Quick opiate withdrawl question for anyone with experience

[caleb109]

Background--
Long story short, this time last year I had to withdrawal from oxymorphone. (Opana) I had been snorting about 15mgs a day for 5 weeks, and when I realized I was acting like a junkie I stopped. (Cold Turkey) Despite what some say was a rather weak habit in comparison to others, I had one hell of time coming off that stuff. Lots of depression and anxiety, but it passed and I moved on. My point is know what the w/d's feel like.

Problem--
Flash forward to this year and my junkie ass thought it would be a good idea to take morphine instant release 30mg orally (60 to 90 mg a day sometimes) for 3 weeks without taking more than a couple days off here and there. Anyways, not wanting to withdrawal like I did last year at this time I stopped cold turkey this weekend. After 3.5 days of withdrawaling, not as bad as opana but still not fun, a friend of mine gave me some suboxone. I took 1 mg and it stopped my withdrawals completely. I then waited 48 hours and took .5 mgs, yesterdays.

Question--
So, I was hoping some people on here with lots of experience could tell me if I am "Killing a Fly with a Shotgun." Or better put, am I just giving myself a new addiction, because as I understand it this suboxone stuff is hardcore (36 hour half-life!!!). Should I take .25 tomorrow, and then stop? Should I never take it again? Am I going to start withdrawals all over again when I stop suboxone? I understand for those of you that have serious habits, I must seem like big baby. And after reading more online about suboxone I understand I more than likely should have never started taking it since my morphine withdrawals were close to ending. But, as I am sure many people on this board understand, when you are in wd's its hard to turn down something that will make it stop. Sorry for the long story, please give some advice if you can. And thanks in advance. 8)

P.S. For those of you that know, is taking 60mg-90mg of morphine orally close to 15mg of opana snorted? I am trying to see if my habit is as bad as it was last year. Thanks-

 

[dais]

you're essentially easing yourself into the final stages of withdrawal. once you jump off the suboxone you're going to have to withdrawal from that. the lower the dose you get to the lesser the symptoms in the end. make things as comfortable for yourself if you have that luxury.

have you looked into other aides, the non-opioid kind?

 

[morphonorconic]

If you're wanting to be clean, and have gone cold turkey before and can handle it, then that's what you should Don't take any more suboxone unless you want to prolong the process.

 

[Swimmingdancer]

Should I take .25 tomorrow, and then stop?

I would probably skip a day and take 0.25mg and then stop.

For those of you that know, is taking 60mg-90mg of morphine orally close to 15mg of opana snorted?

Yeah, they should be approximately around the same. It's hard to make a conversion because they are different ROAs and one is IR while the other is ER, but they should likely be fairly close. EDIT: Actually I was thinking of hydromorphone, not oxymorphone. Please see below.

 

[caleb109]

Thanks guys, great replies.

Also to Swimming Dancer,
I am pretty stupid. For some reason I just assumed since I didn't get a great buzz off 60-90mg of morphine it was a lot weaker than oxymorphone. I looked at wikipedia and it said that 10 mgs of morphine equals 1.4 mgs of oxymorphone orally. I figured that since I was snorting the oxymorphone, which increased its bioavailability a decent amount, I had a much worse oxymorphone habit compared to my morphine habit. I see that your a mod with a lot of posts, which makes me assume you know what your talking about. Could you (or anyone else who knows) explain how 60-90mg of morphine a day is equal to 15mg of oxymorphone a day? Thanks in advance

 

[caleb109]

I forgot to add, I did the math and can see that 90 mg morphine oral and 15mg oxymorphone oral are nearly equal based on the 10mg=1.4mg conversion rate. However I thought snorting oxymorphone made it like 4 times more potent. So, wouldn't that make my oxymorphone roughly 4 times as bad?

 

[Tommyboy]

^ I wouldn't get too caught up in the numbers. Each detox is unique, and things such as half-life also play a role in the severity of things, so it's not a simple as comparing equivalent doses to see which one was higher, and then deciding that the higher one was the worse habit. With each detox it usually gets a bit worse, not to make you worried or anything, I'm just pointing out that even the same exact habit a few months or years apart is usually a worse kick the second time around.

Part of that is placebo, or more so the anxiety and mental aspect of knowing what the withdrawals are like and fearing them, and the other part is that it takes less time to become dependent on opioids with each binge after detoxing. Don't psych yourself out too much otherwise you will make the withdrawals worse than they should be. The sooner that you accept that the symptoms are temporary and you will get through them in a few days, the easier it will be. If you are constantly thinking that you can take more drugs to abort the detox and get high then it will be worse. I've kicked some bad habits in areas where no opioids were available and since I wasn't thinking about them it wasn't that bad compared to relatively small habits when I was in the position where I could call a dealer and have the drugs to me in 30 minutes.

As for the suboxone, listen to your body and only take it if you really think you need to. On short binges like that I usually only dose once and am fine after that, but if you do dose again I second swimmingdancers suggesting of waiting another day and taking 0.25mg instead of 0.5mg.

