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Opioids Loperamide (Imodium) Megathread v. 2

I know this is an old post, but I need to correct you here. I'm an experienced critical care nurse, and my education in pharmacology and physiology has afforded me more insight into the poop issue. You can absolutely fuck over your intestines with loperamide, even if you are used to opiates. It's because of the massive doses taken, to get the crossing of bbb that you're looking for. High doses of loperamide can cause a paralytic ileus, tissue necrosis, sepsis, shock, and death. Deaths from an ileus are a horrible way to die; I've seen many of them. If you're lucky, you'll be in a coma. Most people aren't that lucky. They die, sometimes puking shit, of a cardiac arrest, and their last many hours are spent in terrible pain, the likes of which many of us will never know. And I say that as a legitimate chronic pain sufferer. Please be careful and be kind to yourselves and your bodies. I've seen just about every way a person can die, and the peaceful deaths aren't gained through self abuse.
 
^^^ thank you!
You are correct. It is just amazing how desperate someone living in chronic pain can get sometimes.

I appreciate this information being here as there has been no information on the Internet for years concerning loperamide except that it is great to get rid of opiate withdrawal symptoms! People telling others to take hundreds of pills at a time! Ugh!

No more loperamide for me! I will make sure I do not run myself out of my prescribed medications again.
If that happens, I will have to suffer it out or go to the hospital.

I experienced the withdrawal from the loperamide and I was scared that my intestines were never going to be alright again.
I was feeling the sepsis also. I have had that before and I know what it feels like. No words. It is unspeakable.
 
I am tapering off of loperamide AGAIN. I tapered off in 2015, jumping off at 2mg 2x a day- I had barely any withdrawal. That took 2 years and my highest dose was 180mgs. Well, I was clean for 4 months and I went back to heroin. I've been back and forth with Heroin and Suboxone for the last 3 years and my goal is to get off opiates. I'm trying to do basically what I accomplished before but to do it much faster. The last few days, I haven't taken any loperamide- because I was considering just quitting at my current 96 mg a day, but the shit I'm reading on here has me rethinking. 8 weeks of withdrawal? No way am I prepared for that.
I've been taking Gabapentin because it always took my heroin withdrawals down to a tolerable level. But I'm still having some pretty awful mental side effects from this loperamide withdrawal.
Insomnia, nightmares when I do sleep, suicidal ideation, anxiety attacks, spontaneous orgasms (I do not enjoy it) very fucking bad! I am more or less physically comfortable but I can't handle the mental state... And gabapentin just enhances the weird atmosphere. So I'm NOT attempting to jump off at 96mgs (twice a day) based on what I've read here. But I am thinking that since I haven't taken loperamide for 48 hours, will it have made a dent in my tolerance? Can I take a smaller dose, like 60mgs and have it be effective? 2 days probably isn't enough to lower tolerance to opiates with a long half life but I'm going to try... Making big cuts will be easier with the gabapentin I have on hand. But I remember it taking a LONG time to adjust to a lowered dose. Wellll, here we go again, fml.
 
ophelia-artaud said:
I am tapering off of loperamide AGAIN. I tapered off in 2015, jumping off at 2mg 2x a day- I had barely any withdrawal. That took 2 years and my highest dose was 180mgs. Well, I was clean for 4 months and I went back to heroin. I've been back and forth with Heroin and Suboxone for the last 3 years and my goal is to get off opiates. I'm trying to do basically what I accomplished before but to do it much faster. The last few days, I haven't taken any loperamide- because I was considering just quitting at my current 96 mg a day, but the shit I'm reading on here has me rethinking. 8 weeks of withdrawal? No way am I prepared for that.
I've been taking Gabapentin because it always took my heroin withdrawals down to a tolerable level. But I'm still having some pretty awful mental side effects from this loperamide withdrawal.
Insomnia, nightmares when I do sleep, suicidal ideation, anxiety attacks, spontaneous orgasms (I do not enjoy it) very fucking bad! I am more or less physically comfortable but I can't handle the mental state... And gabapentin just enhances the weird atmosphere. So I'm NOT attempting to jump off at 96mgs (twice a day) based on what I've read here. But I am thinking that since I haven't taken loperamide for 48 hours, will it have made a dent in my tolerance? Can I take a smaller dose, like 60mgs and have it be effective? 2 days probably isn't enough to lower tolerance to opiates with a long half life but I'm going to try... Making big cuts will be easier with the gabapentin I have on hand. But I remember it taking a LONG time to adjust to a lowered dose. Wellll, here we go again, fml.
Click to expand...

