Bupe I've been of Suboxone for 3 years...

[unsui]

well i first got on suboxone in the summer of 2008 after a nasty 3-4 yr opiate habit (mainly IV heroin), but have relapsed many times since being on suboxone, so i'm not completely clean. i pretty much shoot dope every 3-6 months (a weekend or week long binge). the longest i've gone without shooting dope is 8 months, but it's been a good 5-6 years since i haven't not been dependent on some type of opioid.

it's time to come off suboxone as i feel it's been way overdue in tapering off this stuff. i had actually managed to taper down to 1mg/day many times before, but then got a new docor and he raised me all the way up to 16mg/day, so it was a whole new process once that happened, in which i shortly went down to 8mg and then my usual 4mg/day dose that i had originally started on after coming off a 2g/day heroin IV habit. last time i came off suboxone (3 months after i intitially started it) i started shooting dope again immediately, so i've been scared mentally more than anything.

so in order to come off the suboxone i've tapered down to .5mg-1mg, and i've got about 15 2mg k pins and 15mg of nitrazepam for the anxiety. i dosed LSD as an experiment while 48 hrs into wuboxone withdrawal, which managed to ease the WDs for another 72 hrs or so until the anxiety got so bad i had to dose .5mg of suboxone, then .25mg a little while later (tried to take as least as possible). then yesterday, about 36 hrs after dosing the .75mg of suboxone, i loaded up on 2.5mg of kpins and 5mg of nitrazepam and drank some brews, in which it managed to hold me over until about midnight last night (about 48 hrs after dosing the .75mg) where the anxiety got so bad i ended up dosing 1mg after the other until i felt better (after ingesting a total of 4mg).

so far my plan for coming off suboxone has not worked. i've tapered down to nearly nothing and the WDs are still just plain horrid, even when loaded on benzos. i'm afraid i'm going to become dependent on the benzos i've been taking for the past few weeks, so i think my plan is to alternate dosing 1mg/day and .5mg/day of suboxone for the next week while taking no benzos, and then attempting to come off the suboxone again. i didn't think the WDs would last so long and be so intense from such a low dose of suboxone, but i do realize i've been on the shit for 3 years...

i'm wondering if it would be easier to come off heroin, rather than suboxone... in other words, could i shoot up dope instead of taking a suboxone dose, and then shoot another shot when i feel the illness coming and come off the herion WD rather than the suboxone WD? or would i just be feeling both WDs? heroin WD seems so much shorter lived than suboxone. suboxone seems to get intense after 72 hrs, whereas heroin is almost done after 72 hrs...

any advice, comments, etc. are much appreciated. i want off this shit so bad! please feel free to move this thread if it's the wrong forum...thanks.

 

[Markmalice]

If youre still binging occasionally on H, I would personally prefer WD off of it. I have never used suboxone on a regular basis, only for WDs. So, Im not the best judge. from what ur descibing Sub WD is much worse. When Im getting dope sick, I break down 2mg of a Sub sublingual strips into a rig and shoot it. The withdrawls get much worse for 5 to 10 minutes but everything seems to pass after that. This is the only way that ive used suboxone, not daily (ech!). the WDs you feel are ur body craving dopamine. Different drugs cause this to feel slightly different due to the way it affects ur body chemistry and also how it is intoduced into your body. Therefore, it would be logical to think that after a 3-4 day H binge, the suboxone would no longer affect your body. You now have to deal with H WDs. I reduce these effects by severely reducing my doses on a strict 2 shot per day 10-12 hr spaced regiment. After the first day, my WDs were almost bearable! Im actually at the end of day 2 (48 hrs) now, hence the 6 AM post. A little trick that I figured out, that made me feel SO much better (especially my skin) was... wait for it... METH! My roomate happened to get a shit-ton yesterday, so I have been smokin and shootin it all day, I feel productive and almost normal (aside from certain gastrointestinal problems). The key is, tho, to make sure that you have plenty.
Now, I for one, am not a huge fan of any 'uppers', hence the Heroin habit. However, after this experience, I am now a huge advocate of it for WDs. All it took was logical thinking: Heroin is a dopamine protagonist and Meth is also a dopamine protagonist! Doing a nice big shot of it not only is a bit comforting for addicts/dependants of my persuasion (due to the obvious habitual, & psycho-somatic reasons) it also gives your body what its craving via a different venue: DOPAMINE!
So, finally: Step 1-Sell/destroy/get rid of all your Bupe; Step 2-binge for 3-4 days on H and severely cut ur doses the last 2-3 days(as in:DONT GET HIGH); Step 3-Buy a half a gram of Shard/Meth; Step 4-Get as spun as possible for the next 3 days and avoid everyone!
Clean and Easy!... kinda
ATX represent!

