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  • TDS Moderators: AlphaMethylPhenyl | paranoid android

16 months on pods - Tapering completely in 4 weeks (log)

Carl Landrover said:
^
Sub is kind of weird if you're not used to it. It can give you quite a bit of energy like you described. When I first got prescribed them I had insomnia for the first month, but after a while they just made me tired and I need a lot more sleep when I'm on them. Any reason you decided to take it? Lingering WDs or was there something other than the lack of energy?

For whatever reason I've noticed that over the last few years it's a lot easier for me to get what I need off a smaller amount of sub. The times I was using the most was when I first got it and I don't think it was because my habit was at it's highest or I was over-prescribed.

Sub may be useful for an occasional use in the future now that you're off pods. I've noticed any of the times I've been clean, after a while I just feel a little off and then I do an opiate and I feel back in tune. Of course that relapse is usually with oxy or heroin and then it slowly snowballs back out of control. I'm hoping when I get off of suboxone and stay clean, but start to feel 'off', then maybe I can just take small doses of sub to get that mood lift and 'reset' feeling.
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Yeh thats pretty weird. I did just take it for the fatigue which prob isn't justified but it seemed I had more energy on my taper for some odd reason.

I suppose just having a small amount of the pod alkaloids was somehow keeping my energy from plummiting. Or maybe I'm just looking for excuses to take the sub who knows.
All I know is I kind of lost my mind trying to get the shit, and I don't wanna just throw it away. I noticed today I woke up and it almost seemed I was more tired than yesterday (when I woke up before taking the sub), and I'm not sure if its because the sub is wearing off or not but I was expecting me to still feel something by the second day with its long half life. Now it just feels like I have to take more to stay productive. I want to see how I change w/out it by later tonight.
But I'm curious how long (minimum) before you guys think my body will start getting use to sub or experience wds from it? I'm worried that even just 2 or 3 uses might cause some sort of rebound just because my receptors are still upregulating and it prob wouldn't take much for the sub to downregulate them again.
Whatever the case I haven't took it yet today, I'm very much tempted to but we'll see how the day pans out I guess.
 
I hate to say it but it would likely prolong your wd. Like you mentioned your receptors are still trying to get back to base.Flooding them with sub is probably not the best thing in the big picture. I don't know anything about pods or the wds frm taking them but I'm assuming just like any other opiate detox, unless you take a really weak opiate (darvocet etc.) to help manage the acute phase, any further use of a strong opiate will only slow the healing process. I think at the least, your doing the right thing by spacing the dose to see where your at. I would say using sub daily for the next week would not come without some form of wds. Maybe more of an extension of the lingering pod wd you just finished. I've been getting low energy from my sub jump, the usual supplements seem to be helping some. As hot and humid it is it doesn't take much to get wiped out when you have to work outside in the shyt though. IDK, maybe a smaller dose will work better, the halflife doesn't really mean much until you have multiple doses stacked up in your blood levels. I'm going to give it a few weeks,month and if my energy levels ahve come back I'm going to seriously consider LDN. Till then just pushing through.
 
Do you use caffeine or uppers at all?

I'd avoid them if you were having stomach issues, but they can help give that energy boost and help you focus on other things for a few hours. I don't use caffeine very often and one No-Doz or even half of one is pretty useful for getting a few hours of energy.
 
7 days clean (though I did take a lil bit of sub) I don't feel very good. But I do feel much better than I did when the withdrawals would just start.

The worst part is the cravings. I crave and crave like you wouldn't believe. It's god awful, I want to try and get clean for at least a few more weeks and then order a small amount of pods and keep it to a minimum. (Biuy 10 pods and that's it for 2 weeks). That should prevent rebound withdrawals.

I know it's all just a pipe dream but christ this is hard to say *this is it, no more opes ever again* I'm going to be trying to get an alternative form of ID so I can get a box at UPS (they require 2 forms of ID) and use pods secretly. But that's further down the road.

One day at a time, one day at a time. Fucking forbidden fruit, agh. The important thing is I am 7 days clean.
 
Awesome!! You're actually prob in a better position then me.

