Precipitated Withdrawal from Suboxone, How Long Till I can Redose

[lman_15]

So I've been on methadone for 5 months, was taking 75mg a day, I wanted to switch to sub cuz no offence to people on meth it just makes me feel like absolute shit and I can't deal with it, just reminds me of using wayyy to much. So I took a 7 day break from methadone, used 8 12mg hydromorph contin capsules a day, for 7 days. I did a line at 4:30am, then at 5:45pm the following day I took my first suboxone pill. I was prescribed 8mg of sub I asked the pharmacy to give me 1/4 so I could see how I react and then if I don't get precipitated withdrawal I'll take the rest and if I do then I'll come back tomorrow and they can keep the 3/4. Of course they say no so I decided to take the 8mg tablet, the first 20-30 minutes after taking it I felt fine, within 1 hour I was done, be ridden, diaharia, restless legs, and just twitching all over the place, I finally fell asleep and now its 11:45 (I took sub 8mg at 5:45pm so its been 6 hours since), I'm wondering how long till I can take a suboxone tablet to relieve these symptoms? Now I can actually type on my computer and don't feel half as shitty but I do feel shitty regardless

 

[Tommyboy]

If you were able to fall asleep then I'm sure it's over and you can dose the suboxone without having to worry about precipitated withdrawals again. I think that perhaps you were just feeling regular withdrawals since you went from such a high dose of opioids to the suboxone, and you started feeling better once the suboxone fully kicked in maybe.

I think that precipitated withdrawals would have started a lot sooner than 1 hour after dosing, which is why I don't think you experience them and that it was just regular withdrawal from the suboxone not being strong enough to cover the difference between your high dose of hydromorphone and the dose of suboxone.

 

[lman_15]

thanks for the quick and informative reply, I'm going to take another 4mg sublingually and see how I feel

 

[lman_15]

okay so fuck last night was from fucking hell, I took 4mg of suboxone 6 hours after I inititially felt the precipitated withdrawal, which made it worse, then did the same thing 4-6 hours later, needless to say my night consisted of hot and cold sweats, RLS, serious twitching and just general discomfort. I took 3 2mg clonazepam and it didn't even touch me which usually 1 knocks me out. Anyways now after getting 3 hours of sleep I'm feeling better but still some withdrawal, temperature feels a bit wacky, aches and pains, etc. should I go to the pharmacy today for my next sub dose or?

 

[vacathizzle]

Suboxone always made me feel like shit... I don't think you're experiencing PW though.

Subs gave me gnarly headaches, and they only really helped with the physical part of the w/d, they didn't help the mental game which is 99% of the battle imo. The advice I always give is take the smallest dose of Sub you can get by on, and stop taking it as soon as you can get by without it. That's what I did, and I'm coming up on 18 months clean

Also, I don't know how you are with alcohol, but a drink or two always helped me a lot. Just be careful not to get caught up with that one, too.

 

[Swimmingdancer]

People often feel like crap the first few days on Suboxone, especially when switching from methadone. 75mg/day of methadone is a lot to switch to Subs from, buprenorphine has a ceiling and may not be able to fully cover your methadone withdrawals - you might just have to put up with a rough first week unfortunately. It is usually recommended to taper your methadone dose to 30mg/day or less before switching to Suboxone. Methadone, especially higher doses, can also take a long time to wear off (varies greatly from person to person), so people normally need to wait a longer time before they can take Suboxone without precipitated withdrawals. Everyone is different, some people are fine leaving 24 hrs after their last dose of methadone whereas one of my doctors said he's seen people get precipitated withdrawals after waiting 5 days in between.

I'm honestly not sure what you should do. I guess it depends how motivated you are. How soon you will adjust to the Subs and start feeling better I really don't know. Sorry I can't be of more help. Hang in there

 

[Morninggloryseed]

It took me about a month for me to really get used to suboxone. By used to it, I mean feeling 100% not-sick. It took me a long time to get used to life without the 'warm fuzzy' as suboxone lacks all rewarding features. Once I got used to feeling feelings again, I stopped focusing on how much I missed morphine. I was very grateful I stuck it out...addiction sucks but a suboxone slave was infinitely better than uncontrolled slavery to rewarding narcotics.

 

[lman_15]

yea cuz at this point I duno if its precipitated withdrawal or just not a high enough dose, I was on 75mg of meth for 5 months, then switched to hydromorph contin 8, 12mg capsules a day for 7 days (snorted), then switched to the sub yesterday.. I waited 13 hours between my last hydromorph dose and my first sub dose, nd like I said at first I felt fine then after about an hour maybe a lil less started to feel real shitty, and then took half a sub (4mg's) 6 hours later it got worse, then took another half a sub (4mg) 6 hours after that and once again it got worse, today I'm feeling a decent amount better but still feel sick, hot and cold sweats, minor RLS, enlarged pupils, etc. Anyways I'm seeing my doctor tomorrow as soon as I wake up I'm going to try and get him to jump me to 12mg or 16mg. But I'm wondering wether people think its precipitated withdrawal or if its just not enough sub to cover what I was taking (i.e. methadone & hydromorph contin)? Cuz if its precipitated withdrawal that would mean the initial dose I took yesterday at the pharmacy (8mg) set it off, then every 6 hours by taking more sub (4mg) I kept the precipitated withdrawal going & then lastly by taking my dose today it continued to keep the precipitated withdrawal in effect, is that ever possible?