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  • TDS Moderators: AlphaMethylPhenyl | paranoid android

Combined opiate and ambien withdrawal

C

cook

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Jun 28, 2012
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Feel like I needed to write this shit somewhere. So I had a moderate pod tea, buprenoprhine etc habit and I quitted about a week ago. Couple weeks prior to that I also started taking ambien for sleep. Pure opiate WD´s were pretty much manageable for a week, but the biggest mistake I guess was when i also quitted ambien two nights ago CT just week after the opiates.

Now, for about 24hrs been thinking mostly that i will be dying any moment. Worst anxiety ever, i thought that i already have seen it all. Not even dream about sleeping, last night I tried to and had the worst panic attack of my life, although I diagnosed it as panic only later cos it was quite hard to think in the middle of it. And after that it has been mostly pure panic for last 24hrs. Well, today I been consuming regular benzos like candies whole time only to find out that those arent doing much about my mindstate. Couple hours ago I decided to go for morphine, because I felt like my mind is going to black out any moment.

Took about 15mgs orally. After an hour, everything cleared out. Like my regular anxiety always cleared after low-dose benzos, but now it seems like the opiates are the only ones that do the trick.

This really came out of the woods for me. Just wanted to share if someone would have some precious advices how to proceed from here. Tapering with opiates to combat ultimate panic just seems maybe not so approriate, or would it? Cant really see any other solution if this scenario returns after the morphine wears off.. :?
 
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I think the anxiety was from the opiate withdrawal still. Morphine and especially buprenorphine can last a while, so the withdrawals from them start and finish later than with other drugs.

I think that you should give tapering a proper chance since I don't think that opiates are treating your anxiety, but rather causing the anxiety from withdrawal, which is why taking opiates takes away that anxiety.
 
Sounds like it's the opiate wd causing the anxiety mate. How heavy has your zolpidem use been? I wouldnt recommend withdrawing from heavy z drug use cold turkey, its so horrible and not to mention dangerous. I would keep on the ambien until you're clean of opiates then concentrate on getting off the ambien. All the best.
 
I used about 10-30 mg at night for 3-4 weeks straight. Its just that I have CT´d from ambien dozen times and never had any problem, except that the first night and following day without might be little bit strange, but nothing like this I experienced now. But this time I had the opiates to deal with also and I think that played a major part which I couldnt predict.. Thought I was pretty much cleared the opiate WD´s in a week, that is why i decided to leave ambien also almost simultaneously. BIG mistake.

Dont have an access to zolpidem anymore so I am not able to reverse things. Just have to figure out something else.
 
Well zolpidem is cross tolerant with other z drugs and Benzos. Can u not use one of those to taper? I CT'd from zopiclone once and it was so bad, if i didnt have diaz i dunno what i would've done. Z drugs get underestimated, and i cant imagine getting opiate wd's on top of that. Its a lot to handle.
 
It´s just that the regular benzos didnt help, I took a pretty large dose for what usually use (took 40mg oxazepam + 0.5 alprazolam) and it made me just pretty tired and drowsy but still panicking, which was odd. Only after I took morphine it eased down considerable.

I am now maintaining myself on small dose morphine and wait for couple days until I am convinced that the Z-withdrawal is over for sure. After that i´m going to leave the morphine and see what it does.
 
Yeah, thanks. I'm starting to get convinced that the reaction was still mainly due to zolpidem WD because it's getting easier quite fast and I have been able to sleep little bit, accompanied by night terrors of course. Definitely the worst experience of my life. When I had an episode of major depression with psychotic symptoms couple years ago I thought that was it, rock bottom of being. But that 24hrs was maybe even worse, because of the intensity which was crazy.

Well, have to think really careful next time I consider taking z-drug for an extended period..
 
definitely, i made the same mistake with zopiclone because I'd already been through Benzo wd a couple of times and thought "Well z drugs cant possibly be as bad as that was" and it was worse. I just didnt know what to do, one of my lowest points without a doubt. So now i Tell people everytime i can to not underestimate the z's
 
Just a quick update here, i'll write it down so that it I won't forget it :)

Tomorrow I am starting to cut down the opiates again. I have been doing about 20mgs morphine a day (orally). My plan is basically CT, but with the backdoor that I can always use half of my last dose if it get´s unbearable. This way the doses I am allowed to use would rapidly decrease to nothing and would hopefully me to prolong the time needed for a fix because every time I use I lose some of the playing cards I have. In theory this sounds good, but the practice is yet to be seen. But it can't be worse than the reaction I described earlier from zolpidem.
 
Very minor discomfort after quitting the opiates again. I can now say for sure that it was the zolpidem which caused the hell broke loose which I described in OP.

Starting to feel pretty good about not having to rely on any substance right now. Until next time. Too bad I haven't ever had really bad reaction during opiate withdrawals, because that might make me learn something. Now that I have always experienced only very minor WD's it is almost 100% sure that I am going to do them again. Never going to touch a z-drug again, that is for sure. Lesson learned.
 
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