Misc Anyone here gotten medical help for Loperamide abuse?

[Lobsterbutch]

I've been on Loperamide for a long time. 400mg/day for about 1.5 years now. It was supposed to be a week haha, how do you like that? It's the typical thing we all have happen to us when dealing with addiction. I've tried tapering and cold turkey and I'm still stuck here. Its looking like I'm going to need to throw in the towel and get professional help, because I cant survive taking this much loperamide each morning, and I CERTAINLY can't afford to.

Has anyone here gotten medical assistance to get off loperamide? Suboxone, methadone, medicine assisted withdrawal, homeopathic shamanism? Therapy?

I'm fairly certain I have a personality disorder, and this big ol substance use disorder I have going is a symptom of it. A big symptom. So i need to address that too, otherwise next year I'll be drinking bottles of miralax to stop feeling so empty.............or full...........whichever one the day requires.

I'm trying to be funny, but Loperamide has been a serious problem for me, the withdrawal is ridiculous and Its impossible to get off. It seems most stores are aware loperamide is being abused so I assume that there will be at least some knowledge of it in professional medical setting.

Any thoughts? Advice? All help is appreciated


*oh and I've been taking 400mg/day for 1.5 years, I've been on loperamide closer to 3.5-4. Yeah, real fucking long time*

 

[Pickledlemons]

I don't have any experience but I would highly suggest going through with this plan. That dose is insane. You can read several stories of people who ended up in the hospital with heart failure off... much less than what you're taking. Even if you had to get on methadone, which is a pretty severe addiction, at least it wont damage your health to the extent loperamide does. I would try suboxone first though, and only go to methadone if that doesn't work. How did you get on such a high dose anyway? Did you get high from it or were you just trying to avoid withdrawals.

 

[Gorillaboy21]

Jesus my stomach hurt reading this.
How are you alive? You are a medical mystery

 

[Phantasia]

Let me get this straight....you are ingesting 200 pills a day? Wow. Please get help before it is too late. Lope will damage your heart. You can do this! Please keep us updated but get help as soon as you can.

 

[Lobsterbutch]

way back in the beginning I experienced they typical side effects of using high doses, feeling faint, loss of endurance, blurry vision, heart flutters, but now its just.......................normal. Other than GI disturbances, I really dont get any side effects anymore, which is worrisome, because that means I have adapted to all the effects of this. What that means? I don't know. To be honest, I function pretty well as long as I have a constant supply.........which is not something that happens. Still function, but the financial/supply side of this produces a lot of "sick" days. The withdrawal is the thing that takes it out of me now, and since this stuff has become harder to get in amounts I need (at a cheap price) then I run into issues.

Not sure how long it will take me to be in full withdrawal, but im sure its going to be the worst. I feel like suboxone is going to keep me violently ill for awhile because I cant see how I'll avoid precipitated withdrawal. But I really dug my own grave with this.

I started at first to cover withdrawal from morphine, tianeptine, and kratom. Ended up hospitalized for the w/d from those and high dose phenibut (that was insane). Upon discharge I felt the PAWS, that awful empty restless anxious feeling, and tried taking loperamide I had laying around. I had a lot around from the w/d experience that happened, and it really helped me feel better. Much more content and comfortable. It was only for a few days/weeks, but now I'm here hahaha.

Its fucked up, for the most part I feel fine now, but only as long as I'm on a propper dose. And since I dose daily, I have no idea what dose I'm actually addicted to. 96 count bottles make me think "oh shit, I'm going to have a bad day".

Thanks for the suggestions, keep them coming

 

[Lobsterbutch]

Oh, and I live in NY, USA. And in my area, which is a small-ish town, we don't have any methadone clinics or things like that. I've been working on finding treatment providers through my health insurance, and I've got a list of places going, but with the absurd nature of my habit, not sure how to go about starting

 

[Jekyl Anhydride]

The medical community is finally coming around but as of a few years ago there was a report in JAMA about a guy on 400mg a day and they had no idea how to go about helping him. They finally got him into a methadone clinic and he got much better.

I'm not judging or shaming as that doesn't help anything and I'm the last person to be casting the first stone, but iirc the lope interferes with calcium channels and the pace-making system of your heart.

