Did I screw myself??

[WeREallSTARSnow]

I was in the hospital for about a month. Before I went in, I was on suboxone. I IV'd about 4 mg a day. While in the hospital I was put on fentanyl, dilaudid, and perc 7.5 mg. I stayed on these the entire time. When I got out, all the doctor gave me was 5 mg percs, 3 a day. I figured while in the hospital I got all of the subs out of my system, which is good because sub withdrawal is the worst. I'm on day 6 cold turkey off the percs, and I IV'd .5 mg sub. How much damage did I do? And please hold the obvious "you shouldn't have done that", or " you aren't serious about sobriety". I just hope I didn't prolong this mess by too long. Most of the physical WD symptoms had disappeared, except for insomnia and restless legs. All I wanna do is sleep!

 

[THECATINTHEHAT]

Everyone's different, but I can volunteer my own personal experience.

At the moment I'm about three and a half weeks in to a buprenorphine detox and I'm still just about in acutes. I'm using a lot of sleep meds every night to sleep, which I'm going to have to tail off soon.

The medical communities generalised opinion on things is that it takes five half lives for a drug to be eliminated from your system, so that would be 200 hours on average for buprenorphine. However, it's not as simple as all that and your brains natural systems that release neurotransmitters that bind to the opiate receptors can still be firing back up when you have some of the drug left in your brain.

If you are in withdrawal, that's good news! It means your body is moving towards operating naturally again. Maybe you could use some non-recreational sleep aids to get you to sleep? Much better than using more bupe and setting the process back.

I'll be completely honest here and set out what I'm using at the moment for sleep. I'm not for one second you recommend using all this, but this is just how I'm getting through my detox. I was using....

200mg quitiapine
15mg zopiclone
10mg zolpidem
30mg promethazine
4mg melatonin

I've now run out of the z drugs and am using....

200mg quitiapine
60mg promethazine
4mg melatonin
3-5mg etizolam (I know that this can be recreational, but I'm on a diazepam script but it has zero recreational effect for me and simply helps out with sleep)

I wouldn't for a second recommend using all that. I would starrt off by maybe trying just the melatonin and seeing if that works, if it doesn't maybe add in some diphenhydramine. I'm in the process of reducing my nightly meds, as soon as I'm out of the acutes I'll cut down to maybe just the melatonin and promethazine, then just the melatonin, then nothing.

I have no idea if that's been of any help but that's what I personally have to offer on the matter.

 

[southeast]

Subs threw me back into a nasty withdrawal before but I would do what he said and just take other stuff to stop. More subs will make it last longer and longer-- I fucked myself like that I was so scared of withdrawl and it took 5 days to get bad. Good luck! Take loperamide and benzos and I use ketamine. You can do it! Sounds like you've been trying really hard and that's what matters. Everybody fucks up sometimes.

 

[THECATINTHEHAT]

Personally I would avoid benzos and ketamine. Benzos for an opiate addict....red flag! Ketamine and trying to sleep....red flag! I've also been down the route of ending up with an IV ketamine habit before after trying to get off opiates, really not a good idea.

Start off by trying all the stuff that isn't going to get you high.

Melatonin
Diphenhydramine
Promethazine
As much as I really wouldn't normally say this, a sedative anti-psychotic (take at your own risk)
Zopiclone
Zolpidem

Basically I would try those drugs in that order, depending on what is available to you.

 

[southeast]

Yea he's right. Depends on how squeaky clean you want to be and I only used benzos for the first ten days. Benzos create terrible addiction issues. I just snorted k, didn't iv it. You don't want to go in a k hole in withdrawal; you won't like where you go.

 

[THECATINTHEHAT]

Tbf I don't even know why I said that because benzos can be a fucking godsend and I've used them through my detox atm, but use them with that big red flag flying clear and present!

If you can get the sleep using other methods than that's definitely the way to go though.