Opioids Loperamide causing sleeplessness?

[Swimmingdancer]

Does anyone know if loperamide can be stimulating and make it difficult to sleep? I assumed that it would be like other opiates, which help me sleep. But last night I took about 8mgs of loperamide several hours before bed with a glass of grapefruit juice and I couldn't sleep all night. Do you think that caused it? I would really like to be able to take it before bed as I'm using it to help with methadone withdrawals, which in and of themselves do make it difficult to get a good sleep, but this felt very different from insomnia caused by withdrawal. I can't afford to lose another full night's sleep and I have stuff I have to do in the morning. Anyone had a similar experience?

 

[Cane2theLeft]

If you are tolerant to methadone, I'd be shocked if you could even feel 8mg of loperamide. People with ZERO tolerance to opioids sometimes have to take larger doses for bouts of gastroenteritis. I can't speak for anyone else, but I've taken doses larger than that with and without a tolerance and not felt CNS effects (although at high enough doses I have/do but never stimulation).

 

[Swimmingdancer]

If you are tolerant to methadone, I'd be shocked if you could even feel 8mg of loperamide. People with ZERO tolerance to opioids sometimes have to take larger doses for bouts of gastroenteritis. I can't speak for anyone else, but I've taken doses larger than that with and without a tolerance and not felt CNS effects (although at high enough doses I have/do but never stimulation).

I certainly don't feel a "high" or anything remotely similar to "normal" opiates, but it helps with my diarrhea and nausea. I did take it with grapefruit juice which is supposed to vastly increase the effects of the loperamide and its ability to affect the brain and CNS. I felt like I had taken a very very tiny amount of Adderall or something, just really wide awake and wanting to get up and do things. Couldn't get to sleep until maybe around about 8 hours after I took the loperamide. I had also taken 8mg earlier in the day, so I took 16mg total. And I took the last 8mg at the same time as my 4mg methadone, which is also supposed to increase the effects of the loperamide. (I am slowly tapering off of methadone from a starting dose of 100mg/day and am currently down to 4mg every 12 hrs and feeling like utter crap).

I'm going to bed now and am really hesitant to take any loperamide, but I wake up shitting and puking if I don't. But not sleeping at all isn't any better.... Not sure what to do...

 

[Swimmingdancer]

Bump.
Anyone willing to share their experience with lope and whether it made it harder to sleep, easier to sleep, or no different?

 

[PinK~cloud]

It's weird you posted this. I took a large dose last night to help between my suboxone refill, and I found that I couldn't sleep well at all. It took hours to fall into deep sleep, even with doxylamine succinate

 

[Swimmingdancer]

It's weird you posted this. I took a large dose last night to help between my suboxone refill, and I found that I couldn't sleep well at all. It took hours to fall into deep sleep, even with doxylamine succinate

Very interesting. Maybe my sleeplessness was caused by the loperamide. I didn't take any last night and I slept much better. Now I'm hesitant to take it in the evenings anymore because I don't want to not be able to sleep. But I am in such bad withdrawals when I wake up in the mornings... ugh

 

[i are spectre]

I used loperamide as a replacement for suboxone. When I took it in the evening, I couldnt sleep for hours. I felt really good though.

 

[Swimmingdancer]

Well I think since I'm not the only one, that that confirms that loperamide can cause insomnia. Too bad :-(

 

[Haoma]

My understanding is that lope doesn't effect the CNS, and therefore wouldn't effect your sleep. Even if your PNS mu-receptors did effect your sleep they would be inhibitory IMO. I've used lope during WD, but haven't noticed an effect on sleep.

 

[served00]

I use it often for w/d (godsend!) in the 16-24mg range and have never experienced sleeplessness. I woke up sick today, cold sweats and naseua, took 24mg and went and played 3 hours of tennis in the beautiful so cal sun.