The long QRS/ Q-T syndrome or 'Torsades de Pointes' will eventually put you into a ventricular arrhythmia that will require cardio-version (the elec. zapping paddles) or external pacemaker to correct along with and drugs such as intravenous magnesium, sodium bicarbonate, and isoproterenol. On some occasions drugs such as amiodarone (Cordarone, Pacerone) flecainide (Tambocor), ibutilide (Corvert) are used when you reach the QTc point >600 ms with a QRS >150 impulse interruption point.

It's not even so much the Loperamide as it is the major M1 metabolite, desmethylloperamide that causes problems.

The dizzy spells are the first sign along with weakness after any kind of exertion or it can come on without warning. Also try to hold your head straight and look as far left or right as possible and see if you have a nystagmus type effect where your eyes bounce or flutter at the edge of their horizontal limit. That's another bad sign.

I understand your not looking for a list of problems, I just hope some of this will add to your motivation to seek some type of treatment. Methadone is usually the firstline approach but any type of ORT is worth trying.

I really hope you can find something that works for you Lobsterbutch.


Some more examples of what can go wrong:

http://rimed.org/rimedicaljournal/2017/04/2017-04-33-case-rasla.pdf

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27022002

 

[Lobsterbutch]

The medical community is finally coming around but as of a few years ago there was a report in JAMA about a guy on 400mg a day and they had no idea how to go about helping him. They finally got him into a methadone clinic and he got much better.

I'm not judging or shaming as that doesn't help anything and I'm the last person to be casting the first stone, but iirc the lope interferes with calcium channels and the pace-making system of your heart.

The long QRS/ Q-T syndrome or 'Torsades de Pointes' will eventually put you into a ventricular arrhythmia that will require cardio-version (the elec. zapping paddles) or external pacemaker to correct along with and drugs such as intravenous magnesium, sodium bicarbonate, and isoproterenol. On some occasions drugs such as amiodarone (Cordarone, Pacerone) flecainide (Tambocor), ibutilide (Corvert) are used when you reach the QTc point >600 ms with a QRS >150 impulse interruption point.

It's not even so much the Loperamide as it is the major M1 metabolite, desmethylloperamide that causes problems.

The dizzy spells are the first sign along with weakness after any kind of exertion or it can come on without warning. Also try to hold your head straight and look as far left or right as possible and see if you have a nystagmus type effect where your eyes bounce or flutter at the edge of their horizontal limit. That's another bad sign.

I understand your not looking for a list of problems, I just hope some of this will add to your motivation to seek some type of treatment. Methadone is usually the firstline approach but any type of ORT is worth trying.

I really hope you can find something that works for you Lobsterbutch.


Some more examples of what can go wrong:

http://rimed.org/rimedicaljournal/2017/04/2017-04-33-case-rasla.pdf

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27022002

Thanks, I really appreciate all the imput man. It doesn't matter which angle I look at it from, Financially, Emotionally, Or Health Problem wise, this has gotta go ASAP.

I'm planning my approach, I'm going to find as many peer reviewed, medical journal papers on loperamide abuse, addiction, and treatment as I can and start going to Substance abuse treatment offices in my area with that stuff and the full info of what I have going on. I feel like I should be able to get someone to see the urgency that this has and may be willing to try different things. I'm only concerned about doctors who will be tunnel visioned in treatment lines. But even that would be better than what I've got going on now. I've been largely free of any side effects, those heart flutters and eye tremors, weakness, fatigue, all has been gone for at least a year, but if my body adapted to it that could be really bad news and I'm just waiting to find out what that means. Not good.

Thanks for the advice, I really do appreciate you all

 

[Painful One]

I just could not be more concerned for you.
I am praying for you.

Please let us know what happens. There are others out there who are in the same situation. This needs to be documented so that others can find a way out also.

Best wishes to you.

 

[Prescottdave]

I read a report on what I thought was BL of someone who got on Suboxone for high dose lope addiction. I remember the poster mentioned showing the prescriber some articles documenting the rising abuse of this med. I think he asked the doctor to read some Web MD and Pub Med articles along with some threads on bluelight.

This thread has some informative posts regarding the seriousness of high dose lope use and the edverse effects on the body. Print out some articles about the misuse of this med and maybe some studies that document the adverse side effects. Bring them to an appointment with a methadone or suboxone provider. Until then maybe try and order some kratom to tide you over.

 

[Lobsterbutch]

I think it might be a good idea to consider subutex instead of suboxone, I worry about precipitated withdrawal with the lope im doing, as its anyone's guess how long i need to wait until I can be inducted to suboxone.

