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Bupe Suboxone/Buprenorphine FAQ & Megathread v2; 2010

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I'm pretty sure they are 0.5 mgs, and i only have 8 of them. I was going to take 2 in a couple of hours and try to get some sleep. The benodryl thing may be a good idea, but i don't have any :( I'm going to try to use these as sparingly as possible just because suboxone w/d can last pretty damn long, and i only want to use them when I'm like 2-3 days without sleep, in depressed zombie mode. I kind of wished i had just went through the H withdrawal and got it over with a year ago when i started taking subs, would have saved me some trouble. Suboxone withdrawal isn't too bad, its like a freakin endurance test though, it lasts so damn long.

yea, suboxone WD can be a bitch....thats why i reccommend being at a very small dose the entirety of your maintanence(less than 2mg's) and then taper to about 0.2-0.5mg's for about a month before jumping off. I personally believe this makes the WD's MUCH easier. Actually, it completely takes the WD's away for me. But everyone is different and maybe it wouldnt completely take the WD's away for you, but im sure it would have made it atleast less painfull than what you are going through now after jumping off of a whole mg.
 
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yea, suboxone WD can be a bitch....thats why i reccommend being at a very small dose the entirety of your maintanence(less than 2mg's) and then taper to about 0.2-0.5mg's for about a month before jumping off. I personally believe this makes the WD's MUCH easier. Actually, it completely takes the WD's away for me. But everyone is different and maybe it wouldnt completely take the WD's away for you, but im sure it would have made it atleast less painfull than what you are going through now after jumping off of a whole mg.

Yeah i wanted to get to a lower dose, but my psychiatrist who i get my suboxone from for some reason things that once someone gets down to 2 milligrams that their physical dependence is low enough for them to experience virtually no w/d's. From experience i know this isn't true, but she's the doctor, right? I wanted to take it a little longer and get to a lower dose but she refused to give me any more, and I'm pretty passive so i wasn't going t argue with her. It's kind of sad that the doctors know so little about what drug addicts are really going through. I hated my first doc, he was one of those suboxone doctors that were really just out to get your money, then i move to this psychiatrist who i honestly think had never even treated a drug addict before. It makes me want to become a doctor just so I could effectively help people like myself. I would love to have a doctor that actually understands what it's like.
 
Most doctors also don't know that bupe is roughly 40x as potent as morphine. I would recommend getting down to .5mg or lower before you jump off. I also believe that if you are only using sub to get through the withdrawals of other opiates, that you should only use it for a week and taper rapidly.
 
Most doctors also don't know that bupe is roughly 40x as potent as morphine. I would recommend getting down to .5mg or lower before you jump off. I also believe that if you are only using sub to get through the withdrawals of other opiates, that you should only use it for a week and taper rapidly.

some people need a several month(or year) "cushion" of being sober and clean of there DOC but still using a maintanence drug to keep them on the right track. Some people would quickly relapse after doing a quick taper because they arent adjusted to living sober anymore and it takes time to get use to living life without getting high. I mean, if a heroin addict does a quick taper and is all of a sudden clean, all it takes is a quick thought of an experience where you got high only a couple weeks back for you to relapse and fall back into the same pattern as before. Some people need a period of re-adjustment to break that pattern in there mind, so they can come out of the experience with a more sober mindset. This, I believe, makes it harder to fall back into old habits since you havent used a hard drug to get high in so long that your mind and body do not expect that or search for it anymore.

Of course there are very strong-willed people who do jsut fine with quick tapers, but in my opinion from personal experience, and from reading statistics on relapsing drug users, that the majority of addicts would do better with a correctly monitered taper plan with a maintanence drug. Unfortunately it seems alot of doctors do not understand the best way to taper off of suboxone yet but I still think it is a better option than a quick taper for most people, and hopefully our medical community will realize its mistakes and adjust there mindset on what the proper dose/time/taper is for suboxone.
 
some people need a several month(or year) "cushion" of being sober and clean of there DOC but still using a maintanence drug to keep them on the right track. Some people would quickly relapse after doing a quick taper because they arent adjusted to living sober anymore and it takes time to get use to living life without getting high. I mean, if a heroin addict does a quick taper and is all of a sudden clean, all it takes is a quick thought of an experience where you got high only a couple weeks back for you to relapse and fall back into the same pattern as before. Some people need a period of re-adjustment to break that pattern in there mind, so they can come out of the experience with a more sober mindset. This, I believe, makes it harder to fall back into old habits since you havent used a hard drug to get high in so long that your mind and body do not expect that or search for it anymore.

Of course there are very strong-willed people who do jsut fine with quick tapers, but in my opinion from personal experience, and from reading statistics on relapsing drug users, that the majority of addicts would do better with a correctly monitered taper plan with a maintanence drug. Unfortunately it seems alot of doctors do not understand the best way to taper off of suboxone yet but I still think it is a better option than a quick taper for most people, and hopefully our medical community will realize its mistakes and adjust there mindset on what the proper dose/time/taper is for suboxone.
I agree 100% man. I relapsed 3 times before i started suboxone maintenance, and one of those times was after only 2 weeks on sub. I'm by no means a weak willed person, i quit cold turkey on my own once and even had opportunities to get high and didn't do it. The longer I've gone without doing heroin, the less i think about out. Whenever i first quit, it's on my mind a lot. I still think about it sometimes, but not nearly to the extent that do the first month or two of being clean. People need time to readjust to a sober life.
 
some people need a several month(or year) "cushion" of being sober and clean of there DOC but still using a maintanence drug to keep them on the right track. Some people would quickly relapse after doing a quick taper because they arent adjusted to living sober anymore and it takes time to get use to living life without getting high. I mean, if a heroin addict does a quick taper and is all of a sudden clean, all it takes is a quick thought of an experience where you got high only a couple weeks back for you to relapse and fall back into the same pattern as before. Some people need a period of re-adjustment to break that pattern in there mind, so they can come out of the experience with a more sober mindset. This, I believe, makes it harder to fall back into old habits since you havent used a hard drug to get high in so long that your mind and body do not expect that or search for it anymore.

