• HEALTH & RECOVERY
    Welcome Guest
    Posting Rules Bluelight Rules Thread Directory 1 Thread Directory 2
    Mindfulness Links Addiction & Mind
    Sober Living Partner Program (SLiPP)
  • H&R Moderators: VerbalTruist

Long term megadose loperamide withdrawal

E

Ekitty4

Greenlighter
Joined
Jan 14, 2017
Messages
4
Hey everyone! I am in need of some advice or anyone who has experienced loperamide withdrawal or addiction to share their story.

A little about my use. I started off with painkillers 10 years ago from an accident. Then obviously went to harder things, and even harder things to get off H. I researched this "otc miracle opiate withdrawal remedy". Loperamide, or more commonly known as Immodium AD. I thought I found the holy grail and it got me off a 3 year methadone trap.

Now before anyone laughs at this, Loperamide is a opaite that acts mostly peripherally, but does have some CNS activity and binds to the mu receptors. It DOES cross the bbb at high doses and has caused me to nod hard and give everything of a warm opiate glow with pgp inhibitors.

Here is an amazing informative guide on loperamide addiction and help:
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...pSN8V_qeqNp-PI-kw&sig2=GvGY5zrqM-dhai9zHKo1rw


I've been on high dose loperamide for 3 years now. I know of people including myself, whos heart has stopped and some lost lives to this drug. It causes fatal cardiac disturbances in high doses. I want more than anything to be off of it. Any support or info and advice would be most helpful, as no one in my real life knows I was addicted or am going through hellish withdrawal.

It's been 5 days off. From what I remeber going cold turkey once, the withdrawals got MUCH worse around day 10, due to loperamides long half life when built up in your system. Hence why they call it "poor mans methadone". I have been taking 1mg doses of suboxone now when I absolutely can't stand it anymore. it's been 25 hours since my last dose and I'm doing OK with the aid of weed and a benzo. I have only a few doses left of suboxone, and my weed supply is running out.

Has anyone successfully done this? I'm determined but it sucks doing this alone. That's why I'm grateful for bluelight!

Sorry for long post and thanks for reading or any feedback!! <3
 
Last edited:
On a side note, since I couldn't find info on induction to sub from lopeeramide ANYWHERE and had to take a huge risk, I was okay taking suboxone after waiting 36 hours after my last loperamide dose with know evil precipitated withdrawal!
So hopefully that will help someone trying to do the same as me
 
Hi,
I'm sorry to hear you are going through this. Great job for getting off the harder drugs though!! Well done!
Now to get you free from this Loperamide so you can enjoy life again and stay alive!

I don't have much experience with Loperamide but have used it a couple times during morphine withdrawal with good results for a very short period of time. 6 days once and I found that it sure does have a withdrawal of its own and it is a LONG withdrawal. It also blocks other opiates. The withdrawal and blocking effect lasted about 3-4 weeks.

The withdrawal was not as severe as a morphine withdrawal- no restless legs, no messed up mental condition, not bad anxiety but some. It did have bad diarrhea and bad hot/ cold flashes. I found that tapering down was the best way to go. I found that I could take away quite a few pills every three days. If things got bad again, I would up the dosage a little for that day only but kept going down by as many pills as possible. I would try that approach. Sounds like you are going with the suboxone and I know nothing about that. It may be a better way. Tapering heavy is the way I went. Just kind of listening to my body. Pushing it down hard but giving 3 days in between cuts and if needed take a few more but continue to go down as fast as you can stand. You can do this. I am sure 3 years of it is a whole different league than what I had experience with but I hope it may help.

I am here if you need someone to talk to. You are not alone. I will do my best to comfort, listen and help.
I am praying for you. God bless.
 
Ekitty4 I have a bit of experience with lopes. Today is my day 8 free of tramadol but still using Imodium occasionally. I've never been on them as long as you but I think a moderate taper would work. Quitting cold turkey will be super uncomfortable. Last time I quit taking tramadol I used Imodium for another 3 months. I got to the point where I could take a big dose (for me that means about 40mg) and make it last 24 hours. I dropped one pill everyday. Towards the end I had some RLS but it was nothing compared to my withdraw from tramadol. I also strongly recommend Wellbutrin----for me it kicked in quick and stopped all the brain zaps and helped with my energy level.

Try the taper. Imodium is the only drug I've had to use a taper. And good luck.

