First:
I highly recommend attempting to wean off butalbital first for several reasons: I guarantee you'll be at my dosage levels eventually (its fucking expensive, I have depression more severe than i've ever had before, my sleep is erratic & disturbed, its very hard to function "normally", and if you're using the fioricet formula be aware that more than 12 pills a day exceeds 4000 mg of acetaminophen, the maximum dosage--daily use at or above this level will cause hepatotoxicity and/or liver cirrhosis). ALSO, psychologically very important: GABAergics are very VERY prone to cause PAWS (they'll especially increase long term anxiety & induce general hypersensitivity to stimuli long after cessation of use, sometimes even years; possibly even indefinitely). I went 5 days w/o butalbital & I likely lost my fucking mind; Yes, there is a more psychological/craving issue w/ opiates, but coming off of 1-2 bundles (10-20 bundles) of dope a day was a goddamn walk in the park compared to barbiturate withdrawal!
So, the w/d I felt during those 5 days? ..Auditory & visual hallucinations, extreme paranoia, anxiety, & insomnia (the latter 3 symptoms of which are magnitudes worse than opioid w/d), tremor, nausea, vomiting, & diarrhea (not as bad as opiate w/d), intense RLS, twitching, minor convulsions (in my experience), bone pain (barbiturates do have analgesic properties after all), chills, fever, and profuse sweating. & this was only 5 days of w/d.. i found it peaked on day 2; mental effects increased to frightening levels on day 3 (this turned to be the "peak"). Its been a year. I am still affected by this, I still cannot watch certain TV shows i watched during this time without triggering extreme psychological stress. I've never had a "flashback" from psychedelics (& I used a lot- I had the luxury of sampling many psychedelics b/c I went thru my "tripping phase" before before the DEA's "operation web tryp", which busted all the vendors).. but this is a "flashback" of sorts. I am not familiar w/ PTSD, but it may be some manifestation of this.
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Process Of Weaning:
SO.. to weaning: Oddly enough, both butalbital & buprenorphine have nearly similar mean biological half lives- 34 hours & ~37 hours, respectively (although buprenorphine has a more erratic half-life, dependent upon your personal metabolism).. So the following info can apply to both drugs. But first.. REMEMBER you should only reduce your current dose by 5-10% per "wean" (i.e., w/ butalbital, if you've managed to stabilize on 200mg/day & you're ready to wean again, reduce to 180-190mg. This may be tricky, but you can fix this by crushing the pills & equally dividing the piles into needed doses. Then mix w/ any citric juice or carbonated colas). Also, b/c of relatively long half lives; each "wean" should occur every 5-15 days.. OR, perhaps a better measure, you can drop/wean when you feel "normal" or stablized at your lowered dose (remember, don't expect to feel "high" or euphoria since you're weaning; you're just looking for normality, stability, functionality).
During the weaning process, the low-end doses become much more tough. So, I find the following procedure very helpful. When you get comfortable at the minimally prescribed dose (for buprenorphine this is 0.2 mg - 0.3 mg. For butalbital, this is 50 mg), you can stop dropping your dose & instead start slowly spacing out your doses (using a longer time frame for spacing- 10-20 days. OR, you can space out to your comfort- so long as you feel stabilized). Use intervals of 6 hours (particularly w/ butalbital, this may differ w/ buprenorphine/suboxone). For example, once you're at 50 mg/day of butalbital, space out your dosing from every 24 hours to every 30 hours; then in, say, 10 days space out dosing 50 mg of butalbital to once every 36 hours (or 1.5 days). Once you get comfortable/stabilized dosing every 4-6 days, you should be alright to stop. Although if needed, before you completely stop you may have to stretch out dosing intervals depending on length of use (max should be dosing every 10 days before cessation, in order to avoid continued use).
JUST REMEMBER: its about RELATIVE DOSES.. not absolute milligrams! Many people tend to drop from 2mg of suboxone to 1mg for example. But this is a 50% drop!! To feel relatively comfortable, you should drop from 2mg to 1.8mg in this scenario! Good luck!
