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Need Help Hey everyone! Need help getting off Buprenorphine??

sarahjb76

sarahjb76

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Dec 8, 2017
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Hi. I'm fairly new here. Have been hoovering around reading bits and pieces for awhile and finally registered. Have been in recovery from Alcohol for just over 6 years now. My partner who I've been with for 7 years was a recovering heroin addict when we met so it helped me stay off everything as he wasnt using/drinking himself. In 2017 he slowly relapsed, he thought I didn't know but you cant kid a kidder!!! Well it obviously escalated and unfortunately I too started using. Not heroin but cocaine. Eventually ended up injecting which I never thought I'd do. January of this year I had a pretty major overdose. I had a fit, stopped breathing. Had to have mouth to mouth by my partner ect. Scary stuff but I refused to go to hospital when the ambulance arrived as didn't want it to be known why I had fitted. It scared me enough to drastically cut down and my partner did too. However he is on a subutex script and has been for years. This has never been of interest to me until after my fit when he suggested to me it might help stop any cravings for coke j may have and just chill me out abit. Only did it occasionally but you guessed it. It's now a full habit! I have been having 14mg a day for quite few months and have reduced to 8mg a day but finding it hard. Its obviously not something I can easily get hold of either just through my partner. Is there anything I can do or take to get me off it? Apart from cold turkey. I'm reluctant to goto Addaction as they will stop my partners script as they will know I've got it from him. Any help would be appreciated. ?
 
Buprenorphine is a very potent drug and 14mg or 8mg is a very high dose in the grand scheme of things. They usually start people off on it WAY too high and often for addictions that pale in comparison (hydrocodone, even kratom I've seen). You are going to need to slowly taper off and you will still face very uncomfortable withdrawals. When people say that Suboxone or Subutex is easy to get off of or it's a cure to opioid addiction they are lying. It is marketing. Buprenorphine is every bit as insidious as any other drug and you will have to taper down to sub-milligram doses to comfortably succeed.

If it's only been a few months, you can probably do a more rapid taper but you'll just have to feel it out. There are tons of threads around the forums with strategies for dealing with withdrawals, some of which have just been discussed in another thread in the last couple days. Immodium, kratom, clonidine, gabapentin, pregabalin are all things that can prove very useful.

It sucks you're in this position now, but you are, so understand it's going to be hard but it is achievable.

I myself spent 2 years on Suboxone and the withdrawal that I faced even after a decent taper was miserable for me. I had a much easier time getting off Methadone with a slow 2/mg a week taper. For me, the Suboxone withdrawal lingered for several weeks and I could not sleep for most of it. This was after tapering down to about 1mg/day which was still too high. That is how powerful it is. If I could go back in time, I would have never gotten on it to get off of oxycodone.

I really don't mean to scare you. Some people have claimed to get off of it with relative ease, but that was not my experience. The odds are more in your favor as you've only spent several months on it. With the proper supplements and drugs you can make it easier. I highly recommend switching to kratom and tapering off of that. If the withdrawals are still hard for you, look into gabapentin or pregabalin prescription to ease and sometimes even eliminate some of the symptoms (RLS, anxiety, insomnia). However, if you were to get those drugs or a benzo with your former alcohol addiction, it's possible you could end up in another world of hurt.
 
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I used subs to get off methadone but didn't go that high. When i was stopped the subs i would go down 1mg ever 5-7 days, slow and steady wins the race
 
I went cold turkey off like 16-32mg. but I was on it for only one month. I tried tapering down but then went back to 16mg/day and started taking an 8mg every few hours the last 2 days. Which was pointless but I had no self control.

The half life is so long tho, even cold turkey it stays in your system for days so it's not like you instantly go thru severe withdrawals.

I had anxiety and 1 night of insomnia, hot and cold chills, aches, twitches, and one night of severe restless limb syndrome. I slept ok after the first sleepless night, taking 100mg of Seroquel at night, and took ibuprofen for 7 days.

For me, it wasn't nearly as bad as slowly tapering off 120mg of methadone which I did 7 years ago. Couldn't sleep for weeks slowly tapering off the meth, but my bupe withdrawals were over within ~10 days.

Ymmv because as I mentioned, I was on it for only abt a month total.
 
Taper, taper, taper, and then taper some more.

What I have done in the past is taper down to 1mg, then down to 0.5, and to 0.25, and then even to 0.125.

I stayed on each of these lower doses for about 3 days (each), and then at the end did the lowest dose every other day.

Once you finally make the jump off, insomnia is typically the worst part (at least for me). So having something like gabapentin, benzos, or even just over the counter Diphenhydramine (Unisom), can really help.

You will also likely have low energy, and feel somewhat depressed so light exercise during the day can also really help.

Hope this helps!
 
Im stuck i need your guys help again i taper and hold it cutting 2 mgs at a time and holding a week..my PROBLEM is that when i get to 4 i get so sick i mean full on wd like from this stuff. Been on a year..never really even took 8 mgs but half the time. I "took a break "and have been taking 5 mgs. I dont understand why i get so sick at this point.
 
That is very odd, especially if you’re doing a slow taper.

Maybe you need to taper down from 5 to like 4.75 for 2 days then 4.5, etc. etc.
 
Well the gabapentin is definitely good to have, that should be helping. How many mg’s of gaba are you taking? May consider upping it a bit as you taper.

Are you tapering the benzos at the same time? If so, that may have something to do with it, and I would recommend doing one taper at a time if possible.
 
So since ive taken 6 mgs today. Whats my next step? I was on 4 held a wk but didnt really realize i wasnt taking the klonopin as written. So unintentionally i was tapering on both. But i dont know what i should start taking tomorrow..
 
Again I would focus on one taper at a time.

Which of the two do you have bigger supply for? Or do you have a script for both?
 
Personally I would think that tapering the suboxone first would make sense so that you have the benzo for comfort (albeit very slight), comfort to help with the anxiety and sleep to an extent.

Then you can focus on the benzo taper. Tackle one thing at a time to not only make it easier on your body but also your mind.

Now, if you are at 6mg again I think that you should slowly begin to taper from there. Maybe try 5.75 tomorrow and then 5.5 each day until you get to 4 which seems to be where you struggle.

At 4, begin the same process of dropping very small amounts but do it over say 3-4 days or wherever you feel comfortable at.

Hope this helps.
 
A classic problem, a taper from 16 - 4 mg or 24 - 4 mg isnt that hard. The last 4 mg to 0 is the game changer. Thats because the main receptor in the brain that bupe binds to are maxed out at 4 mg, they are saturated as you say i chemistry. They cannot get more saturated even if you would dose a 100 mg of bupe. Thats why the the last 4 mg is the hardest to taper.

Gabapentin in doses of 1500 to 1800 mg and klonidin/loperamid is the best non-narcotic help you can get. Good luck
 
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Well im to 4 mgs its not been as bad bc ive had pnemonia and slept a bunch. As ive dropped to 4 ive been able to hold steady on 3 600s and 4 klonopin. Although i was really low on the benzos as i taper down below 4 what is a reasonable amount of gaba and klonopin. Also i got a script of 15 clonidine.
 
Alright, dose 600 mg gabapentin with 75 mcg every 5-6 hours. How long have you used 4 mg klonopin a day? gotta be careful with that shit, its a bitch to come off..
 
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