Bupe need advice about stopping suboxone; now have stopped. merged thread.

[SubDude]

0.2mg Suboxone is a good amount of opiate that your body will likely feel once it is removed. That's why I suggest a weak opiate to take in moderation to help with the withdrawal from the Suboxone, because it is fairly prolonged and intense... If you're stabilized at 0.2mg for over a week, you might not have that bad of symptoms, but I'd say you will still probably have some and should have a weak opiate on hand just in case.

I agree with this. I don't want to scare or discourage you Curlygurl... but you are likely to have some acute & post acute WD's after a prolonged opiate addiction followed by subs maintenance. The intensity has many factors including your age, duration of use, health, dosage when you quit, and strategy after stopping.

You can expect at least some nausea, RLS, insomnia, aches/pains, and stomach discomfort. You could be one of the fortunate few like JB who either don't have any WD's or their very minimal. But don't count on that. As you've been told, it would be best to have some comfort meds available if needed. Here's a quick list to choose from:

Klonapin/Valium - sleep/anxiety
Clonadine- RLS- sleep
Loperimide- Immodium AD
Tramadol/Ultram
Soma- Sleep
Requip- RLS
Phenegren
Gabitril
Aleve
kratom
Kava Kava
Chicken Soup
Warm Clothes
Hot-tub/Hot baths
Ensure/Gatorade/water
exercise

ANTI-ANXIETY

* Mulungu. Erythrina

* Kava Kava root.

* Phenibut & Theanine & alcohol

* Valerian root.

* Passion flower.

* Hydroxyzine simply for the slight sedation it induces.

* Sominex-diphenhydramine

SLEEPING MEDS:
Seroquel
Ambien
Risperdal
Trazadone

Get as much counseling and support as you can because this will help get you thru the cravings, anxiety, and possible depression.

 

[curlygurl1980]

JAMESBROWN: i am hoping u read this since for some reason i cant send u a message i stared taking a quarter of a pill today and i am going to do the same tomorow then i am going to drop just like u said i was experimenting today and took a quarter of my pill and divided it into 4 equal parts so the day after tomorow i need to just do 3 of those lines right? and do that for a whille and then do two of the lines and so on correct? untill i get to only 1 of the lines? and also am i suppose to scoop it up somehow and put that under my tongue or do you think i should maybe snort it since its such a small amount? i take my suboxone sublingualy. thank u so much for your advice it is GREATLY appreciated

 

[jamesBrown]

JAMESBROWN: i am hoping u read this since for some reason i cant send u a message i stared taking a quarter of a pill today and i am going to do the same tomorow then i am going to drop just like u said i was experimenting today and took a quarter of my pill and divided it into 4 equal parts so the day after tomorow i need to just do 3 of those lines right? and do that for a whille and then do two of the lines and so on correct? untill i get to only 1 of the lines? and also am i suppose to scoop it up somehow and put that under my tongue or do you think i should maybe snort it since its such a small amount? i take my suboxone sublingualy. thank u so much for your advice it is GREATLY appreciated

First of all, you cant send me a personal message(PM) because you have not reached 50 posts yet. Once you reach 50 posts, you are then officially a Bluelighter and can send anyone on BL a PM....right now you can only send PM's to the mods/admins.

Ok....I think its fantastic that you have allready dropped your dose to 2 mg's allready. Im assuming that you experienced no withdrawal like I predicted? If not let me know how you felt so I can beter understand your situation.
Yes, you should take a quarter pill and crush it up and divide it into 4 equal piles(each pile being 0.5mg's). If I were you, I would simply start taking just 0.5mg's/day starting tommorow. I believe, that you will also not experience any withdrawal dropping from 2mg's to 0.5 mg''s......just as you had no withdrawal dropping rom 4mg's to 2mg's. but, if you choose to do it a little more slowly over a period of a few days then that is your choice. that method wouldnt hurt, just take longer. The reason I reccommend dropping to 0.5mg's immediately is because it should happen with no withdrawal effects, but if for some reason it does cause some withdrawal, you can easily take tiny doses of suboxone until you feel comfortable again. but I doubt you will have to do that anyway.
Once you are on your 0.5 mg dose, I would reccommend you stay at this dose for atleast 2-3 weeks, even longer if you want to be more safe. You can even lower your dose to like 0.2mg's during that time period. But after that 2-3 week adjustment period is over, I believe you should be able to drop off there, anytime you like, with little to no withdrawal. Allthough, it doesnt hurt to have some OTC medications with you just in case you are a little uncomfortable. You can even have some benzos handy. Those should take care of ANY problems you come across when dropping off at a sustained 0.5-0.2mg dose.

