Hello all My friend went away to detox about 2 months ago and switched from his 2 gram a day iv heroin habit to suboxone, successfully came out and was doing well for several weeks. About 4 weekes ago he relapsed and went back to the dope he know has been back to using anywhere from 1-2.5gs iv a day and desperatly wants to stop and get back on suboxone. But he is so scared of percipatated withdrawls that he has gotten in the past. My friend took his last shot at around 10pm tonight and plans on waiting as long as possible until taking his suboxone but is scared as hell because he begins withdrawing after only 8 hours usually after his last use and dosent know if he will be able to make it to the 24 hour mark and even if he does if that will be long enough.. Basically he is asking for any advice or for people to share their experiences in this endeavour. What can he take to help thru the 24 hrs? any advice at all really would be so greatly appreciated.
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Heroin Switching from heroin to suboxone please helppppp
- Thread starter nyguy5
- Start date
twotoomany
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Jan 24, 2013
- Messages
- 736
You DON'T need to go 24 hours. Do a google search for the COWS scale. I'm pretty sure (not positive, look it up) that you need to be at 17 or so before dosing suboxone. Everyone is different. We all metabolize opiates at a different rate. That's why the COWS scale is used. Your opiate receptors need to be mostly empty before suboxone induction. For me, it was about 17 hours from my last oxy dose, but my habit was much smaller. I hope this was remotely helpful. Good luck.
Mr.Scagnattie
Bluelighter
We get this question more than any other. I don't see how people can't find this out via a search and read the hundreds of threads that talk about this.
But anyway, it's not about time... that is relative. Everyone is different. You need to wait until you are in moderate withdrawal, whenever that is for you. The average is 24 hours. Some people only need to wait 12 hours, others need to wait 36, etc.
If you wait until you are in full withdrawal, you will not get PW's.
But anyway, it's not about time... that is relative. Everyone is different. You need to wait until you are in moderate withdrawal, whenever that is for you. The average is 24 hours. Some people only need to wait 12 hours, others need to wait 36, etc.
If you wait until you are in full withdrawal, you will not get PW's.
SO my friend took all advice waited the whole 24hrs plus sum mayb 25.5 hours total he then he took maybe 3 mgs of sub film and within ten minutes was thrown into persipatated withdrawls... He cant understand why he was feeling very shitty couldn't sleep and so he figured it was time to take it. anyway so after being put in to pws luckily he had a little h to take that away. but his question now is is he back at square 1 does he now have to wait an additional 24 or i guesss more in his case obviously? please help! any suggestions or comments will be greatly appreciated...
Wait till you're 95% as bad as the withdrawal will get, the full kicks, then no precip will come from the dope
Anywhere from 12-24 hours
If he's really scared he can wait as long as possible and do an extra tiny amount of Suboxone, like .25 mg and if any precips come, they will be minor, and if you do get precips, wait longer and try another .25mg until no precips then take full dose of sub
Anywhere from 12-24 hours
If he's really scared he can wait as long as possible and do an extra tiny amount of Suboxone, like .25 mg and if any precips come, they will be minor, and if you do get precips, wait longer and try another .25mg until no precips then take full dose of sub
kandi roxi
Greenlighter
24 hours sounds very painful, but its just another 24 hours of suffering from opiate withdrawal. But I wouldn't wait that long. When I went to the dr he only made we wait 12 hours before induction. Also I would start withdrawing within 6-8 hours from my last dose. But in my experience (the few I have since getting on subs) I really only need to wait about 6-8 hours from my last dose of an opiate before I take my prescribed dose of 12mg strips twice daily. I would say only wait until you start to withdrawal, why wait any longer than that?
Mr.Scagnattie
Bluelighter
Like I said, 24 hours isn't long enough for some people depending on a variety of factors. Tolerance, metabolism, habit size, etc. You have to be in moderate withdrawal, actually really sick, not just slightly uncomfortable. If you don't wait until you're actually really sick, you risk PW's happening.
If your friend doesn't want the same thing to happen, again... he needs to wait until he is in full withdrawal. The COWS scale can help determine this, provided he answers the questions honestly. A lot of addicts hate being even slightly uncomfortable in withdrawal, so they convince themselves they are sicker than they really are in order to take the suboxone.
It tends to be much more difficult to avoid precip w/d with a heavy habit(like ~2g IV a day). I think the best thing you can do is try weening down, even if just for 1 day where you try and get by on only .5-.75g. Do your last shot before you go to bed, well more so, do it like 3-4 hours before you go to bed. Try to use a sleep aid of some sort to knock you out and hopefully get like 7-8 hours of sleep. Once you wake up you are 11-12 hours since last shot, you are most likely feeling like death but suck it up for as long as you can bear it and then take the Suboxone. Also make sure you don't have dope sitting around that morning or you will end up being stuck making the decision to get on Sub or do that dope and we all know what happens there.
I myself don't ween down my dose prior to getting on Subs cause my dose isn't that large, so its not necessary. But with the larger habit you need to either be in pain longer or ween down a bit before, which is painful in itself. So fact is there is no easy way to get to where you want to be.
I myself don't ween down my dose prior to getting on Subs cause my dose isn't that large, so its not necessary. But with the larger habit you need to either be in pain longer or ween down a bit before, which is painful in itself. So fact is there is no easy way to get to where you want to be.
To OP and anyone else interested,
This is not good advice at all. I could tell you the same thing about myself, though I've always waited at least 10 hours(6-8 is really cutting is short). But my habit is much smaller than yours, only usually .75-<1 g a day snorted. Who knows what the habit of this person who claims 6-8 hours is fine. That is just insane and I believe its only possible if the habit is relatively small. Maybe they mean after a one time use while on Sub maintenance, which would make precip w/d unilkely since the Sub will outlast the other opiates. Especially an unnecessarily large dose like 24 mg a day, OP you already know you need to wait longer than just until w/d hits, so I wouldn't be concerned for you, but others reading need to know that isn't a good way to do it.
If the OP is shooting .5 g of H at a time he will still have about .125 (and this is only if he was going from 0 in his system to shooting .5g, if he had 2-3 similar shots that day he probably already had a good amount in his system before the .5 shot) of that in your system after 6-8 hours, which has way more agonizing effect on his opiate receptors than the agonizing ability at the ceiling effect of suboxone. You are obviously looking to get down to below that, which is probably around having .025-.05 g of H in your system depending on potency of the dope. And even if you take the Sub at the point where the dope in your system is = in agonizing effect, you will just get no precip w/d, but you also won't get any help from the Sub, it will be a none factor and make you think you feel worse because it did nothing or even is causing very slight precip w/d.