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Oxycodone taper or use suboxone? Please help

S

Sta071

Greenlighter
Joined
Oct 14, 2014
Messages
10
Hello. I am new to the forum and in serious need of guidance. Any feedback the community can provide is greatly appreciated.

I have been taking oxycodone daily for about 7 months now. I'm up to about 50 mg per dose once a day. I am getting married in January and leaving for my honeymoon on January 10th. I need to quit completely and want to know what my best option is, being that I have just under 90 days. I don't think I'd be able to go cold turkey as I'm terrified of serious withdrawls, and ultimately scared they may be so bad I'd need to be hospitalized. I have wanted to taper for a few months now, but haven't been able to push myself to do it. I know I'm addicted and it's so depressing. I feel motivated as ever now and want to do what's best. Today, I saw a dr who prescribed me suboxone, but I haven't taken it yet as I'm scared this could be the worst option. I initially thought this would be my best option but after doing further research, I'm not so sure. Would I just be trading addictions and prolonging this? Also, I'm terrified to travel with it to Mexico for my honeymoon as I don't even know if it's allowed legally. My fiancé doesn't know and she can't find out as she would probably leave me. I know some of you have been in much tougher situations involving addiction, and I know ultimately it's my fault for putting myself in this situation, but I need serious guidance. I just don't know what to do and it's killing me. Please help me if you can. Anyone who's been through something similar , can provide a taper schedule, or knows the absolute best option, would be beyond helpful to me right now. Thanks for taking the time to read my story.
 
Hi, Greenlighter--welcome! In my opinion, your best option would be to taper the oxycodone. You haven't been on the pills that long, and your dose is really low. If you quit cold turkey, you'd probably feel pretty bad for 5 days or so, but then you'd have your life back. I'm surprised the doctor prescribed suboxone for your relatively light habit.

I was taking double your dose for about 4 years. My withdrawal was not pleasant, but I didn't taper, and I wish I had. But for me, tapering felt uncomfortable so I figured, if I'm going to feel bad, I might as well feel cold-turkey bad. That was a huge mistake. Of course, everyone is different. Light withdrawals simply feel like having the flu for about a week.

Ask the suboxone doctor to give you other supportive medications to get you through withdrawals, do a quick taper (go down by 10 mg per week), then stop. You should be fine by the honeymoon.
 
thanks so much for the prompt response, it means more to me than you know. this is a huge help and I've been thinking this is probably my best option. I will take 40 mg today and go from there.
 
Hey sta and welcome to BL:D

Often times withdrawals are as bad as we expect them to be. Not that we can say I will feal fine, but if we expect it to be the worst thing thing the world its going to be. As far as needing to hit the hospital, I would not try that.. spend a bunch of money to get crap meds and spend time in a less than desirable place.

I jumped a huge habit (150mgpd methadone, 260 mgpd oxy, 6 mgpd xan).. i figured if im going to feal like shit why miss the summer as well. why spend the time sitting around in bed feeling miserable.. I was in acutes for almost two months.. i went to water parks (yeah talk about crazy hot cold difference.. lol), museums, zoo'z ( i hate zoos as they are sick), pro football and baseball games, fishing, etc, etc, I mean why sit around feeling miserable and sorry for ourselves jonesing to find relief.. fuck it power on. There is actually nothing wrong with us so just because it feels like you cant walk doesn't mean you shouldn't.

Here is my take and others on medications that will aid you through the acutes. I would try and get off before I went on the suboxone, but now that its an option you will almost assuredly take it. Thats all good as it allows us to level back out our lives and thoughts. it gives us time to address the addiction. Its much harder to get off then what you have been on, but it provides a stable life.

Tapers are rough and IMO provide little benefit.. still have to jump at the end.. you can be out in under seven days if you make the choice to accept the pain and discomfort knowing in less then seven days you will feal remarkably better and be free of the chains of physical dependence. Or you can start to play the unwinnable game of trying not to pay the piper. Everyone pays the piper IMO and at some point we just have to say fuck it im going to push through this no matter hell or high water. The difference come in how much time we boil our selves pretending we will be able to walk out scott free.



The medications I would explore the use of for detox would be:

NSFW:

>Clonidine< DOSED EVER FOUR HOURS..

one of either
>NEURONTIN< >HERE< >HERE< >here<
OR >Lyrica<
OR >phenibut<

>A BENZO BUT JUST AT NIGHT<
>a nsaid<
>melatonin<
tylenol
Senokot S is a stool softener and laxative. If you do not want the laxative you can go for strait stool softenerDioctyl sodium sulfosuccinate.

