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No withdrawals after long-term opiate use?

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xburtonchic

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Joined
May 17, 2011
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I apologize in advance if this is in the wrong forum... I couldn't figure out whether it belonged in OD or this one, but the description on this one seemed to hit closer to home. But I suppose if it is, in fact, the wrong forum it will just be moved, so.. carrying on.

Anyway. My doctor told me something a few weeks ago that had me scratching my head in confusion. He was telling me about a patient of his; this guy apparently had a whole mess of things wrong with him, had been on opiates for over 5 years, and was about to have some surgeries to fix everything... after which, he would finally be taken off the opiates. My doctor, seeing what was coming, told this man that he was going to put him on Suboxone. Well, apparently this man walked into my doctor's office with no withdrawal symptoms. He was kept in the Suboxone program just in case... but he never had any withdrawals. Not that day, or the day after, or the day after that. I questioned whether this was because he was still using opiates, but my doctor assured me that wasn't the case (at my doctor's office, upon entering the Suboxone program, you have to do a mandatory drug screen before, two weeks after, and then every month following that.) This man... who according to my doctor was taking rather large doses and a rather wide array of opiates (I believe he said oxycontin, fentanyl, dilaudid, and percocet?) every day for the past five years... got off the opiates with NO withdrawal symptoms whatsoever. WTF?!

All I could really do was stare at my doctor blankly for the next minute or so trying to figure out how to respond without sounding like a bitch. Finally I just said, "I'm jealous." And then asked him why it wasn't that easy for everyone.

My doctor seems to think that the way people respond to opiate addiction (some people can take them without getting addicted, others can't) has to do with a person's central nervous system. He said he thought that could be the reason some people go through withdrawal and others don't, but that he wasn't completely sure.

I'm confused. I mean, even if this man was one of those people who can take opiates without getting addicted... he was on them for FIVE YEARS, and not on small doses. So to me it just seems like common sense that his body would become physically dependent on it's own, whether he's one of those people who are super resistant to them or not. I mean, that is a really long time to be on opiates... I became physically dependent after a few short months, how could he have been on them for five freaking years and not have any problems? And he was on a variety of them to boot, at least ONE of them should have caught him in it's grip. (I say this because I know different opiates have different affects from experience, for example hydrocodone does it for me, but oxycodone does absolutely nothing to me. If I were to take a percocet for any reason, whether it be for pain management or opiate withdrawals, it would do nothing for me.)

Well, clearly that's not the case with this man, because obviously the opiates were helping him with his pain. It's not like it's because he was immune to them. Can somebody shed some light on this? Is this man just a superhuman? Or is there an actual scientific explanation behind this? Or hell even some sort of magical remedy that no one knows about yet? Not sure if age has anything to do with anything in the slightest, but he's an older gentleman, 68 I believe is what my doctor said.
 
I don't think my doctor was lying, he gave me too many facts and details about it. Plus why would he lie about that, he wouldn't have anything to benefit from it. It's possible the patient was lying, but if he was on opiates for that long... he should have been having some noticeably pretty gnarly withdrawals. Hell, my doctor was able to tell I was in withdrawal when I got off and that was only after three months of hydrocodone. And if he wasn't actually OFF the opiates, they should have showed up on the drug screens...?

I don't really have any doubts that it isn't true... I just want to know how something like that could possibly happen.
 
This doesnt suprise me one bit, personally i cant feel benzo's unless i'm on amphetamine, i can take like 20mg of xanax without any effect, however when i add amphetamine 2mg knocks me out.
Its called paradoxal reactions.
 
I don't think that the existence of paradoxical reactions can fully explain a person who has been regularly consuming opiates for 5 years and experiences no withdrawal when quitting. I would be very suspicious that this person was consuming synthetic opiates that are not tested for on whatever drug test they are administered.
 
Either way if we assume this is true there's no way to explain why at all unless we perform churgery on him to see whats differend in he's brain, and then find out he might be CCK knockout or any of the other plethoria possibility's, there's no way to answer this.
 
Roger;
I was under the impression that Suboxone drug screens test for all opiates whether they're semi synthetic, synthetic, or otherwise. You could be right, but he'd have had to get his hands on something he hasn't been prescribed before (as they obviously tested him for that)... and since he was mostly prescribed the "less obvious" opiates, really the only ones left would be things like hydrocodone, morphine, heroin, etc... and where is an upper middle class late 60's-year old man with no history of drug abuse going to illegally obtain opiates? Especially in this area, where opiates are scarce? This is assuming that what my doctor said was true, and that he wasn't abusing his prescriptions ever... in which case he never would have had a reason to actively seek outside sources.

Medieval;
That's interesting. I know benzo's can stop working after a while of long-term use, but I've never heard of your situation! Makes sense though, since amphetamines kick the central nervous system into overdrive. And idk I was kind of hoping that someone would have heard about something like this before, or have a sound theory on why that would happen... but yeah if that's the case, I don't even think brain surgery on the guy would give us any answers. For all we know it's not even something in his brain that's causing it, it's something else.
 
