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  • BDD Moderators: Keif’ Richards

Switching to a shorter-acting opiate to hopefully reduce the time spent in withdrawal

E

Egeo_consilii

Greenlighter
Joined
Feb 12, 2011
Messages
25
So I've been riding the opiate roller coaster for a few years now and I'm (finally) in a situation where I'm forced to give them up (for awhile anyway). However, I want to spend the least amount of time in withdrawals as possible. I've been doing approximately 120mg of oxymorphone (sniffed) daily; (3-40mg Opana Er's), and the length of the withdrawals is just too intense for me. I decided to return to IVing Hydromorphone (dilaudid 8mg) about 5 times a day (so about 40mg/day IV). Can I expect my withdrawals when I quit to be shorter, but more intense? Since the half life of dilaudid is significantly less than Opana, will the withdrawals really be shorter, or is this not the case? Also, I sometimes switch between Opana and Dilaudid, so will this affect the outcome of my withdrawals? Say I'm currently IVing the aforementioned amount daily, but will switch to sniffing 120mg of Opana for a day, and then returning for one or two days to IV dilaudid before I quit. Will doing this affect the outcome at all? All replies greatly appreciated!
 
i feel for ya my friend. The withdrawal experience does depend on the mathematics u r analyzing, but I've gone cold turkey from IV fentanyl twice and had two very different experiences. My point is, the mathematics is pretty straightforward, but your age, overall health, nutrition, emotional resources / relationships and most importantly - your reason
is every bit as important as the math.
I've no experience with
oxymorphone and very little with dilaudid, but plenty with fentanyl, sufentanyl, morphine. These are relatively clean agonists. That's the good news - much better than kicking skag / H. The unfortunate reality is you need to have more uncomfortable days than comfortable days, and pretty much zero "high" days if you want to kick a solid opioid requirement. And your question about alternating back and forth from the 120 per nasal "maintenence" dose of oxymorphone with the "comfort zone" amount of dilaudid is a good one. It does matter, like I said, you need to establish some variability in
the regulation of your opioid receptors
and natural agonist proteins to achieve your goal. Your body has not made a lot of inherent opoid chemicals in a while as you've been supplying them exogenously. Finally, try picking up a new hobby, activity, something to mentally distract you from the discomfort. I was able to kick a 100 mg methadone requirement in three months, and the key was knowing that I could pop a wafer or two if I wanted to, but I chose not to because I had motivation not to - sounds like you have some motivation too. Good luck.
 
Wow, 100mg methadone?! That sounds terrible man! Such a long acting opiate. I see what you're saying; that I have to establish some sort of regularity with my dose-I suppose I could have phrased it better like this-I'm going on a 2-month trip to Europe (my home-very excited to see my family, I hope that helps me get through this!), so I can only take a limited amount of opiates with me-about 35 8mg dilaudid and 4-40mg Opana. I think what I'm going to try is do the Opana first, then for the next week switch to dilaudid and hope my body has enough time to adjust to the shorter acting opiate.
I suppose my question boiled down to this:

WILL MY BODY HAVE ENOUGH TIME TO ADJUST TO THE SHORTER-ACTING OPIATE IF I ONLY USE DILAUDID FOR 1-2 WEEKS? IF MY WITHDRAWALS ARE 1.5 WEEKS WITH OPANA, WILL THEY BE SHORTER IF I ONLY USE DILAUDID FOR THIS AMOUNT OF TIME?

Oops all caps; lol I hate it when that happens, oh well at least it "highlighted my question" lol.
Thanks to any and all replies!

And thank you mu-lover, your advice is excellent! Yes, I've got quite a bit of motivation this time around, since the feeling of having absolutely no emotions other than the "high" emotions (aka going to cop, prepping and the shot/line) is getting really old. I really want to have meaningful relationships with PEOPLE, nota substance. Hopefully I can achieve lasting success this time around; at least I'll have about two months of sobriety (at least from opiates) to give me a head start until I return to the states.
But yeah, do you or anyone think that a week or so of switching to a shorter acting opiate will help reduce the acute withdrawal (not even gonna think about PAWS yet lol). Any ideas? I've seen Captain.Heroin has a lot of knowledge, maybe he has some ideas?

No other replies? Darn...I really need some help on this...

Mods- pleas feel free to move this wherever it's most appropriate; I really needs some advice. Thank you! So much
 
Last edited by a moderator:
K'd-OUT-in-AZ said:
The withdrawals from a shorter acting opiate will be shorter than the withdrawals from a long acting opiate. Take Methadone for example, withdrawals can last up to a couple weeks, while withdrawals from oxycodone and heroin last just 3-4 days.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info. K'd-Out; yes I familiar the different durations of W/D having to do with the shorter-longer half-lifes: but my question is, for how long must one make the switch to said short-acting opiates for the length of withdrawals to increase from longer acting opiates? Does one simply have to maintain on a faster-acting opiate for a week for the withdrawals to be shorter, or does it take longer?

Some info about me that might be helpful in someone trying to answer:

I'm a 21 y/o male, am relatively fit (still gotta maintain a 4 kilometer jog
Every morning+free-weights (hence the pain killers, messed up my
back), 5'11 and weigh 150lbs

I have a slightly faster than normal metabolism, and

I just got some work done and my
Blood pressure is low, liver/kidney function
well, and overall am in good health (except for sniffing/ shooting dope & pills for about 3.5 years, but this last binge being over 10 months without more than a 6 day break.

Thanks , EG
 
This is a question that no one seems to be able to ever answer I often see it related to suboxone wihdrawl but its the same concept. Honestly I hope you try it and come back to tell us how it works.
 
Get some suboxone... Otherwise you are in for a world of hurt. I tapered off of opana in 2 weeks using Suboxone. Wait til you're in WD before you use the Subs though..

Otherwise try roxi... Oxymorphone WD's are the WORST.. The sub helped greatly. Good luck!
 
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