 

[Swimmingdancer]

Well different people get different effects from different drugs, so I am inclined to think that just because some people haven't noticed any sleeplessless after taking it does not mean that it can't be what is causing it for me. Also if you read my post above I explained that it can and does effect the CNS when taken in large doses or with potentiators. It is a myth that loperamide does not cross the blood–brain barrier. Loperamide does cross this barrier, although most of it it is usually immediately pumped back out into non–CNS circulation by P-glycoprotein. Many substances and foods/drinks are known to inhibit P-glycoprotein and thus render the CNS vulnerable to opiate agonism by loperamide. I was taking it with multiple P-glycoprotein inhibitors, so perhaps that makes a difference. It also does affect the CNS at higher doses and/or with long-term use, as evidenced by people experiencing withdrawal symptoms when stopping taking it.

I did read a study that said 2% of people taking loperamide by itself as directed report severe insomnia that they didn't have previously, which doesn't seem like a very high figure, but perhaps I am just one of those people or it is increased because I am taking it with other things and in higher quantity. The study also said women were twice as likely to experience insomnia from it as men.

Anyway, I guess I'll try it again when I don't have anything to do the next day and see if it keeps me up all night again.

 

[Cane2theLeft]

Well I think since I'm not the only one, that that confirms that loperamide can cause insomnia. Too bad :-(

In your 'sample group' of 2 both people were withdrawing from another opioid which seems a more likely cause of the sleep problems. I would hardly consider your results definitive. Unless you can rule out all other influencing factors and replicate this in a larger sample, all you have are guesses.

I'm not trying to tell you that you are wrong, it's entirely possible that it has this effect for you and might for others but it disappoints me when people around here are so quick to rule something confirmed on such unproven and circumstantial evidence.

 

[Swimmingdancer]

In the your 'sample' group, everyone was withdrawing from another opioid. I would hardly consider this definitive. Unless you can rule out all other influencing factors and replicate this in a larger sample, all you have are guesses.

I'm not trying to tell you that you are wrong, it's entirely possible that it had this effect for you and might for others but it disappoints me when people around here are so quick to rule something confirmed on such shallow and circumstantial evidence.

Well I certainly didn't mean that it was definite or a scientific confirmation and I wasn't basing it on that alone. But perhaps I should have chose better phrasing.

I think from my own experience I don't see what else could be causing it because the loperamide is the only variable. I have been in WD for months and my symptoms are pretty consistent and this felt like a stimulent effect and has only ever happened on the nights I took the lope.

 

[skylark517]

I just discovered the miracle of loperamide a few days ago, thanks to this website. A large dose of 70mgs took my PAWS away completely, and even gave me a very strong and lasting body high: warm, heavy limbs especially, the likes of which I have not experienced since the first few times I began to abuse opiates.
For me the lope did not even begin to take effect until five whole hours had passed away. By that time I had long since called the drug a failure, and was shocked to feel a strong body high finally coming on. The effect was most certainly not a placebo.

On top of that, too - and the reason for me to post in this thread - was that the lope gave me complete insomnia that whole night. I took my dose at 10pm and could not sleep one bit until 9am the next morning, 11 hours later. Since the drug began kicking in around 3am it wasn't all bad, because I was feeling very calm and serene and warm, but I was still sort of ticked off to have lost a good night of potential sleep.
I do not know why this happened to me, especially because so many others here have stated that loperamide causes them to sleep. I took no other medication that night (aside from cimetidine to potentiate the lope; and I have taken cimetidine on countless other occasions without having any noticeable side effects) and therefore, my insomnia was directly due to the loperamide. As far as PAWS go, I had gone beyond the sleeplessness torture and was able to fall asleep every night, until I took the loperamide of course.

We, apparently, are that unfortunate 2%.

 

[mzbhaven]

ive never tried it. i will try it next time im sick from withdrawal. i never gave it much thought cuz i heard it doesnt do much cuz it doesnt cross the blood-brain barrier. i definitly will give it a try and i will let u all know if it keeps me up at nite 2.