 

[Swimmingdancer]

Thanks guys, great replies.

Also to Swimming Dancer,
I am pretty stupid. For some reason I just assumed since I didn't get a great buzz off 60-90mg of morphine it was a lot weaker than oxymorphone. I looked at wikipedia and it said that 10 mgs of morphine equals 1.4 mgs of oxymorphone orally. I figured that since I was snorting the oxymorphone, which increased its bioavailability a decent amount, I had a much worse oxymorphone habit compared to my morphine habit. I see that your a mod with a lot of posts, which makes me assume you know what your talking about. Could you (or anyone else who knows) explain how 60-90mg of morphine a day is equal to 15mg of oxymorphone a day? Thanks in advance

I forgot to add, I did the math and can see that 90 mg morphine oral and 15mg oxymorphone oral are nearly equal based on the 10mg=1.4mg conversion rate. However I thought snorting oxymorphone made it like 4 times more potent. So, wouldn't that make my oxymorphone roughly 4 times as bad?

Pretty much what Tommyboy said. Withdrawals always get worse with time and are more about how long you've been taking the drug as opposed to just its potency. However, I was actually mistaken because I was thinking of the conversion for hydromorphone, not oxymorphone. Sorry about that. But as I said, it is very difficult to calculate a conversion from oral morphine IR to nasal oxymorphone ER, because of the ROAs and the fact that one is IR and one is ER. According to my converter, 90mg of oral morphine should be roughly equal to 30mg oral oxymorphone. Oral oxymorphone has a published BA of around 10% while the published nasal BA is around 40%. But those numbers are just averages and I doubt that one is getting the full 40% when snorting Opana. Really, I don't think you can figure it out accurately and I don't think whether or not they are equivalent matters in terms of trying to figure out how bad your WDs are going to be.

 

[BHPaperstacks]

Stick to ur tapor witht he subs and youll be fine. I never used suboxane but ive had friends who did fine whne they stuck to the taporing schedule.

 

[caleb109]

Thanks a lot everyone. I appreciate you giving me your time. I think I will just stop the taper after a .25 mg dose of sub and let the wd's pass. Great info TommyBoy. Your right, I think my fear of withdrawaling is getting the best of me. Coming of Opana was intense, and the fear and anxiety of thinking I am going to feel like that again is getting the best of me. Its temporary and I just need to remind myself of that.

SwimmingDancer, thanks for doing your best to give me an idea about the size and seriousness of my habit. Its messed up how my junkie ass convinced myself I was somehow not doing much morphine. The things we do to ourselves.

Just curious, but anyone else had a bad withdrawal from opiates? What was your poison and dose size? (Is that rude to ask, hahahahahaha?)

 

[laCster]

READ THIS!!! --> http://www.bluelight.ru/vb/threads/562628-The-OD-Opioid-Withdrawal-Megathread-and-FAQ


listen to this: take .5-1mg for a week, that is not a high dosage at all and is roughly equal to about 20mgs morphine (that conversion might be wrong, please correct me if it is)..

after you feel comfortable, move down to taking .5mg every other day. have one day where you are completely sober. you should not experience WD from 1 day of not taking subs because subs has a preposterously long half-life..about 36-48 hrs. after you have been on it for a while, 1 day wont sent you into wd.

once you are comfortable with taking .5mg every other day, start taking .5mg 1 day, have a sober day, then take .25mg after your 1-day break and continue this until you feel comfortable taking .25 mg every other day.

once you are ready, go cold turkey off the .25mgs subs. stock up on aleve (naproxen sodium), diphenhydramine (benedryl) OR hydroxyzine/promethazine if you can get it, i also like to take 30mgs of dxm a day while im in wd but for some people it makes them anxious so if you are prone to anxiety dont take the dxm. also, get like 10 boxes of immodium (loperamide) to help with physical symptoms such as diarrhea (you need to take 20-40mgs of loperamide to feel any relief).

a biggy for me was to also take gabapentin/lyrica during WD which significantly made it sooo much easier. i had lyrica and all the OTC drugs i mentioned, and i could sleep every night, hardly noticeable aches, barely any chills,no diarrhea, ect....

however, i definitely felt a little sick even with all those drugs for 2-3 weeks. i think that was because i was taking large amount of opiates for 1-2 years, and then took suboxone for 2-3 months. i ended up kicking the subs to get high on some fire boy, but that is a different story and that was because somethng traumatic happened in my life and that is the only way i know how to cope. i know, im a drugg addict fo'sho

i am now back on suboxone and i have been clean from H for over a month, and i have never been happier in my life. i learned drugs inhibit my ability to preform and function in life. most of the time i loath taking drugs just because of all the experiences i had in the past, but i have to admit i do take benzos and smoke weed sometimes with my suboxone. but it is usually rare...and even just takng those too i feel like shit the day after and i dislike that i took them at all...