Does anyone know: Is it the naloxone in suboxone that causes the precipitated withdrawal? or is it because of bupenorphines partial agonism? Or is it both? I'm curious to know

 

[Ozle]

Christ. It's not often I'll say something like this, but you'd probably be doing your body and your wallet far less damage if you were just ordering codeine or kratom online instead.

 

[Prescottdave]

I think it might be a good idea to consider subutex instead of suboxone, I worry about precipitated withdrawal with the lope im doing, as its anyone's guess how long i need to wait until I can be inducted to suboxone.

Does anyone know: Is it the naloxone in suboxone that causes the precipitated withdrawal? or is it because of bupenorphines partial agonism? Or is it both? I'm curious to know

http://www.naabt.org/documents/NAABT_PrecipWD.pdf
Both Suboxone and generic Buprenorphine cause the same amount of PWD. The symptoms of PWD have nothing to do with the Naloxone.

 

[cj]

Jesus man your in a world of shit. Methadone would be the best option by far. If that's not an option you could switch to a short acting opiate for a few days as a bridge to Suboxone. The issue is going to be the half life of the lope and not triggering precipitated withdrawal. That's going to be a problem. Most doctors don't know shit about how to use Suboxone either. It's only a 5 hour course to get licensed. So take any optimistic opinions with a grain of salt. You may just have to bite the bullet and wait 72 hours to dose the sub. I don't know what withdrawal from that high a dose feels like but I can somewhat imagine so I don't recommend just going to rehab

 

[Jekyl Anhydride]

I like the idea of Methadone to bridge your way to Subs if that's the direction you plan on. Even if you don't, I think a quick read of "The Bernese Method" which uses microdoses of Suboxone while a full agonist is still in your system might be of benefit.

It appears to be successful for people that can't purge opioids from their system before inducting, in which case it might be helpful to you.

Use of microdoses for induction of buprenorphine treatment with overlapping full opioid agonist use: the Bernese method

We present two cases of successful initiation of buprenorphine treatment with the Bernese method, ie, gradual induction overlapping with full agonist use. The first patient began buprenorphine with overlapping street heroin use after repeatedly experiencing relapse, withdrawal, and trauma reactivation symptoms during conventional induction. The second patient was maintained on high doses of diacetylmorphine (ie, pharmaceutical heroin) and methadone during induction. Both patients tolerated the induction procedure well and reported only mild withdrawal symptoms.

 

[Hthr1991]

I am the exact same boat as OP. I am taking 400 mg of lope a day and just yesterday went to my old sub doctor and came clean and he gave me an RX for sub. The only problem with this is PW. I know from experience even after waiting 48 hours the PW were UGLY. I?m thinking about getting some short acting opiates to cover that time span BUT I haven?t used in 3.5 years and don?t know where to start and my dr didn?t believe that lope could cause PW. I?m looking into the Bernese method. One thing I know for sure is you cannot keep taking lope which I?m sure you know. I?ve had a lot of cardiac symptoms and I?m sure if I stay this course I will die. Reach out and get help, sounds like you?re on that track! I can update here about what works for me!

 

[Painful One]

I am the exact same boat as OP. I am taking 400 mg of lope a day and just yesterday went to my old sub doctor and came clean and he gave me an RX for sub. The only problem with this is PW. I know from experience even after waiting 48 hours the PW were UGLY. I?m thinking about getting some short acting opiates to cover that time span BUT I haven?t used in 3.5 years and don?t know where to start and my dr didn?t believe that lope could cause PW. I?m looking into the Bernese method. One thing I know for sure is you cannot keep taking lope which I?m sure you know. I?ve had a lot of cardiac symptoms and I?m sure if I stay this course I will die. Reach out and get help, sounds like you?re on that track! I can update here about what works for me!

There is a person who talks about how long to wait and was able to successfully get from Loperamide to Sub's over in the "Loperamide Megathread". You might want to check out the information there.

Well done for talking to your doctor about this and getting yourself off the Loperamide!
I'm really proud of you!
Best wishes and best of luck to you.
You will be in my prayers.

Let us know how it goes.

 

[Chris42393]

I've been on Loperamide for a long time. 400mg/day for about 1.5 years now. It was supposed to be a week haha, how do you like that? It's the typical thing we all have happen to us when dealing with addiction. I've tried tapering and cold turkey and I'm still stuck here. Its looking like I'm going to need to throw in the towel and get professional help, because I cant survive taking this much loperamide each morning, and I CERTAINLY can't afford to.