I bit the forbidden fruit of sub and haven't returned to sobriety since. I took 1mg the first day, .5mg, then .25mg, and when I was planning on stopping I relapsed and plugged 1mg getting pretty high. Was the biggest mistake I've made besides taking the sub. Its been all down hill since then. Once I realized how absurdly long you can make sub last by plugging, I did it again the next day doing half, and now I've been on it for like 6 or 7 days.

I realized even with the small amount I have, by pluggin I can make it last another 2-3 months. I only plugged .5 today, and am very much hoping to switch back to oral tommorow so I can taper this god awful crap. But it seems I've made the same exact mistake Jay did.
It was thinking because sub doesn't get you high it would be easy to stop. But it has the ability of doing something that pods don't, and thats making you happy as fuck.. like manic happy, its not even normal.

When you are that happy on anything, I realized it makes it SO HARD to comprehend the fact you HAVE TO GET OFF. Pods were easy to get off cause they had me miserable even when I was on them, but I've just reached that point where subs are starting to make me miserable which is hopefully why it'll be easier to stop. As soon as the dose wears off my blood pressure goes up, I get flush and discontent and tired to the point of an extreme alcohol hangover. Where I need to drag my feet just to walk. Its so fucking stupid because now I'm gonna have to deal with more fatigue than what I was trying to originally avoid, but realistically I still have no temptation to keep using opiates.

This is the whole reason I wanted to stop in the first place. The ups and downs, feeling like a prisoner cause you always have to take more to feel normal. Its the same exact bullshit with sub. Not to mention it doesn't even make me happy anymore (today was the first day I felt tolerant to it so I'm assuming because of that I'll have wds now) and like Carl said that energy wore off completely. I do seem to get tired now after taking it.

WOW I fucking love drugs. The most insidious, deceptive shit in this entire world. What I also noticed the first day I got on sub was how utterly fat and bloated this shit makes you compared to pods. Pods would constipate and bloat me a little bit (which I though was a lot at the time) but subs after the first day had my stomach full of undigested food, had my whole body retaining water worse than testosterone bloats you (which is A LOT). I stopped losing weight and getting tone since day 1. Although I've still been working out and running everyday its impossible to get any definition on this shit.
I'll be ok and WILL get off it thats a promise. But as far as timeline I can't see it happening completely till I get back from vaca. But what I need to do is still get my doses as low as possible. Theres no reason for me to be pluggin 1mg at all so that shit needs to stop. And it sucks because by pluggin I can make what I have left last 3 months... and than theres another addiction I have to beat. So I gotta take a hint when I can and just fight this shit.

This should go out as a tip for anyone feeling cocky after just stopping an opiate habit. Just because you beat 1 fairly easily doesn't mean the next opiate is gonna be the same. Ok well I'll def be updating from time to time as I get nearer to complete sobriety. I want the board to know when I'm off everything for good because that was the goal of this entire taper in the first place.
 
I have found that pod withdrawals tend to have phases, like first you get the anxiety, then the chills and goosebumps, then the depression and so on.

I have never used pods more then 2 months, even at that point I still feel withdrawal effects with a short 5 day taper. You can get away with halving your dose daily with such a short habit. The variance of the pods requires decent dosage drops to be succesful. Sadly this means you will start your wds when you start your taper. This will give you a chance to time it so you take your final jump off over the weekend.

Last time I did it, I used hydro for about 2 or 3 weeks and then jumped on pods and got high for a week and then cut my dose down (I mainted on 1 for 3 days). Then on Friday I didn't take anything. I went to work not feeling to good, and then woke up at 3:30 AM the next day feeling like crap. Just really depressed, anxious, muscles ached, was fatigued. That Sunday I felt much better after going for a long walk around 3:00 PM. Woke up Monday feeling fine but still not 100 %. By Tuesday I was over most of it. Again this is from a very short use. I do have to note that I've had heavier addictions a few years ago, so my body gets hooked much easier.

In my tapers, the goal has often been to reduce the dose to where I can get off with only have 1 or 2 really shitty days. Now obviously with longer habits this isn't possible. I haven't had one of those type of withdrawals in years. I'm such a baby nowadays with even such a minor withdrawal as it is.

