14 days to come off 2mg suboxone / day habit

[hydroazuanacaine]

alright, i have been taking suboxone since january 11. at varying doses. yesterday i was down to 2mg. i can't really put together how much before that, except that was a pretty big initial drop. maybe i was taking 3 - 4mgs the days preceding that, but i started on jan 11 at less than 1mg. so let's just say i'm at 2mg. but of course i've had dope habits before, and we all know how tolerance and dependence develop quickly when you've done it before. if this was dope, i know i'd be physically dependent over that course of time.

i have 14 days (starting today) to get off 2mgs. i'm not bringing it on the plane; it's in powder form, so it's not even like i can just throw it in another script bottle. can someone please help me with how i should taper. is it reduce a certain percent a day? is it drop down to 1.5 mgs today and then slowly the drops toward the end? this is a weird drug i'd hardly even call an opiate. i'm not sure how to work it. if this was dope i'd do a one week taper and then be sick for a week. but i do not want to be sick on vacation. i'm looking forward to it. 14 days must be plenty. i just need some guidance. please help.

thank you

 

[Juniper Bruhmomentius]

Reduce to 1mg immediately then 0.5mg a week later. Then drop off.

 

[hydroazuanacaine]

thanks for the quick reply. i won't feel sick dropping off at .5mg?

if i have to feel sick, i'd rather it be during the 14 day window.

 

[Juniper Bruhmomentius]

You will feel easily the worst from dropping completely off. You can drop to 0.5mg now and week later off.

 

[hydroazuanacaine]

why such dramatic drops? what about?

1 - 1.5mg
2 - 1mg
3 - 1mg
4 - 1mg
5 - .5mg
6 - .5mg
7 -.5mg
8 - .25mg
9- .25mg
10 - .25mg
11 - .125mg
12 - .125mg
13- .125mg
14 - .06mg

i'm not trying to disregard your advice. again, this drug is new to me. just trying to understand why you are recommending big drops with so many days at each dose.

i have no problem getting a .06mg dose, as it's in powder cut with binders and fillers and i have a mg scale.

 

[Juniper Bruhmomentius]

That looks good. You should try that.

 

[hydroazuanacaine]

ok. that's what i'm going to start doing. thank you, schizo.

if anyone sees my schedule and thinks i should correct, please weight in.

again, i don't think this is a big deal. i'm not panicking. i'm just trying to do this best as possible.

edit:
this isn't even a hole i've dug myself into. just a little divot. i still love sub. just gonna make sure not to use daily in the future.

 

[OpiateKiller]

Honestly if I were you i would just stop now or do 7 days 1 mg and jump off.

you want at least 7 days free from Sub before you get on that plane, that way more of your suffering is done here than on
Vacation.

 

[hydroazuanacaine]

i can't do seven days. but i can speed up the taper to make it a few. suboxone hardly feels like an opiate. it just makes me less depressed. the worst part of opiate withdrawal for me is the depression. so i know with suboxone it's going to make me so, so depressed.

but i will speed things up. i'm down to 35mg of powder a day, which is less than is about .8mg of bupe. tomorrow i will go to 30mg.

feb 10: 30mg
feb 11: 25mg
feb 13: 20mg
feb 14: 15mg
feb 15: 10mg
feb 17: 5mg
feb 18: 5mg

then 4 of days nothing, and get on the plane feb 23 the 5th day of nothing.

this of powder of the full pill 8mg, which i think is like 380mg. so 5mg is about .1mg of bupe.

i can't bare to pull the cord right now. i'm so depressed already. i wish i had it in pills so i could bring it with me. it's so easy to bring pills. i'm sure the powder would get through tsa no problem, but i need to not be physically dependent anyway. this is enough time. this is good. i'm out of town for a full 8 days. when i get back, i'll make sure not to use consecutive days again. and never take more than 40mg of powder a day. there's no reason. i get good antidepressant effect all day from 40mg of powder / .8mg of bupe. i don't know why i went higher. the person who gave them to me even stressed that less is more.

i'm doing a benzo taper at the same time. which isn't how i like to do it. i like to get off the opiate and then the benzo. but i want to be clean for this trip so bad. i will hang out with my friend, who is social and knows everyone and has something fun to do everyday and lives where it's warm and cares about me and it's so nice to visit him. i do it every year, but only once a year.

fuck my grammar is terrible right now. it's because i feel so down. i can hardly make myself type.

thank you for the replies and advice.