Good luck! You can do this!

Get off the loperamide ASAP! That stuff is toxic! Very serious heart problems and worse can happen.
If I was you, I would go back to the suboxone or maybe even the H (sorry no experience with either) but both of those are safer and have a much shorter withdrawal than this loperamide stuff.

I only used the loperamide for ten days and tapered down each day. I started at 48 mg and went down to 10 mg and then switched back to morphine and still got hit with the 8 week ACUTE Loperamide withdrawals. My prescribed morphine was not touching those withdrawals either. I have heard others saying that even when tapered down and jumping from 1 mg a day, they still got hit with the 8 week full blown acute loperamide withdrawal. While I have also heard others saying they tapered off no problems really. So, I guess everyone is different.

Praying for you to get off no problems!
Let us know how it goes. ❤️
 
Day 4 with no loperamide and I am in PAIN. The huge doses of gabapentin I'm taking are helping enough to get me through work and a few hours of sleep. But the sensory/ tactile shit is still bothering me. Probably gonna buy 2 boxes of 48 and split into 3 60mg doses, and take those every 12 hours for the next couple of days. Which is a reduction from 96mg every 12 hours. I have no idea if 4 days is enough to make that big of a jump but I'm just experimenting!
I read through this thread and noticed someone going through precipitated withdrawal when trying to switch to Suboxone. I switched onto subs from loperamide one time- I switched to heroin for a week before I stopped that for 18 hours, which is enough for me to not go into precipitated withdrawal. I didn't get PW. With methadone they sometimes switch you to a short acting opiate for a week, I saw a girl on YouTube do it this way, her Dr prescribed her oxycodone for a week before switching. This is really the only safe and comfortable way to do this, when switching from a long acting opiate. I just used heroin as the short acting opiate because I didn't have access to anything else.
Ok, going to the store to get the loperamide. Hope this works.
 
Painful One said:
Good luck! You can do this!

Get off the loperamide ASAP! That stuff is toxic! Very serious heart problems and worse can happen.
If I was you, I would go back to the suboxone or maybe even the H (sorry no experience with either) but both of those are safer and have a much shorter withdrawal than this loperamide stuff.

I only used the loperamide for ten days and tapered down each day. I started at 48 mg and went down to 10 mg and then switched back to morphine and still got hit with the 8 week ACUTE Loperamide withdrawals. My prescribed morphine was not touching those withdrawals either. I have heard others saying that even when tapered down and jumping from 1 mg a day, they still got hit with the 8 week full blown acute loperamide withdrawal. While I have also heard others saying they tapered off no problems really. So, I guess everyone is different.

Praying for you to get off no problems!
Let us know how it goes. ❤️
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I'm determined to taper off of loperamide and stay away from heroin, because I don't have any one to monitor me and we have a lot of fentanyl where I live- Rochester, NY. I've overdosed 8 times, but I had my boyfriend with me to save my life. He's in jail now, and the only way I'd use heroin would be to take it for a month or more to make sure the loperamide is out of my system, then go through that withdrawal which would only last a week. I can't switch back to Suboxone either, I just can't afford it buying it off the street and it really doesn't work for me after 7 years of opiate addiction. And I successfully tapered off loperamide 3 years ago, so I know how it works. I have to get down to lower doses asap because this shit is bad for your kidneys, I think.
 
I don't know if someone has commented on this earlier, but newer literature suggests the loperamide half life guidance of 11h is likely extremely inaccurate for large doses. Larger doses may have a half life of days. Do not keep doing 12 hour dosing. Even 24h dosing should be limited to the first couple days.

Part of the reason people get so many problems is because they don't even dose appropriately for 11h, let alone several times that.
 
@svacheme3

I've heard of a few people on here mentioning that max effect is obtained by using every third day and I've found personally that 30-48 hr dosing seems to be the best for mitigating the side effects without getting to far back into WD. Although even at that I'm sure accumulation is still occurring. I'll have to search for the latest T1/2 figures and DOA.
 
Believe it or not the best I have done on Loperamide was dosing every 8-12 hours. Mainly because of the psychological effects and the long wait with longer time intervals. Get down to the lowest dose I can stand and hold there for the first week. Then drop 10 percent each week. By week 3 my bowels start to flow a little more regular.
The thing with Loperamide is the long time between dosing and relief. You have to guess at a good dose and wait 4 hours for it to work.
Make sure you have enough for a couple of days, then shop around for better prices.
 