Pods are simply not worth it, opiates in general just interfere with my life too much, even when I use for such short times. Thankfully I have been catching myself quickly, but I need to just cut them out completely.
 
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Pods were easy to get off cause they had me miserable even when I was on them,
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I think what you are experiencing is that your time off from opiates has allowed you to get high again. I'd bet that taking more pods would give you that superman feeling back again.
 
QuasiStoned said:
I think what you are experiencing is that your time off from opiates has allowed you to get high again. I'd bet that taking more pods would give you that superman feeling back again.
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Thats prob true but when I've gone back to pods in the past although I was able to feel more of a high it still wasn't as "uplifting" as the sub. Plus the short half life had me feeling crappy half of everyday cause I wouldn't dose more than once.

Dosing once with sub is very uplifting and happy, and I don't spend half my day in withdrawal. So the motivation to get off has all around lowered. Except that I know if I use it too much I'm trading for much longer wds. Plus the fat factor is much worse with sub. I felt fat on pods but its absurd with sub.

Whatever the case I transitioned to oral and am just gonna try keeping the dose as low as possible. I can taper now but I'm not jumping off clean right before vacation. I fucked myself up but I'll just make sure by the end of the vacation I'm taking .25mg or less daily. As soon as I get home I'll jump off and will have kratom and codiene to deal with wds so I'm not really worrying about it. Just that it wouldn't be plausable to really do right now.
 
^
Small doses of sub are tricky like that. It's so small that a pill lasts a while and it's a low dose that it seems like it can be easy to get off. I've been taking low doses of sub like that for a while now. One of that problems is that it's so low that if I do decide to relapse it's easy to get high. Even though it's a low dose it's definitely still enough to make me feel uncomfortable if I just stop and it still gives me that annoying complacency that opiates can give.

Once you've been taking it for a while some of those good effects will fade away or not last as long. You've done really awesome so far! Try not to be on the subs too long, good luck getting off them when you decide to. :)


I'd be closer to being off of them completely, but I got some oxy over the weekend, which set me back a bit. If I wasn't working it wouldn't be that hard to get off them, but it's hard feeling like I'm getting a cold and having my stomach feeling funny all day. I've never actually taken immodium for that, but I'm thinking I should.
 
down to 1,5mg of sub . it doesnt do jack for my feeling good. started anti depressant and klonopin . and frustrated as hell waiting for the mail , bo knows
 
hey jake i was wondering wut happened 2 u i didnt c u around for a couple of days i thought u allready went on ur trip 2 france hows evreything goin is the trip still on?
 
I can answer for Jake for now his trip is still on and hes doing much better just by how he sounded on the phone.
I think the klonopin is doing a lot for his anxiety which is great cause it use to help me a lot too back in the day. Once his paxil kicks in I think his life will get A LOT easier because he genuinely suffers from pretty bad anxiety everyday. But I was glad to see him in a better mood today, gives me hope at the same time just to see people changing.

Carl thanks I know thats exactly what I need to hear.
Jake was mentioning it would be smarter to get off the sub now pretty much the same as you. It seems for anyone with actual experience on sub their mindstate is to get off it asap.

My replacement codienes came today and I have either 60mg a day for 28 days (to cover residual sub and pod wds) or 120mg for 14 days.
I DO think codiene will make the jump off easier, I just need to decide when I'm actually gonna start.

I can take it now cause I haven't taken sub in 22hours, but its this fucking tiredness I can't stand. I was back to sleeping normal hours at the end of the taper (like 6 hours a night) but now I feel like I need to sleep double that on sub. EXACTLY like Carl said once before. And this is after sub use to make me speedy and hyper as fuck. God damn its amazing how us drug addicts fuck ourselves over.
Like that energy couldn't have lasted till now? A little over a week? My body really has to become tolerant that quick? Its bullshit.

It doesn't even seem to be giving me energy but I still think .5mg is too high to stop at. But then again taking .25mg isn't gonna make me any better. So maybe I will just take 60mg of codiene. I wanted to save them for after vacation but I have A LOT of contemplating to do.

