Opioids Just a warning - watch out for Clonidine.

[Bomb319]

It may be given out like candy compared to opiates and have no intrinic value...but if you start taking it regularly alongside your opiate and then run out...well I had no idea what I would be in for. I'm on 220 mg methadone per day as maintenance - a high dose. I'm a very fast metabolizer, so my doctor put me on clonidine as a way around upping my dose even more. I ran out early and had my last dose yesterday. Well...I had a feeling I might feel just a little crappy or tired...I started feeling a bit anxious early this afternoon. Flash forward to now - full blown panic attacks and opiate withdrawal that is just as bad as it would be had I missed my entire dose of methadone. I was visiting my family and couldn't eat a bite of food, and had to be driven back early, it's that bad. It didn't help of course that I've been sleeping AND eating like shit for the past few days. But any thoughts I had about it being mostly psychological are gone now - pupils the size of my head, pouring sweat and chills. And it is unbelievably messed up to have this so severely when I just took 220 mg of methadone this morning! It feels like day 2 after IV heroin withdrawal, no joke.

Be careful with this tricky fucking combo. My dose wasn't even that high, I don't think..?? Two 0.1 mg pills twice per day. I took extra on some of those days, but not by that much.

 

[Fire&Water]

My dose wasn't even that high, I don't think..?? Two 0.1 mg pills twice per day. I took extra on some of those days, but not by that much.

Yeah it is, esp' when taking extra.

 

[Larc]

Hypertension is a bitch. Clonidine fucks with your sympathetic nervous system somehow too which is why the panic attacks coming off of it are bad.

How did y

 

[Larc]

Hypertension is a bitch. Clonidine fucks with your sympathetic nervous system somehow too which is why the panic attacks coming off of it are bad.

GL hopefully you get more soon.

 

[Bomb319]

Hypertension is a bitch. Clonidine fucks with your sympathetic nervous system somehow too which is why the panic attacks coming off of it are bad.

GL hopefully you get more soon.

Thanks I just hope it isn't dangerous. The only other time I can remember running out, my blood pressure was something like 160/120 but I took it right after I walked to the pharmacy and was slightly out of breath. I normally don't really get very bad anxiety - just long lasting but mild when it happens...you know just what you would call nervousness or apprehension. But yeah I was pretty close to one this time because of the idea of having to leave my apartment and the sudden fear of having a heart attack. Years of on and off opiate withdrawal have conditioned me to know exactly what happens when going out and not being able to rest at my apartment :/

It feels identical to plain old withdrawal though...not nearly as bad as those first few days off heroin, but with all the usual symptoms. That's why I strongly suspect that it isn't so much the clonidine itself that does it, but how your opiate system gets "conditioned" by the presence of a booster, and then the subsequent increase of sympathetic activity even when the opiate dose itself hasn't budged. In fact, today began as a really GOOD day in terms of that, because I had taken a bunch of antacids which really increases methadone efficacy.

Come to think of it, this may sound weird but right now I'm somehow feeling the methadone more strongly than usual while going through withdrawal at the same time...how fucked is that? Anyone else know what I mean and had this before? It's like..if I think about it, I feel it like normal and know it's an opiate effect and not some psychological reaction - but at the same time my pupils are huge and I'm getting some chills.

 

[Bomb319]

Oh yeah - I also ran out of Zopiclone (a Z drug and basically a benzo) at the same time as the clonidine. It can't have much or anything to do with that though because I only took it on wednesday and thursday (I get it once a week and only use it 2 days to sleep well but not become addicted)