(Opi Withdrawal) what is the best comfort meds for opiate w/d?

Your Personal Opiate Withdrawal Arsenal


Your doing this and you will make it!!:)
 
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I'd suggest tapering too, subs could turn out to be another addiction right? I'm not sure on suboxone, I've never taken it. No need to trade one for another. Withdrawals wouldn't be too bad, it wouldn't be pleasant but coming off a 7 month use wouldn't be extremely hard. I quit cold turkey with no help from meds from a almost 6 year oxy and heroin addiction. Although I'm back to using like on the weekends. I was clean for almost 5 months and started doing intensive outpatient program and ended up relapsing. I'd say the physical withdrawals lasted a couple weeks then became very minor. After that it was just a mental battle.

Good luck, ppl are very helpful and supportive here, it where I always came when I wasn't feeling good or down
 
Sta071, I agree with neversickanymore. I've been on subs for 4 years now. I didn't intend to be on them this long but I'm still on them for the very reason I started taking them in the first place. I didn't want to experience any sickness. At some point you gotta pay the piper. I so much wish I would have just gotten it over with. Because on subs you numb out the joys of life. I'm tapering now and it's a very long and drawn out process . If you do decide to take those subs, do a quick sub detox. Long term subs are no way to go and it's easy to get caught up in. Good luck to you.

D.T.B.T.
 
IF you are looking for a suggestion, I would have to say Sub detox under a doctors supervision would be your best bet.
 
phactor said:
IF you are looking for a suggestion, I would have to say Sub detox under a doctors supervision would be your best bet.
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+1. Also I agree with mahi, almost 40 years of opiate use and never even 1 time could I taper from a drug I was getting high on. Hence the beauty of subs. They don't get you high they make a short detox manageable. Common off long term sub maintenance is a different story all together so keep it short.

DTBT.
 
While I have never, ever been able to taper a drug myself like others have said here, I would also just say that if you are going to use suboxone just use it for a short term detox rather than maintenance if you don't have a long history of addiction or major long term issues.

While oxy is a strong drug, 50mg shouldn't take you too long to get off using a suboxone taper.

There is the option of having a supervised oxy taper where you go onto daily pickup from a chemist so you only get what you need for the day. If this is possible for you, getting off oxy quickly is likely to be quite easy without using the stronger subs.

It really does depend on your history, issues and personality. I could not do an oxy taper, even on daily pickup (which I was forced onto towards the end) because I would just go and get heroin or another opiate. I also could not do a suboxone taper as my addiction history is long (over 20 years) and I have issues that run deep so I've been on 28mg of sub for a year now. While I feel it's damaging me and I am petrified of getting off it one day, it's a heck of a lot better than chasing drugs daily and living the junkie life.

Having said that, I have been successfully tapering off benzos for a year now, supervised by my dr and chemist and I'm black listed at every dr, hospital and chemist in the area. I'm down to 20mg of Valium a day from a few hundred (or equivalent of Xanax.). I have just slipped up and ordered 90 2mg Xanax though:(. I know I never could have done it with oxy.

How much suboxone are you prescribed? Be careful and if you do decide to do it, make sure you have a definite and fairly short taper plan. Some drs (like mine) are happy to leave people on high doses indefinitely. Even if you went cold turkey, you will be sick but not likely to the point of hospitalisation. Luckily your dose hasn't gone too high and sometimes a horrible cold turkey detox can be just what you need to stop yourself if you ever think of using again. But then there's lots of us who do it to ourselves year after year :(

My post may seem all over the place but just trying to explore the many different options, everyone is so different! No matter what path you take, I would suggest utilising services that you have available to you, whether it be a counsellor, psych, NA meetings etc, just to help you not only get clean but stay that way and live happy:)

Keep us updated on how you go! I really hope you get this now, you're making a heck of a great decision as things will only get a lot worse if you continue.

Congratulations on your upcoming wedding! Now is a great time to be getting clean to start married life on a great foot.
 