Its either I jump off sub today or tommorow, or I know I'm gonna wind up pushing it back till Jun 24th when I get home. And thats another 15 days on sub which is only gonna make things worse.

Even if I jumped off sub now it could take 4-5 days to properly know where my wds are at, and I'd basically be peaking right around day 1 of vacation. As much as I realize I need to get off, I just really need to think about it.
I suppose if worst came to worst though I could always go back to sub if the peak is too much to handle even with codiene. Guess we'll see.
 
Bo, I think getting off the Sub today is a great idea. Like you said, you can always go back. I personally had no problems getting off sub, don't let your mind trick you into anything - not saying it is, but just give it a shot. I agree though that getting off of it and going to codeine needs to be done sooner rather than later. Best of luck.
 
Man FUCK!
I was cutting up .25mg so I can go to the gym and I refreshed the screen and saw that /\

I took the .25mg looked at it, than threw it back in the bottle. Its not gonna make it any easier to stop and if I look to do a "proper" taper with sub that shit takes weeks even at low dosages.

I think at this point if I stop the long half life of the sub will slowly reintroduce pod wds over the next 3 or 4 days. But its possible if they're minor enough I can deal with the codiene. Its not like I'm gonna really be tapering sub DURING vacation anyway.
Its just excuse after excuse.

Then when I get back from vacation I'll say "oh now I've been on it too long I have to do a proper taper so I won't be clean for 2 more weeks" fuck this shit.

I'll go the whole day w/out sub and we'll see what I feel like around the 48hour mark tommorow. I don't even think things are gonna get bad till 72hours but wtf I DO have codiene.

I just am really getting back into my addiction because this isn't about not being sick as much as it is about feeling good. I can tell just by the way I take the sub, I always take enough just to feel "right" (even though I do try to keep dosing somewhat low).

FML
 
Don't beat yourself up. Things are going to be okay, in fact they are okay right now. You're doing the right thing man. I know it may not feel like it, but you really are. I don't think a few days on sub is really going to screw up your taper too much, I'm not just saying that - I really don't.

I've went from oxy addiction, onto subs for 7-10 days, and then off with no problems - no taper, no nothing. This may not be normal, but I'm just saying, everyone's different. This has in fact happened to me several times. Something about the partial antognoism makes it different - maybe someone else can explain it. It is an opiate, of course, but it's not just like you switched from one to the other. I don't know else to explain it - my point is you may be absolutely fine and be able to taper with just a bit of codiene. I REALLY don't think you've lost any 'taper time' as it were. You are on a minimal amount of opiates, you really are.

What you've done here is nothing short of phenomenal. Your brain is just fighting you a little bit. Guess what - you're NORMAL. :P You're doing an absolutely amazing job. Exercising and everything. You're doing everything right. Be well.
 
I've been clean from pods for 2 weeks now. Just using loperamide (20 gr) I almost feel normal. I must admit that the cravings are still really hard but I haven't stooped down to trying to hide my use from my family.

God I wish I felt like I did before I ever touched this shit. And yet, I forget what the high feels like now and have practically vowed to try it again as soon as certain variables occur. It's really a struggle.
 
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Congratulations guys, quitting opiates is fucking tough, especially pods because they seem so harmless but the withdrawals are truly horrendous, I know if I skip my morning dose there will be hell to pay for the rest of the day, I think depression is the worst part for me, the physical shit sucks but I can manage, that depression is a killer. I don't regret starting them though, they've kept me away from much worse things.
 
bo -

You have the right attitude still... which is very important. I can tell you truly want to get off. Just keep at it, you will figure out a way. You've gotten off of pods, which are a major pain to WD from.

Jake99 -

I'm interested to see how the anti-depressants work for you. I have an appt Friday to talk to my doctor about them. I'm currently opiate free, but I've been stuck in a rut depression wise. I feel like its at least one of the reasons I keep relapsing and or keep drinking daily. Of course after two days the opiates are not really doing the job either. When you know you shouldn't be taking them it appears that just are not that effective or enjoyable.
 
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