Dr prescribed Oxycodone tapering vs suboxone/methadone

Hampton

Greenlighter
Joined
Jan 6, 2016
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7
I was prescribed oxycodone 7years ago for physical pain. I had never touched street drugs and had no addiction issues before being prescribed this but now I’m dependent and I smoke and gamble more than I ever used to. Is it possible to taper off of oxycodone or do I need take methadone or suboxone? And if I have to take one of those is one better than the other for getting off of oxyneo? I am on a really high dose, 80mg 3x/day. I’m in a much better place mentally and know now that my physical pain was from emotional trauma and I hate being dependent on this stuff. I’m angry with my dr and the manufacturers for getting me to this place but that’s another story. Thanks in advance for any help!
 
Hey.. welcome to BL and sorry your going through this!!

To help us help you.. what does your monthly use schedule look like?


You can make it through this and get to the freedom your looking for.
Hi never sick anymore. I love that name and that is so where I want to be. Thank you for the welcome. To be fully transparent I’m prescribed 2 40mg tablets 3 times per day but I’ve been at this dosage for about 3 years now so it doesn’t work like it used to. So for the first half of the month I take the prescribed dosage but on bad days I take more than I’m supposed to. Then for the last half of the month I have to cut back to get through to the next refill. Then it starts all over again. on the days I cut back I’m obviously miserable from withdrawals. I’ve gone through a crazy spiritual awakening the past year, year and a half and I’m so ready to get on with my life. Any advice is welcome.
 
Been there❤️.. what does your end of month look like. Many times just waiting for the refill we can get so close to the 1st reset miracle that marks the noticeable healing point from physical dependence. It’s right around 7 days completely off all opioids with oxy. How close do you get to that every month when you run out?
 
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Been there❤️.. what does your end of month look like. Many times just waiting for the refill we can get so close to the 1st reset miracle that marks the noticeable healing point from physical dependence. It’s right around 7 days completely off all opioids with oxy. How close do you get to that every month when you run out?
I never run out. I’ve done that before and will never try it again. Withdrawals are unbearable with kids in the house. The anxiety for me is the worst. Sometimes I’m down to 3 40s/day for the last few days but for the most part I’ve been ok. I don’t take them for the high anymore just the relief of withdrawals and pain but that’s been getting harder lately which is what has led me to want to get off of it. When I was functioning with them, not in pain or withdrawals I was fine but now that my tolerance is growing it’s making life worse and I just don’t want to be at their mercy anymore. Especially now that I see it for what it is. It’s no different to me than heroin. I get dope sick now just like I used to see on intervention and I could never understand why people would do that to themselves. I guess now I know and it’s humbled me.
I’ve just read that suboxone and methadone are even harder to get off of and I don’t want that. But I’ll try cutting back and then of course my brain will come up with reasons for me to take them, like a migraine or pain all over and then I’m right back to where i started. If I could learn to control that part I think I could taper bc I want it so bad for myself and for my family, but I’m no good to them in pain either. I’m so new to all of this. Is it even possible to taper when I’ve been on them for so long and at such a high dose?
 
It very possible to taper off that dose. I have tapered off phenomenal doses of many different drugs, and tapering works.

Slow tapers work best.

How do you take those doses? Orally or otherwise?
 
It very possible to taper off that dose. I have tapered off phenomenal doses of many different drugs, and tapering works.

Slow tapers work best.

How do you take those doses? Orally or otherwise?
Hi there,
Thank you for your help. I take them orally
 
Hi there,
Thank you for your help. I take them orally

Your best bet is to tell your doctor you want to go down in dose, and he or she will prescribed you lower dosed pills that will make it easier.

However at the same, I know how psychologically hard it can be to ask a doctor to prescribe you less medication. When I tapered off of methadone the drug addict in me couldn't bring myself to ask the clinic to prescribe me less. Instead I just started taking less without telling them and saved the extra amount. I did this the entire time and did eventually taper off of it entirely. The dose I was taking was massive. Problem is a few years later I got into that stash of saved pills and finished them all.