Also....as far as the method of administration goes....I would say to do whatever you are comfortable with. If you are only comfortable with sublingual, then do it that way. but I do know that intranasal(snorted) has a higher BA than SL, and in my opinion, kicks in faster, and feels stronger. I would reccommend that ROA if you truly want my advice.

....otherwise I think your doing great and if you have ANY other questions for me I would be glad to help you out. I know you cant PM me yet, so ill keep checking this thread for any posts by you.

Good luck!

 

[jamesBrown]

Frankly, I never got below 0.2mg a day. At 0.2mg I felt an opiate glow similar to what I felt at 0.5mg, but a little bit weaker. When I got down to 0.1mg, I no longer felt any effects and felt the WD's creeping in, so I switched to other things.

I probably stayed at a dose that was somewhere between 0.5mg and 0.2mg for over two months, and still felt WD'S upon cessation.

I found it easier to deal with a substance that I didn't find as "sexy" as suboxone - like taking immodium or kratom. With suboxone, I'd wake up and want to snort a sweet, orange line. With kratom, I didn't neccessarily have that pre-dosing excitement.

Suboxone never seemed sexy to me, though, until I tried to quit it. Once you get the sub withdrawals those orange pills start looking pretty damn good.

Your post doesnt quite make sense. In fact, you contradict yourself ....You say "Frankly, I never got below 0.2mg a day".....and then in the same paragraph you say...."When I got down to 0.1mg's I no longer felt any effects, and felt the WD's creeping in.."

Im not sure if you meant to contradict yourself, or if you typed somethign wrong, but I would appreciate if you could clear up the confusion for me so i can understand what you are trying to say better.

 

[curlygurl1980]

once again jamesbrowns your advice has absolutley saved me!! you rock!!!! starting tomorow i am going to do .5mg in the morning and .5mg in the afternoon that will be half of a quarter right? (which is what i did today was a quarter) soooo very grateful to you!! Miranda

 

[jamesBrown]

once again jamesbrowns your advice has absolutley saved me!! you rock!!!! starting tomorow i am going to do .5mg in the morning and .5mg in the afternoon that will be half of a quarter right? (which is what i did today was a quarter) soooo very grateful to you!! Miranda

yes, that would be half of a quarter, 1mg. Allthough I reccommended simply taking only 0.5mg's/day(a quarter of a quarter), you could still do it your way and take 1mg and then move down to 0.5mg's after. Either way would work, its just if you went straight to 0.5mg's/day only...it would get you started on a lower dose much quicker....but like I said, your plan works fine too.

And once you start "maintaining"(staying at the dose for over a week or 2...maybe less) at the 0.5mg dose, or whatever dose you decided you wanted to stop at, please let me know all about the euphoria you get from the low dose suboxone, as well as the energy boosts, and anti-depressant properties.
Im always happy to hear about people taking control of there medications, in a postive, and healthy way....resulting in more "happiness" in general.

Good luck, and keep up the great work! Keep us posted.

 

[PillPoppingAnimal]

any human being in the world who is exposed to any infectuous disease could then contract it, and it probably occupies a lot of their thoughts from then on too. i wasn't saying i think some people are born with the addiction disease and some aren't, although i think some people are more predisposed to get full-blown addicted than others, and i was not trying to get into any sort of argument about labels or trying to offend anyone. i promise. i'm an addict myself.

i was simply saying that if it is a disease, as the medical community and i believe---and it fits every criteria for that classification---why not treat it like every other disease in the world and try to help it with medicine instead of relying on spirituality and group support alone when it is statistically proven that such an approach has a single-digit success rate at best?

i wasnt arguing with u, i was saying AMA... but imo

i see now what ur saying,,, disease as in treating it with meds, yeah of course

i was looking at it like...when someone gets cancer, they dont keep feeding themselves cancer...

but now that i see what YOU meant, yeah.