~It will never be any easier to quit than it is today~
 
Thank you Painful One and SKGilroy for your replys and advice It helps hearing other peoples stories! And So sorry for the late reply. I have been off sub for 4 days. However I get BAD restless legs. Well actually its my whole body really I can't sit still it's even when I breath in I can't stand it. At that point nothing helps not weed or benzos. I haven't tried clonodine or gabapebtin but I'm going to try and get some hopefully I'll have some luck. I couldn't take it anymore so I took a couple tramadol the other night and 15 loperamides. I think what I'm going to do is see how little loperamide I can get by with and how long I can go without it and stick to a strict taper. The good thing for me is I don't really get anxiety or depression or cravings. Its all physical for me but I feel like the restlessness will never end. It feels like someone injected me with with adrenaline plus coffee jitters and body zapps times 1000 and never ends lol. Any more suggestions/ stories are much appreciated and sorry for long post ;]

On a side note, going though any kind of opiate withdrawal, music sounds AMAZING it's the only thing I love about it. :)
 
Hey just wanted to see how you were doing with everything. I get the "whole body" restless syndrome as well and it sucks so damn bad. Also my body will jerk every once in a while and it's just crazy not having really any control over it. I have taken Loperamide many times and it is extremely helpful when one is in withdrawal. I did get to the extreme once and my body kind of gave out and I collapsed in the walkway by my apartment. I didn't lose consciousness thankfully, but after that happened I was getting really bad sensations and feelings and I knew I had over done it. I was going through Tianeptine withdrawals and I ended up taking about 250 Lopes everyday for about five days, sometimes more even. It took that much to feel any relief and like an idiot I just kept increasing my dosage and not thinking at all about what could happen. So I feel lucky because I know it could have been much worse and I was probably close to the danger zone. I agree that a taper is the best way to go. If you have really strong self discipline you could use Tianeptine Sodium and it will entirely eliminate your whole desire to take loperamide forever. Seriously it takes all the cravings away and everything, but it can be addictive in its own that's why I said what I did earlier, if you think you could use it for only a couple of days and then put it down I would recommend it as it works incredibly well for eliminating loperamide from your routine. But if you are prone to addiction please stay away from it because the addiction is nasty and extremely difficult. So I hope you are doing well and things are moving the right direction for you.
 
Tapering down is the way to go. From everything I've studied, a 10% decrease every 3-4 days waythe recommended taper. Hope things are going well.
 
Welcome to the site,

I will move this thread over to our sober living section where somebody will be able to help you out. As mentioned above 'tapering' would be much easier and safer for you - small increments ever few days to give your body time to adjust.

Good luck - may I ask what kind of dose are you talking about as I have often wondered how much people are taking.
 
Great advice all around so far. If possible taper, although really you'd be best off switching entirely to something like buprenoprhine or methadone using that to manage your detox.

Switching over entirely instead of just tapering is applies especially if you really are taking super high doses, like over 60-80mg/day of loperamide (over time this is very dangerous because it will dehydrate you and is associated with cardiac issues).

There are a lot of other medications you can use to advice in the detoxification process, such as gabapentin, clonidine and diazepam. Do you have a doctor you feel comfortable working with this on? That can make all the difference in the world for some, to have that IRL professional medical support. It's so much harder doing it alone, though it's far from impossible.
 
I came across this post while looking up info on loperamide and loperamide withdrawls. I thought my experience might be able to help someone. I've experimented with loperamide a little and experienced withdrawls from it but I've never taken above 144mg and I've never taken it longer than a week at a time. I've also been on Lyrica, a calcium channel blocker for OCD and chronic pain and at times I've used it recreationally and the withdrawls are horrible if it's stopped cold turkey but they become noticeable a few daysto a week after stopping. The reason I mention Lyrica is because loperamide and Lyrica (pregabalin) both have activity at the voltage-dependent P/Q-type calcium channel subunit alpha-1A receptor. So when you're withdrawing from loperamide you are also having lyrica type withdrawls as well. I've noticed with my own experience that when I withdrawl from loperamide and I'm still able to take Lyrica the withdrawls from loperamide are a lot easier.
 
Hello,
What do you consider to be "high dose loperamide" Please give how much you take and how often. Maybe I can help.
 
I think high dose loperamide use is anything over ten times the daily recommended use (so I guess 20-40mg or more). High dose use is probably good to think of as anything over the recommended therapeutic dosage though.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top