I tried using oxy to get off Loperamide. It failed miserably. Im now going back to Loperamide so I can taper off that.

Its probably a one year plan, maybe less I hope.

It really sucks being hooked/dependant on opiates. But at least I have no fear of running out of Loperamide.
 
I feel like there is no help for us from professionals. They don?t understand. I?ve been on lope this time around at 288 mg a day for about 10 months and I am trying to switch back to suboxone. Precipitated withdrawals are hell and my dr doesn?t understand what to do to help. Maybe there isn?t help. I?m attempting to go 72 hours between doses and then start Suboxone slowly on Sunday, my dr gave me Baclofen for the withdrawals. I?ve never taken it before so no clue if it will help. I have been having lots of cardiac symptoms from the lope so I really need to do this. I jumped from the same dose onto subs in January 2016 and I?m praying I can do it again.
 
Hthr1991 said:
I feel like there is no help for us from professionals. They don?t understand. I?ve been on lope this time around at 288 mg a day for about 10 months and I am trying to switch back to suboxone. Precipitated withdrawals are hell and my dr doesn?t understand what to do to help. Maybe there isn?t help. I?m attempting to go 72 hours between doses and then start Suboxone slowly on Sunday, my dr gave me Baclofen for the withdrawals. I?ve never taken it before so no clue if it will help. I have been having lots of cardiac symptoms from the lope so I really need to do this. I jumped from the same dose onto subs in January 2016 and I?m praying I can do it again.
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How did it go? Were you able to get from the Loperamide to the Suboxone?

We need people to document any and all possibilities for others who are stuck on the loperamide.

I hope things went well and you did not suffer the precipitated withdrawal and were able to stop taking the loperamide.

Please let us know what happened when you can.
I wish you the best and send you lots of love and support.
 
Painful One said:
How did it go? Were you able to get from the Loperamide to the Suboxone?

We need people to document any and all possibilities for others who are stuck on the loperamide.

I hope things went well and you did not suffer the precipitated withdrawal and were able to stop taking the loperamide.

Please let us know what happened when you can.
I wish you the best and send you lots of love and support.
Click to expand...

I would be interested to know how this went myself. Ive read some horror stories about people trying to switch from lope to bupe even after waiting several days before inducing to bupe. What makes it worse is that most doctors have no experience in transitioning people from loperamide to subutex/suboxone let alone knowledge of loperamide's half life when used in such a way as to give CNS effects (ie. in huge doses and in combination with pgp inhibitors such as tagamet and white grapefruit juice).

The only experience Ive ever had with this, I first transitioned to morphine XR tablets (zomorph) for a week, then waited a further 48 houra after stopping thr morphine before inducing with the bupe. In doing so i managed to avoid all precipitated withdrawls. If one were to switch straight from lope to bupe, I imagine you would need to wait at least 4 or 5 days to he on the safe side.
 
Holy shit!!?! 288 mg a day!?! That's running huge risks of QT prolongation and death... I wouldn't be surprised if you're waking up feeling half dead, barely breathing although not like overdosing, and looking pale. You need need to have your heart checked with an EKG and must talk to you doctor about a better option ASAP. This is no joke... Your life is seriously at risk. People have died from excessive lope use

Edit: I just re-read it and it honestly seems your doctor is not understanding the seriousness of the situation especially if you say your feeling the cardio issues. It might take a lot longer than 72 hours to switch to bupe without precipitated withdrawals. If you still haven't switched over you need to find an in patient unit that deals with detox where they can supply other comfort meds to get you through the transition period to Suboxone and stabilized. I honestly don't think this is something you should be attempting on your own. I hope you have someone living with you who is helping you with this at least. If not seriously get to an in patient unit where they can monitor your heart and react quickly in case of emergency
 
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I think if youre using lope as anything more than a very short term bridge in between scripts (like a day or 2 a month max) then youd be better off dramatically rethinking things. Ive used it a few times in such a way but the amounts needed to eliminate withdrawls is getting into very dangerous territory.

Lope is already restricted to small packages (typically 6 to 12 in a pack) and its not cheap either.
 
My lope wds got really bad around day 7. Very noticeable even with huge oxy usage.

Im out of oxy again, and back on lope. About 150 mgs per day right now. Plan to be around 80 per day in a week or two.

Sucks.
 
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