they say that relapse rates are lower through a bupe taper.

I don't think too highly of what doctors think of addiction and its treatment. I seem to know a lot more about the drugs they're prescribing than each doctor that I've been treated from. Obviously, you shouldn't act arrogant around them, but ask questions and be sceptical of what they say. They often don't know nearly as much as they think they do.
 
IMO there is a benefit to a rapid bupe taper - I've done that myself (not inpatient), and you can drop down quickly to nothing with relatively little pain. A lot less painful than going through the WDs without anything. If you do it rapidly, such as over ten days, the long, drawn out WD of bupe hasn't been so much of an issue for me. Maybe because it doesn't allow blood concentrations of bupe to build up like they do in maintenance, which given the long half life of bupe, can then take awhile to be eliminated.

It doesn't make sense to me they waited so long to let you dose the sub, though. It's been my understanding that it's safe to take sub as soon as you feel sick, and this has always worked for me. I dose sub as soon as I feel a glimmer of WDs and have never gone into precipitated WDs. This is just an anecdotal experience, but I was advised to wait 24 hours to be safe from long acting opioids, and for short acting ones, 12 hours.

I just wanted to say something about you mentioning your emotional dependence on opioids as a possible reason to go on maintenance. In my opinion and experience, maintenance primarily helps with the physical withdrawal of opioids, and won't, at least to a large extent, address the emotional and psychological aspect of using. It's not a replacement of your usual opioid in the sense that it's unlikely to provide you with the psychological comfort or 'satisfaction' of taking something that has an immediate effect and alleviates your pain, and thus, I think it's unlikely to 'fill the hole', as you put it. I've just seen people, including posters on here, go on wild goose chases with ever increasing doses of bupe/methadone, because they are expecting maintenance to be be a legal replacement for their opioid 'fix' (whatever that entails), but it is unlikely to deliver that in the long term.

Good luck with your detox and whatever you choose in the future.
 
I would normally shake my head in disgust at injecting prescription drugs used for the treatment of opioid dependency, but yeah, I'm addicted to codeine and benzodiazepines right now, so I can relate to how you guys feel.

:).
 
Thanks Opi8 & footscrazy. So the general consensus is that a rapid detox bupe taper is a good thing? I haven't felt great today, but I imagine I'd have felt worse if they hadn't given me 8mg of suboxone (in 2 4mg doses).

Footscrazy, I'm not certain exactly why they waited to dose the first lot of sub. I had my last IV of hydromorph at 11am tues morning. I came into the clinic that arvo and they gave me 30mg of Oxy that night and another wed morning (which didnt do anything to help the pain of WD). I saw the drug Dr wed lunch and he said he didn't want to give me the sub until 24hrs after my last oxy dose. So I was basically in WDs from tues night until this morning (although I still feel pretty shit). If the clinic hadn't given me those two useless oxy doses, I could have started on the sub at wed lunch... But anyway.

I get what you are saying footscrazy, about a bupe maintenance program not being the answer to my problems. I guess some good therapy is what is needed. I'm just scared. I've relied on these drugs to get me through the day for so long... There were so many days that the pain was so great that i couldn't get out of bed until the oxynorm had kicked in etc. I guess I just don't know how I'll cope.

Kazza69MeBaby, you are way off the mark. I have never IVed drugs for the treatment of opioid dependency, only ever for pain relief once the other pain meds had all stopped working & there was nowhere else to go. I'm not proud of what I did & it got my into a really sucky situation, which I am paying for now.
But I reckon you should read entire posts before you comment on a person's circumstances.
 
Again, thanks for your input guys. Its been a real struggle & this is all new ground for me. I never thought I'd get addicted to anything 'cause I didn't ever seem to get 'high' off anything but weed (only drug I haven't tried is H). I've only ever used narcotics for pain, so I didn't ever expect to find myself in this situation. So yeah, anyway, thanks for listening.
 
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