Here in Australia what they tend to do with opiate addicts is attempt a 6 day quick taper and see if they stay clean, a small percentage do or at least reduce their use of their DOC quite a bit. If they continue to relapse that is when they trial a long term (6-18 months) taper, seems to be the best way imo, that way you don't get people who are capable of tapering off quickly stuck on the drug for a year when they don't need to be.

you might wanna try kava kava with the sub withdrawals to if you can get your hands on it.

Yep kava is pretty good, I also recommend phenibut for the anxiety and lack of sleep, its helped me adjust to me 2x a day 0.4mg after being on 2mg fairly well, mainly the sleep and anxiety is where it helps.

What the heck is kava? I think i've heard of it before but i don't know what it is. Is it legal, and somewhat easy to find?

It is a root that is commonly used in the Philippines and Indonesia, like Valerian or very mild valium in its effects, it is legal in just about every country and you can order it off the internet fairly easily.
 
Here in Australia what they tend to do with opiate addicts is attempt a 6 day quick taper and see if they stay clean, a small percentage do or at least reduce their use of their DOC quite a bit. If they continue to relapse that is when they trial a long term (6-18 months) taper, seems to be the best way imo, that way you don't get people who are capable of tapering off quickly stuck on the drug for a year when they don't need to be.

Thats a great idea, i wish they did that here in the U.S. Pretty much every bupe doctor that Ihave heard of says that getting on sub maintanence..."can very well be a several year deal....you could be on it indefinitely."....

....now, I know that what the doctors saying isnt necessarily lying or anything, but I dont hear too many of them talking about short tapers or maybe trying atleast a short taper first before you move on to a dedicated long-term maintanence.

Allthough, to give my doctor some credit...he did tell me that I could be on it indefinitely, but he ALSO told me that whenever I felt it was right for me to start lowering my dose, is fine with him. SO I would imagine that if I only wanted to be on subs a short time he would be happy. Im pretty sure hes not jsut doin it for the money....in fact im positive.

but I do know that alot of doctors here just do this shit for the money and treat each patient the same and look at them like there money cows and assume that they will be on sub for years and years so they can keep raking in the cash. I also think that is why alot of doctors prescribe such freaking high doses of sub for no reason. I dont care what kind of opiate habit you had before, you can maintain on under 8mg's/day....it just might take a week or two of tapering after the first couple days but its not hard and once you get there its just fine. In fact I think a MUCH smaller dose than 8mg's should be applied in most circumstances.

Sry....look at me....im ranting again. All apologies.
 
Yeah I think the onus is on the patient to do some research and to ask to reduce their dose regularly, it is their body and life after all, certainly wouldn't hurt if the doctors could push that kind of thinking a bit more though.
 
Thats a great idea, i wish they did that here in the U.S. Pretty much every bupe doctor that Ihave heard of says that getting on sub maintanence..."can very well be a several year deal....you could be on it indefinitely."....

....now, I know that what the doctors saying isnt necessarily lying or anything, but I dont hear too many of them talking about short tapers or maybe trying atleast a short taper first before you move on to a dedicated long-term maintanence.

Allthough, to give my doctor some credit...he did tell me that I could be on it indefinitely, but he ALSO told me that whenever I felt it was right for me to start lowering my dose, is fine with him. SO I would imagine that if I only wanted to be on subs a short time he would be happy. Im pretty sure hes not jsut doin it for the money....in fact im positive.

but I do know that alot of doctors here just do this shit for the money and treat each patient the same and look at them like there money cows and assume that they will be on sub for years and years so they can keep raking in the cash. I also think that is why alot of doctors prescribe such freaking high doses of sub for no reason. I dont care what kind of opiate habit you had before, you can maintain on under 8mg's/day....it just might take a week or two of tapering after the first couple days but its not hard and once you get there its just fine. In fact I think a MUCH smaller dose than 8mg's should be applied in most circumstances.

Sry....look at me....im ranting again. All apologies.

Many suboxone doctors care about nothin but the money. My first doc prescribed me 16 mg a day when i first went to him. At the time, i was only doing 2-3 bags of H a day, so i really don't think i needed that much suboxone. I probably would have been fine with an 8 mg tablet, but he probably prescribed me such a high dose so he could make more money, and it would take me longer to taper. I switched doctors because he didn't want me to taper, he said i should just stay on it longer, and he gave me a drug test every time i went there that he charged like 50 bucks for. That's why i switched doctors, the new place only charged 10 dollars a drug test, and half the time they didn't even make me pay for it. Much more friendly, and it actually seemed like they cared a little bit about me, unlike the previous doctor who really just was a money hungry bastard.
 
I believe I have a great taper regimen that I have posted dozens and dozens of tiems here on BL, mainly in the megathread, and im sure you have read about it many times.

I honestly believe it is one of the most effective taper regimens out there and can even possibly prevent WD effects alltogether if done properly. It just takes quite a bit of time, but any effective taper regimen off of suboxone is gonna take a long time, its just the nature of the beast(the beast being suboxone).

Of course you do not have to follow my advice, its just that every person who I have known to follow my advice exactly has been able to quit suboxone with little to no WD's or PAWS. Some people tend to think im lying about my methods but I am not. I do not gain anything by lying about my successfull suboxone tapering methods.

Whatever you do, I hope it works well for you. Good Luck.
 
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