 

[Mafioso]

I'd have to agree with everyone suggesting to step off right now if you plan to jump on a plane and go on a week vacation. Besides the fact that things will likely get worse for the first 1-2 weeks of being off opioids and benzos, you also face the risk of seizure when coming off benzos for the first 1-2 weeks. IME, the seizures can be triggered by excitement or stress as the body has lowered ability(GABA) to handle excitement or stress(glutamate). Depending on how much benzos you were taking, the withdrawal and post-acute withdrawal can be extremely unpleasant and compound the opioid withdrawal.

I'm not really sure I understand your plan if you are planning on using once you get back from the trip. Not to discourage, but why force yourself into withdrawal during your vacation only to use once vacation is over? I get that you can't fly, but it seems a bit unrealistic to plan a vacation while in the middle of detoxing.

My best advice is to reschedule or cancel your vacation and focus on taking care of yourself, focus on your recovery. Addiction will constantly be getting in the way of your life opportunities until you get it under control. Unless your friend is ok with taking care of you during your vacation.

 

[hydroazuanacaine]

word. ive tapered off of opiates and benzodiazepines dozens and dozens of times. (the reason i'm asking for advice is because the substances i'm using to taper this time are new to me. norflurazepam instead of diazepam, and bupe instead of dope. also peer support helps). if i canceled life each time, i’d never live. i wasn’t on the bupe for very long. i just don’t believe in going into withdrawal when there’s the opportunity to taper. but i realize i’m cutting it close here. and have three people telling me speed it up if wanna be in good spirits for the trip, so i will do so.

my benzo dose is low enough i could stop my taper now without risk of seizures. but again, i don’t think withdrawal is healthy so i continue to taper beyond that point. also, i will be bringing prescribed ativan with me in case reports of norflurazepam potency are wildly off. but right now i'm at less than 3mg of norflurazepam a day. closer to 2.3mg, but i'm assuming worst case because these amazon.com mg scales are not university lab equipment. if my scale was correct, i'm at 2.3mg. if it was off 10mgs to my disadvantage, i'm at 2.8mg. depending on which, i will end at .333mgs or .4mgs every other day. there's no way i'm stopping at dose higher than that. benzos are not a grit your teeth and bare it drug when it comes to getting off.

once withdrawal starts, it’s harder to stop than if you tapered properly in the first place. for both benzos and opiates.

i’m certainly not canceling my trip. and my plan is not to become dependent on either class of drugs upon return.

again, i appreciate the replies and will adjust the taper accordingly. that said, i’m balancing advice with my own past experiences. i’m not gonna cold turkey either starting tomorrow. but i will speed up the tapers to try to balance time completely off prior to the trip versus a nice, soft taper.

i know this is doable. i'm trying to do it as best as possible. i really do appreciate the replies in helping me make adjustments to get close as possible to best.

 

[hydroazuanacaine]

dropped down to 25mg instead of 30mg of powder today. so about .5mg of bupe. can anyone else weigh in on this? i do not want to make myself more depressed than necessary. would a calm taper ending in .1mg or less of bupe result in much in the way of withdrawal, having started taking it jan 11 and started the taper at 1.5mg on feb 4?

i get on the plane feb 23.

this thread has scared me more than anything. i'm starting at such a low dose, without having been on it for long, and a good long while to taper. but now i feel panicked.

i'm trying to do with minimal withdrawal. i thought that was extremely possible given the circumstances. i took the stuff for less than a month before starting the taper.

 

[JTemperance]

dropped down to 25mg instead of 30mg of powder today. so about .5mg of bupe. can anyone else weigh in on this? i do not want to make myself more depressed than necessary. would a calm taper ending in .1mg or less of bupe result in much in the way of withdrawal, having started taking it jan 11 and started the taper at 1.5mg on feb 4?

i get on the plane feb 23.

this thread has scared me more than anything. i'm starting at such a low dose, without having been on it for long, and a good long while to taper. but now i feel panicked.

i'm trying to do with minimal withdrawal. i thought that was extremely possible given the circumstances. i took the stuff for less than a month before starting the taper.

So how has it progressed at this point? Interested to hear your ultimate schedule and results. My instinct is to somewhat agree with the others that earlier+larger cuts are easier to endure than shedding the last fraction is. Getting off the last 0.18mg was hardest for me on my biggest bupe taper, but I had been maintaining on it for longer than you, and the taper was longer (too long). Either way, though, I don't think the symptoms will be unbearable, especially if you have anything in the way of "comfort meds" or kratom.