 

[CitioKid]

You asked how long I stayed at .1mg in relation to tapering of opiates. I said I felt nothing but WD's beginning to set in when I took .1mg, so i never "stayed" at that dose for more than two days.

My only user friend, who took suboxone for 3 years, did a liquid taper and got down to 0.05mg a day (His final 8mg of suboxone lasted him months) and he still had withdrawals upon cessation. Nothing dramatic, but he had the depression and lethargy that I've experienced far too many times trying to quit subs.

I'm not knocking subs or trying to deter anyone that takes them. But there is no such thing as a miracle drug. We live in a universe of yin and yang, and you never get something for nothing.

 

[jamesBrown]

Im not trying to argue you here but you didnt say "i never stayed...." you said..."frankly I never got down to 0.2mg's".....big difference.

 

[curlygurl1980]

okay i have used THE SEARCH ENGINE and i guess i am just stupid hell i dont know and i i STILL CAN NOT find anything about this whole euphoria and suboxone thing i really really really want someone to please tell me what they are talking about . i am going down now to low doses and want to know what this is all about. By the way when u say euphoria by that does that mean a buzz?? please dont say use the search engine i have for like two hours now and cant find it. Will someone please just explain this to me . Thanx

 

[SubDude]

okay i have used THE SEARCH ENGINE and i guess i am just stupid hell i dont know and i i STILL CAN NOT find anything about this whole euphoria and suboxone thing i really really really want someone to please tell me what they are talking about . i am going down now to low doses and want to know what this is all about. By the way when u say euphoria by that does that mean a buzz?? please dont say use the search engine i have for like two hours now and cant find it. Will someone please just explain this to me . Thanx

If you haven't yet... I suggest you go to the Suboxone/Buprenorphine Megathread and FAQ v9.0
http://www.bluelight.ru/vb/showthread.php?t=524458

There's about 400 posts so far in V9 but it should cover what your looking for...

 

[CitioKid]

jamesbrown, does the specifics of the syntax really matter? I think I've made it very clear by now what I did.

Getting off of suboxone is hard as hell, whether someone wants to split atoms or not.

 

[jamesBrown]

jamesbrown, does the specifics of the syntax really matter? I think I've made it very clear by now what I did.

Getting off of suboxone is hard as hell, whether someone wants to split atoms or not.

I was simply trying to undersand your situation. And its hard to do that when your getting conflicting information. Nothing wrong with trying to undersand what actually happened so you can answer a question or give advice.

 

[jamesBrown]

okay i have used THE SEARCH ENGINE and i guess i am just stupid hell i dont know and i i STILL CAN NOT find anything about this whole euphoria and suboxone thing i really really really want someone to please tell me what they are talking about . i am going down now to low doses and want to know what this is all about. By the way when u say euphoria by that does that mean a buzz?? please dont say use the search engine i have for like two hours now and cant find it. Will someone please just explain this to me . Thanx

too make it easier for you......this is a post I have posted many times here on BL but I saved it to my comp to save time when people are asking about it..here you go....
"Buprenorphine works better at lower doses because of its metabolite norbuprenorphine, which is a full agonist like heroin or oxy.

norbuprenorphine has a lower binding affinity to your receptors than buprenorphine does just like most other opiates....this is what causes it to kick any other opiates off of your recpectors when you take it....im assuming you know about this allready.

...so, when you take higher doses of buprenorphine(around 4 mg's or more give or take)...this fills all your receptors up with buprenorphine and leaves no room for the metabolite norbuprenorphine to bind.

but when you take small doses of suboxone....all the buprenorphine fills all the receptors it can until there is no more bupe...but since you took a small dose, you still have open receptors with no bupe on them....this allows the norbuprenorphine(full agonist) to bind to those open receptors, causing some euphoria because its a full agonist as compared to bupenorphine which is only a partial agonist.

Everyone is different and everyone must find there "sweet spot", so to speak, concerning the amount of low dose suboxone to take....you want to take a small amount so that you can still have receptors available for the full agonist norbuprenorphine...but not too small so that your leaving receptors unfilled with neither bupe or norbupe.....understand?"

