Help with Suboxone withdrawal please

[aBurningFire]

I have been taking suboxone for the past few weeks. 8 mg 1x a day to help get off my oxycodone and heroin habit. I opened my last Suboxone strip yesterday and cut it to where i could take 5mg yesterday and have 3 mg left over for today. Well, I just took that last 3 mg and am worried about how bad my withdrawals are going to be and MAINLY was wondering if taking VERY SMALL doses of methadone would do more harm than good or not.
I have twelve 10mg methadone that i had been savin, and was thinkin that i could take 3 mg doses of methadone when my withdrawals start to get real bad (or just enough to take the pain away) and only take it when i ABSOLUTELY NEED TO at those small doses. Does anyone know FOR A FACT if this will do more harm than good? I'd appreciate any info that is not condescending and is based on fact and not fear of your scary situation with triple digit doses of methadone. I'm talking 2 or 3 mg doses once every 2 days or so when the pain is at its worst. THANKS EVERYBODY!

 

[K'd-OUT-in-AZ]

Methadone withdrawals will be much worse than Suboxone withdrawals, which are mild compared to most opiates. I've been on Methadone and Suboxone maintenance and I'll tell you, coming off Suboxone is much easier. There is no reason to take Methadone. Not a good idea, your just prolonging your use which will make it harder to get off the opioids.

Coming off 8mg of Suboxone after a few weeks will likely cause some mild withdrawals, but they will be subtle. Probably some anxiety, muscle pain, hot and cold sweats & insomnia. These symptoms should be mild.

 

[aBurningFire]

so even waiting 2 or 3 days for the withdrawals to be full motion and then taking 5 mg of methadone then waiting another 2 days and taking another 5 mg will make my withdrawals worse in the long run?

 

[aBurningFire]

or what about doing the same thing but with 10 mg percocet? will that have the same outcome?

 

[K'd-OUT-in-AZ]

so even waiting 2 or 3 days for the withdrawals to be full motion and then taking 5 mg of methadone then waiting another 2 days and taking another 5 mg will make my withdrawals worse in the long run?

Depends on how long you plan on doing that. If you go on doing that for a couple weeks then your going to have to deal with Methadone withdrawals, worse than Suboxone withdrawals. If you just plan on doing that 2 or 3 times then maybe you'll be able deal with the withdrawals easier. You'll still have to deal with them eventually, no matter how long you prolong it, you'll just have a worse time if you go on doing that Methadone regimen for more than a couple weeks. You won't go into full blown Methadone withdrawals but they still will last longer and there are more symptoms.

 

[DooMMooD]

Honestly you have a lotta suboxone built up in your system. I would recommend tapering down with more suboxone vs methadone, if possible.

If you can, just go cold turkey. It may seem like hell, but honestly, when was the last time you made it to day 5, day 7, day 10 of withdrawals from other opiates? The fact that you are making it to these markers is testament to the fact that sub w/d are not that intense. They may seem "like the worst withdrawals ever" but thats because most people never make it to these points in the past. So just keep goin mate, keep on persisting.

If neither of these options are possible, tough out the w/d till you cannot anymore then take a few mgs of methadone if need be. Try and do this as infrequently as possible, because as people have said, you dont wanna now go from sub w/d to methadone w/d. The methadone dosages you are talking about utilizing are so small that I doubt they will cause severe, if any, w/d at the end of your "cleaning up" period. If you are honestly taking 10mg/methadone or less every other day you should be fine in the end when you stop that.

However, i would STRONGLY advise against using oxycodone (percocet) in your attempt to wean off the suboxone. Honestly this may trigger a huge relapse and if your goal is to actually get clean this will basically send you back to square 1, quite quickly I would imagine.

 

[unsettled]

if you've only been on the subs a few weeks and you want to stop using opiates then just taper off the subs and be done, use some loperamide if you need to if the wd's get too annoying.

I don't have any experience with methadone but you won't be able to feel ten mgs of percocet for awhile with all that sub in your system, that's a small amount of oxycodone but I could see how it could trigger a relapse if you waited long enough before you took it.... it's up to you

IMO the best thing you can do is taper taper taper with subs then switch to loperamide then be done.... easier said than, well, done.