 

[ktx49]

hurray!!
im not even sure which is worse here:

1. Going BACK to dope, to supposedly make WDs easier(bad idea).

2. Taking copious amounts of benzos, for WEEKS to make WDs easier(bad idea).

3. Using large amounts of meth for 3 days at a time to make WDs easier(bad idea)


see the pattern here? your not thinking clearly if you are actually considering HEROIN just so you can get off your subs....i mean seriously dude come on, what was all that work for getting off the stuff, getting clean, all of that potentially down the drain....

now i know not everyone can afford a doctor or hospital visit, but you do realize that theres better ways to do this? theres plenty of meds that will ease ur WDs that arent on the level of heroin, benzos, or methamphetamine and are way less of a potential problem. if u want my honest opinion, id probably tell u that benzos are one of the worst routes to go; as a recovering opiate addict benzos are just....too tempting; too much like opiates with the tolerance issues, rapid addiction, and the WDs as you know can be deadly.

as bad as it sounds, the horrible idea of smoking meth is probably the least destructive and counter-productive......but can u really see yourself smoking ice in times of horrible WDs??

 

['medicine cabinet']

i feel your pain on this one....as a matter of fact, at the methadone clnic today i was talking to my drug counselor about eventually detoxing off the 110mgs of methadone im on now, and he suggested getting on subs at around 25mgs to which i said no, because i had been on that shit for 2 years and it didnt work for me...i still did dope occasionaly, not much but once in a while. plus it made me feel like shit physically and mentally.

i was telling my counselor all of this, and he actually said to me....wait for it....that suboxone is NOT addictive....i said yea it is, the buperenorphine is addictive, so he says trust me on this, its not addictive hahaha....i just shut up and sat amazed that this "drug counselor" thinks that bupe is not addictive...tell that to anyone whos been on bupe maint and tried to get off it.

 

[unsui]

depends on ewhat you mean by "addictive" as there is a difference between dependence and addiction. it's just like SSRIs, they're not addictive, but you develop a tolerance and thus dependence, you need them to maintain and eventually taper off...

but i think i'm going to take my bupe at .5mg for the next week or two and then do you guys think it would be easier to switch to subutex and use 4mg of that to taper...? i've heard full agonist are easier to withdrawal from...

 

[Mr Tee Blah]

depends on ewhat you mean by "addictive" as there is a difference between dependence and addiction. it's just like SSRIs, they're not addictive, but you develop a tolerance and thus dependence, you need them to maintain and eventually taper off...

i'm on SSRI = Paroxetine. If I dont have it, i'll suffer physical withdrawal.

Just like Subs

I dont understand the distinction between addictive and dependence in this case?

I was under understanding dependence was like with pot - where (in some ppl opinion) all withdrawal symptoms are psychological - not physical.


no?

 

[johnny2times]

Suboxone is evil

I've been into opiates -mainly norco,s oxy and everything but heroin- for 11 years. Things progressed to 200 mg's of oxy a day for a few months and I got on Suboxone. Initially, I was worried about the suboxone addiction but the doc told me that the withdrawal symptoms are "generally milder" and off I went. I was able to keep the dose at 8 mg's a day and tapered to 4-6mg/day for the next year and a half. I tapered down to 2mg a day (going through about a week of body chills during every taper) and finally decided I just wanted to be free of the subs. I went cold turkey with plenty of xanax and a cellar full of wine. One of the main things to know about sub wd's is that the half life of the bupe is almost a month. This means that it's roughly a month before the stuff is fully out of you. Even though my wd's were generally limited to awful body chills and gastrointestinal issues, dealing with this for about a full 2-3 week period was hell. I tried at one point (about a week in) using 2 5mg hydro's once thinking that at such a low dose it might ease the symptoms. I was 3 weeks out from the subs and it essentially started the whole process over again. 2 more weeks of body chills. The worst thing you could do in my opinion is to take a little suboxone here and there- the half life is way too long and although full agonist opiate wd will be severe it doesn't last nearly as long as the sub wd's. Use what you gotta use til the sub gets out of your system and go from there. In my experience, when you're finally ready to get off of them you will. til then I wish you the best and would caution to not play around with the sub's- theyre evil!

 

[unsui]

i'm on SSRI = Paroxetine. If I dont have it, i'll suffer physical withdrawal.

Just like Subs

I dont understand the distinction between addictive and dependence in this case?

I was under understanding dependence was like with pot - where (in some ppl opinion) all withdrawal symptoms are psychological - not physical.


no?

exactly my point, just like subs... you need it or you will suffer physical WD, but does that mean you're addicted to the SSRI? no, it simply means you've become dependent on it, much like i have on suboxone. when dependence is based on something psychological i have the urge to point towards addiction...