There is a kind of simple trade off between tapering on long acting opiates and short acting opiates:

Long acting: easier to control dosing schedule and less psychologicially compulsive with a long period of physical withdrawal
Short acting: more difficult to stick to dosing schedule and more psychologicially compulsive but with a shorter period of physical withdrawal

That's over simplifying greatly but roughly holds true. The opiate that you choose to taper on depends on how you think you might control those factors really.
 
Thanks for your reply mahi. You are completely right about tapering. It has been way more difficult than I thought. I keep tricking myself into thinking I'll be able to do it without issue but it's so much easier said than done. As far as your 10 day sub plan - do you think that will be enough? The prescribing doctor said to start with 2mg and then take 2mg every 4 hrs (8mgs a day). He said to do this for 2 days and then go to 8mg in the morning and 4mg at night. I've never taken subs but this seems high to me from a doe standpoint. I don't want to be taking these long term (1 month max is my goal) Also, if I'm supposed to take 2mg every 4 hrs to start - what about sleeping? I'm assuming I'd have to map it out so doses are taken throughout the day. I have the subs but haven taken them. My plan is to try to go c/t, and if the withdrawls become unbearable, i'll try the subs. Thanks again for your help.
 
Whilst I would almost always agree that if you can avoid a maintainance period and jump straight to the taper/detox then that's probably preferable for most people, I wouldn't go as far as to say a maintainance script is of no use to anyone other than the group of users you describe.

Lots of people find it really hard to break the psychological addiction and either can't do a taper straight away (esp if they're trying to control it themselves on short acting opiods) or get caught in a cycle of detox and relapse, and for lots of people a period of stability on a maintainance dose of a long acting opiate can be really beneficial in helping break the mental link to using making detoxing/tapering and then staying clean much easier. Of course there are many downsides to consider as well.
 
Thank you so much for taking the time to provide me with these detailed replies mahi, it means more to me than you know. One last question - what do you think is an appropriate amount of time between taking oxycodone and my first dose of sub? You said take the oxy at 9pm and the sub the next day in your first post, but I was told that I should wait until I'm in bad withdrawl until i start the sub, or I'll get very sick. However, I'm thinking, for example, if I take 45-50 mg of oxy at 5pm today and then take .25 mg of sub before bed tomorrow (say 9pm-10pm) I should be fine. Any feedback here? Just want to make sure there's enough time in between. Also, as far as the Dr. i saw, he was referred to me by a friend who was taking oxy and is now using subs. He seemed pretty shady to be honest - didn't really ask me about how I get started on oxy or anything, just immediately prescribed the subs. Also, the appt, was $200, so I can def see him trying to overprescribe to use it as a revenue stream. My plan is to use the sub taper method you suggested, not get a refill, and fight mentally. I do feel I am pretty strong mentally, my big thing is just not getting sick. Taking the oxy's doesn't even do anything for me at this point but keep me from getting sick, and I just want out. I will keep you updated on my progress. Again, thank you so much for your help.
 
Sta071 said:
Thank you so much for taking the time to provide me with these detailed replies mahi, it means more to me than you know. One last question - what do you think is an appropriate amount of time between taking oxycodone and my first dose of sub? You said take the oxy at 9pm and the sub the next day in your first post, but I was told that I should wait until I'm in bad withdrawl until i start the sub, or I'll get very sick. However, I'm thinking, for example, if I take 45-50 mg of oxy at 5pm today and then take .25 mg of sub before bed tomorrow (say 9pm-10pm) I should be fine. Any feedback here? Just want to make sure there's enough time in between. Also, as far as the Dr. i saw, he was referred to me by a friend who was taking oxy and is now using subs. He seemed pretty shady to be honest - didn't really ask me about how I get started on oxy or anything, just immediately prescribed the subs. Also, the appt, was $200, so I can def see him trying to overprescribe to use it as a revenue stream. My plan is to use the sub taper method you suggested, not get a refill, and fight mentally. I do feel I am pretty strong mentally, my big thing is just not getting sick. Taking the oxy's doesn't even do anything for me at this point but keep me from getting sick, and I just want out. I will keep you updated on my progress. Again, thank you so much for your help.
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You dont take subs for 24-30 hours after your last dose. I can't agree more, 8mg of subs is insane for your history. Before you know it you'll be addicted to subs and the taper is so so so long. I do think some drs find it as revenue because most dont accept insurance. Not saying your dr is but it sounds crazy to me. Good luck Sta.

Bob

Ps make no doubt, you will feel sick at some point. If you're mentally strong, then you'll be fine
 
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