Has anyone here gotten medical assistance to get off loperamide? Suboxone, methadone, medicine assisted withdrawal, homeopathic shamanism? Therapy?


I'm fairly certain I have a personality disorder, and this big ol substance use disorder I have going is a symptom of it. A big symptom. So i need to address that too, otherwise next year I'll be drinking bottles of miralax to stop feeling so empty.............or full...........whichever one the day requires.

I'm trying to be funny, but Loperamide has been a serious problem for me, the withdrawal is ridiculous and Its impossible to get off. It seems most stores are aware loperamide is being abused so I assume that there will be at least some knowledge of it in professional medical setting.

Any thoughts? Advice? All help is appreciated


*oh and I've been taking 400mg/day for 1.5 years, I've been on loperamide closer to 3.5-4. Yeah, real fucking long time*

Legit question, how do you go to the bathroom? I want to try Lope for coming off opiates (also marijuana too). I first used Kratom (which im still on) and when Idon'tt take it, there are WD symptoms too....I dont know how long they will last, and how bad they will be. But I figured its better than using IV Heroin. Did it help with the withdrawals? Are there withdrawals coming off Lope?

 

[MDPV_Psychosis]

Legit question, how do you go to the bathroom? I want to try Lope for coming off opiates (also marijuana too). I first used Kratom (which im still on) and when Idon'tt take it, there are WD symptoms too....I dont know how long they will last, and how bad they will be. But I figured its better than using IV Heroin. Did it help with the withdrawals? Are there withdrawals coming off Lope?

Chris, in your other thread you mentioned you got off IV Heroin by switching to kratom, but now you feel stuck on kratom.

The same thing is likely to happen if you try to switch to lope. Except with lope, you will be putting your health in danger, you will be setting yourself up for even worse and longer lasting withdrawals and you may even end up jacking your tolerance to other opioids sky high.

There would only be two ways you should use lope:

1) only at therapeutic doses to control diarrhea as needed during the withdrawal process

2) in larger doses but on a very aggressive fast taper. If you stall on the taper you'll just find yourself addicted to lope and in a precarious situation.

You are better off trying to taper with kratom. Have you tried that yet?

Try reading through the various long lope threads we have and you'll see lots of horror stories of people innocently switching to lope from other opioids, quickly rising to insanely high doses and then getting stuck at those high doses for long periods of time (years). You may want to reconsider. Many of those stories include heart issues from lope...

 

[Lobsterbutch]

Legit question, how do you go to the bathroom? I want to try Lope for coming off opiates (also marijuana too). I first used Kratom (which im still on) and when Idon'tt take it, there are WD symptoms too....I dont know how long they will last, and how bad they will be. But I figured its better than using IV Heroin. Did it help with the withdrawals? Are there withdrawals coming off Lope?

To be honest, your system adjusts to it as time goes on, to the point where I have movements every day. Didn't start that way though, and there have been some fucking outrageously vulgar bowel movements I thought would literally need to get extracted out of me. It sounds terrible, but the relief of getting those over with and out of you is as good as being high (The lope doesn't really make you high). And I had a few episodes where over a 5 day period I had a gas thing that was so terrible I thought I was going to need surgery.

all of it is bad news dude, and using it to get through a withdrawal is a bad idea. For the most part, I think most people who try it end up hooked on loperamide or back on their old DOC, except their tolerance got fucked up by the lope they used so they're worse off than before.

Most of us have a whole lot of issues managing the use of substances that alter our consciousness and emotions. So using something to come of something else is not great, unsupervised, accountable to no one else. My motivation and resolve to get better fluctuates violently from day to day. I had problems with using every other drug, so loperamide ended up being no different. For most of us, we really need to get outside professional help to get us out. And I've had good ammounts of sober time between my bad episodes, and I thought that I did it myself and I was just experiencing a setback, but it was really just me doing the things I always did, and wether sober or not, I was setting the same traps for myself that get me back into active addiction.

Just saying, if we could manage using our drugs, and could really taper off of something no problem, and excersize self control so we can be succesfull, well, I'd bet a lot of us wouldn't have gotten as bad as we did. Point is, Loperamide will likely not be any different from anything else if it works for you, so use with great caution and discretion, and don't wait to get help if you really need it.