Thats pretty much all you need to know about how bupe causes euphoria/buzzes/etc.....everything else you learn through trial and error. Just go down to under 1 mg and find the exact amount of suboxone that gives you pleasure/energy/etc without you barely feeling anything at all(or withdrawing).

 

[curlygurl1980]

Once again jb thanx soooo much

 

[Bojangles69]

Curlygurl I just want you to know I've successfully jumped off suboxone and I have developed my own personal rule for tapering. I never got physical wds but let me explain.

.5mg I believe can still cause you withdrawals, but what matters the most is HOW LONG you are actually at that dose. My rule is to get at .25mg, at which point you may notice your sleep shift, which I never noticed happen at .5mg. I know people are different but .5mg still sounds like too much imo.

But do this and you will be fine:
Get down to .25mg, and STAY THERE for 2-3 weeks. You have to understand that today you aren't withdrawing from yesterdays dose, you are actually wding from the doses you took up to 2 weeks before that. Because, once you drop a dose, it actually takes 2 weeks for your body to catch up to the change, EVEN IF you are able to taper everyday.

But stay on .25mg for a minimum of 2 weeks, I went for 3 weeks, and when I stopped, I didn't have a single wd. Although I did get slammed by PAWS a week later, which causes me to break down after 23 days clean. Imo stopping is the easiest part, its the PAWS the usually do most people in.

Good luck!

I also want to mention the reason you see so many different stories is because people often tell you how low they got, but now HOW LONG they were that low for. I can prob stop lower, like .1mg, and stay there for 2-3 days and still get wds. Thats why its NOT about getting superlow, its about getting past a certain threshold and STAYING, I know my own threshhold is .25mg for 2-3 weeks, and I'd like to see it work for you too.

 

[jamesBrown]

Good advice....allthough thats pretty much the exact same thing I had originally posted for her to do......stay at that low dose for atleast 2-3 weeks before jumping off when she wants.

im glad someone else actually understands that getting off of suboxone doesnt HAVE TO BE hell. Some people act like getting on suboxone is a death wish because of the "inevitable" horrible withdrawals. I just dont get it.

 

[Bojangles69]

/\ YES!! Thank you, I actually wish I had suboxone again because I never realized how good it works when used correctly.
I was bashing sub a few months back because I got down to .25mg, and stopped after being there for 1 day, got slammed with wds, and started saying "sub sucks, drs shouldn't prescribe this shit". But god when I actually stayed at the dose then tried again, nothing at all. No hotflashes, no sweats, I couldn't believe how well it worked when I did it right.

It really can take a lot of practice if you don't know what you're doing imo. Good to see you got off well too!!

 

[jamesBrown]

/\ YES!! Thank you, I actually wish I had suboxone again because I never realized how good it works when used correctly.
I was bashing sub a few months back because I got down to .25mg, and stopped after being there for 1 day, got slammed with wds, and started saying "sub sucks, drs shouldn't prescribe this shit". But god when I actually stayed at the dose then tried again, nothing at all. No hotflashes, no sweats, I couldn't believe how well it worked when I did it right.

It really can take a lot of practice if you don't know what you're doing imo. Good to see you got off well too!!

Im actually not "off"....I just take 0.5mg doses every day up to three times a day, and I get euphoria, energy, and anti depressant properties from the suboxone every day. It never stops. I can also stop taking the suboxone anytime I want without any withdrawal effects. The longest break i have taken is 15 days, so its not like I was livin off of bupe reserves.

Im so glad to hear your experience!...your like living proof of what I am preaching about here on BL every fuking day!...and alot of people jsut dont believe me. Trust me, ignorance is much more common than most people realize.

 

[Bojangles69]

/\ Really? You can take that much and stop? Would have never guessed.

Unfortunately although I made it off the sub, 23 days later I couldn't take the paws and went back on pods. Now I'm tapering back down on pods, so I can switch to bupe and taper again lol. I'm actually considering however what you're doing right now. Maybe if I stayed on a low dose long enough then stopped, I'd be able to handle the paws. I was thinking about using codiene but I suppose I can just use sub again once I get low enough with this pod habit.

Are you taking that dose sublingually? IV'n?