However, if you have powder to bring that will sustain you for the trip, but are worried about inspection, why not dissolve it in water and place it in a dropper? A 60ml one from a health-food store of some herbal remedy or homeopathic tincture is good, and I think it's very unlikely TSA investigates the contents. If you could pause the taper for the duration of your trip, or even continue it but more gently, that seems a lot better than departing right after you've hit 0mg and are quite likely feeling the brunt of the symptoms (especially psychologically).

 

[hydroazuanacaine]

^psychological indeed. i had almost no physical symptoms. maybe a little bit of sniffles and ultra light rls, which i actually think was probably the result of upping my remeron dose. though it could have been the combo. i became insanely depressed. i'm sure the withdrawal contributed to that but again i don't think it was black and white -- like it helped trigger it but didn't necessarily sustain the depression. i wasn't sick enough for it to be the subs alone. it was a combo of coming down from mania, the withdrawal, and my mental illness.

my taper ended up being a combo of the two timelines i proposed. i quickly got down to 1mg. but then instead of doing a couple days at each dose and then doing a big drop, i started dropping .1mg a day until i got to zero (so dropping .1mg a day for 10 days). i hit zero about 5 days before i left; i actually had a bit more than two weeks from when i made the post to when i left. i forced myself to go for walks until i had enough willpower to go to the gym again. by the time i left for my trip i was in a decent place. i used prescribed benzos during the trip. being away from home creates enough anxiety in of itself, plus i'm prone to anxiety in general. i tapered benzos the same time as the subs, ending on the same date. so i'll have to taper those again, because i'm still using them.

i didn't bring any sub on the trip and was fine. i have no idea how much 4mg of bupe is. it's confusing to find out online. i would guess 4mg of bupe equals about 120mg of oxy, using my body as a ruler. somewhere i read that 12mgs of sub is equal to 120mg of morphine, which has to be flat out wrong. i could eat 120mg of morphine with no acute tolerance and be fine. if i took 4mgs of sub before i had built my tolerance back up, i'd be sick as a dog.

now that i'm back in town i'm using the subs again. like 2mg a day, which is less than before the trip (i was at 4mg before i came to my senses and started the taper). so i don't know what to do. i'm four or five days back on. i don't know if that's enough to get sick if i stopped right now. probably not too bad, but i'm not stopping. not today at least. i see my therapist on friday, tomorrow. i'm gonna talk to him about some sort of plan. i love the subs too much to flush them. they are a godly antidepressant. they don't make me nod like a regular opiate, but the antidepressant effect is even stronger than a real opiate like old school heroin or dilly.

everyone who said don't have the last day be right before you get on the plane was right. i would have been fucked. but the slow taper plus five days of nothing was sufficient.

thanks again all. if anyone has any advice on how i can stop using the subs everyday i'm all ears. "just stop" won't work. i have so much self loathing and depression. it's impossible to let that overcome me when i have a medication that makes it go away, even though i know i have to pay the price down the road. i don't wanna be on subs for life. it sucks knowing i'm gonna make myself sick again. i don't know what to do.

 

[inzn]

alright, i have been taking suboxone since january 11. at varying doses. yesterday i was down to 2mg. i can't really put together how much before that, except that was a pretty big initial drop. maybe i was taking 3 - 4mgs the days preceding that, but i started on jan 11 at less than 1mg. so let's just say i'm at 2mg. but of course i've had dope habits before, and we all know how tolerance and dependence develop quickly when you've done it before. if this was dope, i know i'd be physically dependent over that course of time.

i have 14 days (starting today) to get off 2mgs. i'm not bringing it on the plane; it's in powder form, so it's not even like i can just throw it in another script bottle. can someone please help me with how i should taper. is it reduce a certain percent a day? is it drop down to 1.5 mgs today and then slowly the drops toward the end? this is a weird drug i'd hardly even call an opiate. i'm not sure how to work it. if this was dope i'd do a one week taper and then be sick for a week. but i do not want to be sick on vacation. i'm looking forward to it. 14 days must be plenty. i just need some guidance. please help.

thank you

Gonna take a lil bit to feel normal from subs man, at least u need a month to feel OK. After 14 days u might be past the worst but the lethargy will linger for a while.

 

[Juniper Bruhmomentius]

If bupre is helping you in a time of self loathing and stuff, I think you should continue using it. It also has some weird antidepressant effects so theres that.