 

[unsui]

and to johnny2times: thanks for the input! doctors should have to be put through this withdrawal before they ever mention to a patient "suboxone WD is much more mild"...

by day 5 i cannot stand it and end up dosing way more than i ever would normally (4mg) to ward off the WD symptoms...

 

[StaffWriter]

ktx49, glad you got off the stuff. You were a frequent poster when I first joined. Your advice is qft.

SW

 

[Nib]

I say you give Kratom a shot OP. It would help a lot with the withdrawals. Just do not stay on it long cause withdrawals from it can be a bitch as well. Should be easier to quit than Suboxone if you don't stay on it long.

i feel your pain on this one....as a matter of fact, at the methadone clnic today i was talking to my drug counselor about eventually detoxing off the 110mgs of methadone im on now, and he suggested getting on subs at around 25mgs to which i said no, because i had been on that shit for 2 years and it didnt work for me...i still did dope occasionaly, not much but once in a while. plus it made me feel like shit physically and mentally.

i was telling my counselor all of this, and he actually said to me....wait for it....that suboxone is NOT addictive....i said yea it is, the buperenorphine is addictive, so he says trust me on this, its not addictive hahaha....i just shut up and sat amazed that this "drug counselor" thinks that bupe is not addictive...tell that to anyone whos been on bupe maint and tried to get off it.

Wow what an asshole

 

[cire113]

well i first got on suboxone in the summer of 2008 after a nasty 3-4 yr opiate habit (mainly IV heroin), but have relapsed many times since being on suboxone, so i'm not completely clean. i pretty much shoot dope every 3-6 months (a weekend or week long binge). the longest i've gone without shooting dope is 8 months, but it's been a good 5-6 years since i haven't not been dependent on some type of opioid.

it's time to come off suboxone as i feel it's been way overdue in tapering off this stuff. i had actually managed to taper down to 1mg/day many times before, but then got a new docor and he raised me all the way up to 16mg/day, so it was a whole new process once that happened, in which i shortly went down to 8mg and then my usual 4mg/day dose that i had originally started on after coming off a 2g/day heroin IV habit. last time i came off suboxone (3 months after i intitially started it) i started shooting dope again immediately, so i've been scared mentally more than anything.

so in order to come off the suboxone i've tapered down to .5mg-1mg, and i've got about 15 2mg k pins and 15mg of nitrazepam for the anxiety. i dosed LSD as an experiment while 48 hrs into wuboxone withdrawal, which managed to ease the WDs for another 72 hrs or so until the anxiety got so bad i had to dose .5mg of suboxone, then .25mg a little while later (tried to take as least as possible). then yesterday, about 36 hrs after dosing the .75mg of suboxone, i loaded up on 2.5mg of kpins and 5mg of nitrazepam and drank some brews, in which it managed to hold me over until about midnight last night (about 48 hrs after dosing the .75mg) where the anxiety got so bad i ended up dosing 1mg after the other until i felt better (after ingesting a total of 4mg).

so far my plan for coming off suboxone has not worked. i've tapered down to nearly nothing and the WDs are still just plain horrid, even when loaded on benzos. i'm afraid i'm going to become dependent on the benzos i've been taking for the past few weeks, so i think my plan is to alternate dosing 1mg/day and .5mg/day of suboxone for the next week while taking no benzos, and then attempting to come off the suboxone again. i didn't think the WDs would last so long and be so intense from such a low dose of suboxone, but i do realize i've been on the shit for 3 years...

i'm wondering if it would be easier to come off heroin, rather than suboxone... in other words, could i shoot up dope instead of taking a suboxone dose, and then shoot another shot when i feel the illness coming and come off the herion WD rather than the suboxone WD? or would i just be feeling both WDs? heroin WD seems so much shorter lived than suboxone. suboxone seems to get intense after 72 hrs, whereas heroin is almost done after 72 hrs...

any advice, comments, etc. are much appreciated. i want off this shit so bad! please feel free to move this thread if it's the wrong forum...thanks.

the true fact is you havent been on suboxone years you were still using heroin... i bet a million bucks if you werent on suboxone u would be on heroin that whole time... So either you arent ready to get clean or didnt give sub a real chance...

by just taking sub alone and not constantly relapsing... and getting your life back on track... changing your behavoir...

shooting dope to come off suboxone is the dumbest idea Ive ever heard of... hands down...

Ill bet you a million bucks you will be back on dope in no time if you go this route...

I dont know man... its like you want to quit suboxone but u couldnt even stay clean on suboxone... dangerous territory imo..

If you taper all the way down to suboxone and get to a point of .25 mg every 2 or 3 days the w/d shoudlnt be that bad... gotta taper slow and long and real lose dose before quitting..

Do what you want but ill tell you right now me personally I would rather be on Sub than dope...

I don't know your experience with addiction and trying to quit...

Just be careful man i dont know what else to say really