If for whatever reason you can't or won't get lower strength pills/lower doses from your doctor, you can cut the pills into fractions. This might slightly reduce the time release effect however.

I would go very slowly if I were in your shoes. Starting off by perhaps a 5mg/week decrease. For example I'd choose a day every week to be my decrease day, so for instance Sunday. So it would something like, Sunday week #1 = 115mg day, Sunday week #2 = 110mg, etc.

Of course this could get tricky with 40mg tablets. One way it can be done is by getting a cheap $25 milligram scale off of Amazon. You weigh the whole pill on the scale, for example say it weights 400mg total. That means that for every 10mg of pill material, it contains 4mg of oxycodone. By knowing this ratio, you can pretty accurately adjust your doses. Because breaking it into pieces my reduce the time release effect, I would recommend taking the broken pill as your 2nd dose of the day (since you take it 3 times a day the 2 second dose is covered by the 1st and 3rd doses so the change in time reason won't matter as much).

The best option though would be to tell your doctor that you want to go down. But i know from experience how difficult it is to tell a doctor that.

I couldn't have tapered off of opioids without doing alot of exercise, it really helped me. Perhaps I could have done it without all that exercise but I'm sure it would have been much harder.
 
Thank you ❤️ I don’t think I can cut up the ER kind. I think they made them so that you can’t do that anymore. I have spoken with my dr about wanting to get off of my meds. I’m hoping now that I’ve dealt with my emotional pain and I’ve been taking duloxetine for a month that I will be able to get off of these and not be in physical pain anymore.
It seems like so far most people recommend tapering over suboxone or methadone? Has anyone tried doing it both ways? We have an opioid dependency program here but I think it’s only for suboxone or methadone. I wish I could use the support services they offer but with tapering. I think having the support mentally and having accountability would help me be more successful.

This is off topic but funny you should mention exercise. I got my numerology chart done about a year ago and it was so insanely accurate! It mentioned that having a group exercise program would be good for me to help with the withdrawals that I might experience. It also said that I would get married young and rebel against my parents strict christian upbringing. It gave me advice on how to become the best version of myself and knew exactly what things I would struggle with. It was like a blueprint to living my best life. I wish I would have done it sooner but I was raised to think that numerology and astrology were evil 🤦‍♀️
 
Getting off suboxone will be much easier then methadone.

Why do you want to taper?

Just a heads up there is no easy road out❤️❤️❤️. If there was one of us millions of good people would have found it.

You can do this.. sure it’s going to hurt, but there is a bright warm light at the end of that tunnel.
 
Getting off suboxone will be much easier then methadone.

Why do you want to taper?

Just a heads up there is no easy road out❤️❤️❤️. If there was one of us millions of good people would have found it.

You can do this.. sure it’s going to hurt, but there is a bright warm light at the end of that tunnel.
Thank you.
Like why do I want to taper as opposed to suboxone? Just from things I’ve read on here that make it seem like it’s harder to get off than the Oxycodone itself.
Thank you for the advice ❤️ I’m so tired of hurting that the prospect of more suffering is daunting but I guess it’s time to start dealing with my shit 🙈 my mom never dealt with any of her stuff and now she can’t move or talk and she’s in a home at a really young age. It’s devastating and I don’t want to end up like that and doing that to my family. I think I might be moving into the anger stage of grief…

Did you suffer from depression when getting sober? I’m worried that my dopamine/hormonal system is so messed up from years of this that I’ll never get back to “normal”
 
Thank you.
Like why do I want to taper as opposed to suboxone? Just from things I’ve read on here that make it seem like it’s harder to get off than the Oxycodone itself.
Thank you for the advice ❤️ I’m so tired of hurting that the prospect of more suffering is daunting but I guess it’s time to start dealing with my shit 🙈 my mom never dealt with any of her stuff and now she can’t move or talk and she’s in a home at a really young age. It’s devastating and I don’t want to end up like that and doing that to my family. I think I might be moving into the anger stage of grief…