I got the same reaction to opiates, without stims 60mg of oxycodone no effect without any tolerance, no breating supression either, add in amp and 20mg makes me high as fuck, id actually expect that with the acute effects id also get no withdrawals without amp, so if i get myself addicted on amp, i think i wont get any withdrawals either if i stopped amp togheter with the opiates.
But i may be completely wrong, and have no intrest in testing it out either lol.
 
ahahaha yeah, that's definitely not something you want to test out! That's crazy though, what would you do if you had to have surgery or something? They can't just expect you to stick it out if the opiates don't do anything for the pain!
 
xburtonchic said:
ahahaha yeah, that's definitely not something you want to test out! That's crazy though, what would you do if you had to have surgery or something? They can't just expect you to stick it out if the opiates don't do anything for the pain!
Click to expand...

Just take amps, wich i do anyway as ive got ADHD, so its not really an issue haha.
 
I have a family member who got themselves from 50mg/day of methadone down to 5mg/day in a fairly short period of time with no external oversight (they were prescribed them for serious neuropathic pain, which had improved, hence the dose reduction). Their doctors did not believe this was possible, but it was done without any typical withdrawal symptoms.

People who take narcotics purely for pain relief and who do so without deriving the typical "high" from the experience for whatever reason (generally, intractable pain) do seem to be able to come off with greater ease than other types of users.
 
I read somewhere that the reason opiate addiction and it's subsequent withdrawals happen is because the make-up of opiates are almost identical to endorphins, and the brain can't differentiate between the two. Which means after a while, brain begins to see the opiates as endorphins and stops producing it's own... it essentially forgets how, hence a large reason for withdrawals once opiate use ceases. The brain basically goes into panic mode and it's more or less saying "ZOMG WTF WHERE IZ MY ENDORPHINZ?!!" and so it sends out a bunch of signals to your body telling you to give it more "endorphins"... aka withdrawals. There are other factors that go into it a bit of course, but apparently that's the thing that creates the worst of it. If that's the case, it still seems like a person who has been on large amounts of opiates for five years would have this problem whether they were taking the medications as prescribed or not. Five years is more than long enough for the brain to become used to opiates and stop producing it's own endorphins... but who knows. I guess there really is no answer as to why some people get absolutely no withdrawal symptoms and others do... or why it's hard as hell for some people, and other people can get through the withdrawals with little to no problems.
 
I believe the perceived severity of withdrawal symptoms varies widely dependent upon the psychological state of the person undergoing withdrawal. I've withdrawn when it's been forced on me through circumstance, when I decided it was "best I should stop", these occasions were really difficult. I have withdrawn from my longest opiate habit (12+ years) and found that although the symptoms were present I did not feel anywhere near as bad as I previously had - in fact the physical symptoms were worse but I believed in my vision of not being enslaved to opiates & this made an immense difference to my state of mind and therefore how I felt.
 
Yeah I can see how it would help if you were more prepared for it. Did it help with everything or just the mental aspect?
 
The mental aspect, but misery is caused largely by wishing that aspect go away ( take more drugs) whereas if you see that it's a phase you're passing through on your way to a brighter world then its power is little more than the power that illness has over you
Dunno if preparation is the right word, firmly delusional vision in a positive way would be closer to the truth- Delusion isn't always bad.
 
The only WD i get from opiates is that i feel colder. I get no others. BUT opiates also offer me zero analgesia and euphoria..... i just get sedation.

Opiates have different effects in everyone.


ITS also QUITE possible he never took any opiates to start with and he sold every single one and maybe only took 1 or 2 to fail a drug test if he needed too. thats the likely scenario and used by 100's of drug dealers. if he did this hed never have wd would he?
 
MeDieViL said:
I got the same reaction to opiates, without stims 60mg of oxycodone no effect without any tolerance, no breating supression either, add in amp and 20mg makes me high as fuck, id actually expect that with the acute effects id also get no withdrawals without amp, so if i get myself addicted on amp, i think i wont get any withdrawals either if i stopped amp togheter with the opiates.
But i may be completely wrong, and have no intrest in testing it out either lol.
Click to expand...

Your right we have the same reaction. i tried to get myself addicted to opiates and the only WD i get is being cold, tahts it. I also dont get euphoria or pain releif from opiates without stimulants.

I still wish youd do some more experimenting with opiates with me so we could figure out some more shit like what doses we need to make it work and shit.

BTW medieval im curious, what dose of dextroamp do u need to get good effects? and do they lower ur appetite?
 
Here's a possibility - he was on other drugs which masked the withdrawal symptoms. What, exactly, do they test for in a clinic? Is it just opioids or all common drugs? Is there anything powerful enough to mask the W/D's that wouldn't show up on such a test?
 
bben- I would consider that possibility if it weren't for the fact that he was prescribed them for chronic pain (don't know his exact condition) and several surgeries. I am almost 100% positive that he was taking them... I doubt he was putting up with the massive amounts of pain he was in just to sell opiates and make extra money he didn't even need lol. I don't see why he would want to purposely fail a drug test either though, that confuses me a bit..?

producedraw- There's nothing that can really fully mask hardcore opiate withdrawals... except other opiates. And according to my doctor, his withdrawals should have been pretty brutal. Otherwise that would be the most logical explanation. But I mean, my doctor was expecting this guy to have some pretty crazy withdrawals... it wasn't even the patient's idea. My doctor was basically like, "Look dude, you're going to have severe withdrawals when we take you off the opiates, so we're going to put you on Suboxone." And then nothing even happened.
 
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