Opioids Is this a valid method to combat opioid withdrawal?

[Bomb319]

Take your dose of whatever opiate you have - then wait a day or two until it wears off, but just to the point when you start experiencing withdrawal bad enough to make you basically desperate to take another dose. After waiting until you do experience this relatively short-term withdrawal, then take another dose. In this way, you still are taking your drug of choice regularly, but also conditioning your body to expect regular withdrawal. Would the withdrawal severity not slowly decrease over time by doing this? Especially if you combine this method with either taking less of the drug each time (tradional taper) or making yourself go through just a bit more withdrawal each time? If so, it could help reduce the psychological pain of knowing you can never give into cravings and take the drug ever again, while at the same time conditioning your body to be able to go without it until you're ready to quit entirely, or your dose is too small to be very effective anyway.

 

[Ignio]

First of, what are you taking, in what dose, and how long have you been doing this?

I don't think you gain anything from experiencing short terms of withdrawal symptoms. You body will not get used to them and "train" itself to feel them less.

So draw up a tapering plan, where you gradually lower your dose and in the end increase the time between taking each dosage. I don't see any point in deliberately being in withdrawal for some hours and think your body will get used to it and feel it less. I think it is stupid to put yourself through unnecessary pain. I don't know if anyone else have a differing opinion?

The whole point of gradually lowering your dosage and not just stop clod turkey is the avoid high degrees of pain.

 

[Zapgunn]

That honestly sounds like torture to me

 

[SKR]

I think it's just as useful a technique as many to not only reduce dose but also increase the time between doses. So yes take your dose and then wait until you just cant anymore (which could be up to twice as long as the time you usually wait for your next dose. You could then take maybe 5% of the dose off and imbibe - you know you are going to feel better after the dose, you wont be high or get as much pain relief but you will be conditioning your body to expect less but each time you dose even though it's less you will feel much better than you did.

Coupled with a slow decrease in actual dose this technique theoretically would be the closest to a "painless WD" as you could get but it will also be the longest, depending on the dose you're at this could be taking up to 6 months. And if you really are addicted to the high it's almost doomed to fail or relapse many times during this process. If you're one of these ill-informed folks (can be perfect when it comes to drugs) and think they've got a cold or the flu when they stop their meds, and haven't spent a thousand hours researching or reading about how bad they are going to feel (Ignorance can be helpful imo) and how hard it is going to be then these folks would probably be the best candidates for this technique(?)

But yes there's merit to this thinking imo. Unless I misunderstood what you meant.

 

[Roxi808]

If you decrease the dose every time it's called tapering...I have NEVER been able to taper successfully

 

[Treefa]

Well, we know that the less frequently you take Opiates (or anything, for that matter) the better. It keeps your tolerance down, and it can delay the onset of dependency.

What I do though, and i'm not recommending it, just saying...I take 90 Norco 10's in 7-10 days, 2X a day. A.m. dose is 1/4 of P.m. dose. And of course I run out, an go thru(depending on extra sources) about 2 weeks of withdrawal...technically just 1, it's pretty short, but the pain, etc...doesn't get any better after that, so I usually count it 2 weeks. That's just me though, between the Chronic Pain and everything else going on, i'm practically useless without my meds.
In my experience, I prefer to jump off than taper.
For me a taper is just prolonging the withdrawals, ya see? Because I have a dose, and if I don't take at least that much...anything less is pretty much just enough to piss me off, or make me crave more. So for me PERSONALLY a taper has never really been effective at reducing the severity OR the length of withdrawals. And it usually makes them longer, at the very least. It's like hesitating, to me...hesitating always ends up making things worse.

But withdrawal isn't always, if ever, as bad as a lot of people make it out to be. Shit, if I wasn't always aching so bad it would seriously be a cake-walk. Unfortuntely though, Immodium doesn't work for pain. Booze does though, whazzup! Summersault JUMP, lol.

 

[tightlywound]

I thought studies had shown that every time you go through withdrawal the subsequent withdrawals are more unpleasant than the previous?

 

[merajjj840]

This method may* be worthwhile for people who are addicted to opiates with short HL's (e.g. fentanyl).

It's okay to do this, but frankly I don't think it's going to work on a PHYSICAL level... you cannot train your body to feel it 'less'
IMO, and some opiate addicts may agree (or not), but a lot of WD is psychological.. how sick are you willing to allow yourself to feel? (if you're puking and shitting at the same time I recant that statement)

In regard to what 'tightlywound' said, in my experience = no. It just depends what substance you're using, doses, and for how long. When my friends moan and groan about how they're kicking dope I have little to no sympathy for them, as I find fentanyl or lorazepam wd to be OH SO much worse.

 

[Bomb319]

Well I'm coming off ~400 mg daily methadone in this way. No you're right - it isn't fun. Still, I AM finding that if I take a full dose one day followed by two days without, it DOES slowly get better. It's very hard to judge whether that's because of physical or psychological reasons though. When I put myself through torture by not moving, eating, drinking or sleeping all day, it's obviously worse. However, what's even worse than that is counting down the minutes until my next dose. I can't always control how I feel about that, but if I distract myself early by watching a couple long and engaging movies, it's a lot better.

 

[Eveleivibe]

In my option it would be best to do a taper. 400 mg of methadone is a lot. In my experience, these opiates can also mess with your mental health, temporarily if not done right - a good taper plan would help. It's a journey not a race. Best of luck


Evey

 

[Speed King]

Many good points have been raised in this thread. Bomb319 and SKR make excellent points. This is one of the "MANY" opiate withdrawal threads on here. This is subjective folks. Bombs version of withdrawal pain may be a cake walk compared to SKR's. Point is, keep an open mind. Take what you can from this thread. That's all you can do.