Tapering subs. Advice?

AKKennedy

Greenlighter
Joined
Aug 13, 2012
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Location
Atlanta, GA
I mainline about 1-2 grams daily of heroin, and according to the doctors, I am in good health besides my junk and pack-a-day habit. I'm noticing lately that I am having a hard time breathing, though not as bad as when I was on Suboxone (I thought I was going to die sometimes with that stuff! But probably because I was trying to avoid the ceiling effect by mixing it with xanax and alcohol too.). When I went into detox to get off those three things, they said I barely had a pulse when I came in. Now I am getting off the heroin, I called my Suboxone doctor last night to make an appointment. Instead of being on it for 2 years this time, I am going to do a 2 week to a month taper. Anyone gone through this experience that can offer support and advice? :)
 
I'm not sure what kind of 'advice' you're looking for? Changing title to better reflect the content of the post.
 
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Well today I went and got 14 8 mg suboxone films. I did my last shot at around 10 this AM, it's now 4 PM and I'm starting to feel slightly antsy, no sweating or chills yet but I know later in the night they will be there. My doctor told me not to let myself suffer too much and that I didnt have to wait 24 hours, just when I feel I'm in mild-moderate withdrawal. I'm scared to be without the heroin, but I'm so excited to have my life back. It was nice to not have to make the shitty 2 hour roundtrip to get my dope today.
 
I hope you're not injecting it intravenously or otherwise, but if you're tapering quickly, you'll find out that as you've said, you'll really miss your Drug of Choice and will be thoroughly tempted! However, if you can, stick to it and, basically, try to lower it to what you can handle, so that you can take it for as long as you can; don't drop down the dose too quickly and don't drop off at something as high as 8mg: it's incredible that you're going through this so quickly, as opposed to the longer side of withdrawing with medical help!

Good luck!

Also, you should just keep in contact with your doctor fairly often, make sure to get advice from him (or her) if you've any confusion about it or any problems, and I suggest that you basically try to drop down every week or couple-of-weeks. See, you'll not want to reduce, but you really must and at the end, getting off opiates at 1-2mg is far better than 8mg! I've been through rapid tapers before and the lower the dose you're on before you end up totally facing cold-turkey, you definitely want to be on as LOW a dose as possible: I don't mean just take 8mg for six days and then 1mg on the final day of the week, no, get used to what you're taking so that your brain and body can accept it all.

Personally, I feel that a month is very short to stop using 1-2grams of Heroin; I'd have gone for a slow(er), but still fairly quick methadone taper, with liquid dropping down 1-2mg every few days, but basically, I wish you the best of luck and hope that you keep in touch with the doctor in charge, be honest with regards to your drug abuse - I know this may seem offensive 'cause I liken it (just metaphorically, and I apologise in advance!) to losing a sense: so, you've lost your sight, and everything else increases, according to "Urban Myths" & "Legends" and so-on. You'll probably increase your doses of alcohol and benzodiazepines, but please try to be as safe as possible, and it's incredibly possible and even likely for you to lose consciousness whilst under the influence of various opiates, so... be careful, please! %)

All the best to you, mate.
 
Suboxone maintenance might be the better idea... I tapered off my suboxone very slowly, over the course of 8 months. With the help of clonidine, atarax and some ambien at night it was doable. Not easy, but not as bad as tapering off of full agonists.
 
Don't take the suboxone until you cannot handle the effects of the withdrawals anymore (I usually gave it 24 hours).
 
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