Did you suffer from depression when getting sober? I’m worried that my dopamine/hormonal system is so messed up from years of this that I’ll never get back to “normal”

There are three major components to addiction and two for physical dependence. Acute withdrawal, post acute withdrawal (syndrome) and psychological addiction. Psychological addiction is not a factor in physical dependence. In a nut shell when we successfully jump from a physical dependence and make it through we are essentially out scott free, but when we are facing an addiction we can make it past the physical symptoms and then face a lingering psychological drive to return to use. The psychological drive comes from a reprogrammed reward pathway drive.

On psychological addiction look at the brain and addiction thread in basic drug discussion.. I tried to link it but it’s not working.

So the strongest way to tackle this problem is to study up about acute withdrawal, post acute withdrawal syndrome and psychological addiction.

Create a personal recovery plan that addresses each component and that is mailable to modification as the subjective experience of cleaning up and staying clean shows it’s self to you.

Come up with the strongest plan you can while still using and the implement it. Then if we slip make sure we don’t OD and make any adjustments to find the success we are looking for.

So how are you going to deal with the acute withdrawal, treat the post acute withdrawal and treat a possible addiction.

Consider looking into all these and posting your plan here as people can post in with good advice from their hard won personal experiences.

You can do this!!
 
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There are three major components to addiction and two for physical dependence. Acute withdrawal, post acute withdrawal (syndrome) and psychological addiction. Psychological addiction is not a factor in physical dependence. In a nut shell when we successfully jump from a physical dependence and make it through we are essentially out scott free, but when we are facing an addiction we can make it past the physical symptoms and then face a lingering psychological drive to return to use. The psychological drive comes from a reprogrammed reward pathway drive.

On psychological addiction look at the brain and addiction thread in basic drug discussion.. I tried to link it but it’s not working.

So the strongest way to tackle this problem is to study up about acute withdrawal, post acute withdrawal syndrome and psychological addiction.

Create a personal recovery plan that addresses each component and that is mailable to modification as the subjective experience of cleaning up and staying clean shows it’s self to you.

Come up with the strongest plan you can while still using and the implement it. Then if we slip make sure we don’t OD and make any adjustments to find the success we are looking for.

So how are you going to deal with the acute withdrawal, treat the post acute withdrawal and treat a possible addiction.

Consider looking into all these and posting your plan here as people can post in with good advice from their hard won personal experiences.

You can do this!!
Thank you!! I truly appreciate you taking the time to share your knowledge with me ❤️ I will look into the things you’ve mentioned
 
There are three major components to addiction and two for physical dependence. Acute withdrawal, post acute withdrawal (syndrome) and psychological addiction. Psychological addiction is not a factor in physical dependence. In a nut shell when we successfully jump from a physical dependence and make it through we are essentially out scott free, but when we are facing an addiction we can make it past the physical symptoms and then face a lingering psychological drive to return to use. The psychological drive comes from a reprogrammed reward pathway drive.

On psychological addiction look at the brain and addiction thread in basic drug discussion.. I tried to link it but it’s not working.

So the strongest way to tackle this problem is to study up about acute withdrawal, post acute withdrawal syndrome and psychological addiction.

Create a personal recovery plan that addresses each component and that is mailable to modification as the subjective experience of cleaning up and staying clean shows it’s self to you.

Come up with the strongest plan you can while still using and the implement it. Then if we slip make sure we don’t OD and make any adjustments to find the success we are looking for.

So how are you going to deal with the acute withdrawal, treat the post acute withdrawal and treat a possible addiction.

Consider looking into all these and posting your plan here as people can post in with good advice from their hard won personal experiences.

You can do this!!
Great post :)
 
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