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Opioids World Record Insomnia? Has anyone come close to this?

H

Harmredux

Bluelighter
Joined
Apr 15, 2013
Messages
163
Hey all- I need to know because I am considering medical intervention soon. I have been using prescribed opiates for about 5 years. This last time I stopped oxy about a month ago and had no problem because I still was taking about:
1) 100-120 mg daily hydrocodone + opium tincture
2) 12-15 beers a day
3) 12.5mg ambien every night, and sometimes I would forget and take a second one.
4) nicotine
5) small amounts of valium here and there (half life is crazy long though)

I haven't used any opiates, nicotine, or alcohol for 11 days. I took tiny amounts of the ambien day 1,2,3 and tiny and gradually less valium days 1-6 (in the last 10 days only used 20mg valium total).

The first 9 days I didn't sleep ONE BIT. I was done with the usual WD stuff in 3 days, but the insomnia is crippling me. Day 10 I slept 15 minutes at around 4am and then woke up and at 5am got another 15 minutes. Last night again ZERO SLEEP.

I am concerned that with all that stuff I CT'd that I'm in unknown territory and I don't want to end up in the hospital where they will surely pump me full of benzos and/or hypnotics and subox or something.

The only thing I am taking now is Clonodine 2mg X 2 per day.

Has anyone gone this long without sleep, and if so how long until at least 2 hours a nights returned for you? I don't want to take anything, no cravings at all right now for any of it, but I am extremely worried and don't know if I am giving myself brain damage or something.

I know all the above was stupid in combo, it took 6 years to get to those amounts.
 
yeah, that really sucks man. i went about a week without sleeping and another week or so sleeping no more than 45mins a night.

its not new territory, but it sounds very severe. all you can do is fucking deal with it, im afraid mate.

remember--even though it doesnt seem like it ever will--it will get better! i sleep fine now and i have a new found gratitude for zzz's.
 
stay away from GABAsergics like booze and valium and ambien or even valerian root. try exercising, but not too close to bedtime. reading helps as well ime. you'll drop eventually
 
Thanks for your thoughts, I agree with you that GABA stuff doesn't help at ALL with this kind of insomnia. I got scripted some xyrem last time (GHB from a pharmacy) and it only made me puke and then more miserable. When you get like this though you'll try anything. If they still made chloral hydrate I would have tried that too.

I've accepted it for the most part, however I know that when we sleep our brains clear plaque in the form of beta-amyloid and it only clears at about 5% or so when awake (or so I've read). So I just hope that going off everything at once wasn't more harmful than helpful, know what I mean?
 
Been a longggg time without sleep. Struggle with insomnia still today but it's nowhere near as bad as it used to be.
 
i know what you mean, and ive ct'd off benzo and opiate habits at the same time. although its fucking horrible, my sleep always gradually came back gradually. im roughly 5 weeks clean (no drink or drugs at all) and my sleep has only went back to relatively normal (6-7hrs per night) in the past 10 days and it's still getting better.
 
So last night I got a sweaty, broken 1 or 2 hours. A blessing.5 weeks is great, congrats.
Insomnia is the worst.
 
Hi bro, I feel your pain, Came off a close dose to what you were taking and I went full 10 days no sleep its over 4 months now still have bad nights but they are getting to be less. As the other poster said I really have a new love for good sleep nights. Here is my nightly regiment. I take HTP-5 and gaba supplement daily about 2 hours before bed time. I turn off all electronics one hour before I want to sleep. I take melatonin with triptophan 30 min before and also take 50 mg benadryl. then take a shower before bed. Dunno it seems to help me when I stick to this nightly. Hope it helps man I am over 4 months clean still dealing with it, not to same degree. It does get better. Good for you on taking the first huge steps!
 
Comming off a ridiculously high xanax binge of 18 months of 60-80mgs per day, I CT, had two grand mal seizures. I did not get a SECOND of sleep for a full 14 days. I would have full auditory and visual hallucinations. The worst part was I was making up stories in my head that I would swear if I had a gun pointed at my head were true. One that I remember actually asking my mother about was when Mark Cuban was going to send funding for the idea I presented on Shark Tank (for USA viewers). It was 100% real in my head and I had to be repeatedly told I was hallcinating. Another was having my ex girl friend screeching her mustang up to my house and start throwing rocks at my window. When I went to the ER for the seizures, they did an MRI and I would still say to this day that one of the technicians told me as he wheeled me out (I was too freaked out being in severe WD from benzos and subs to last more than 2 mins in an MRI machine) that he told me that the MRI machine was just bullshit and hospitals use it just to charge patients money. I would swear to this day I can see, hear, even smell when I heard the man tell me this.


Insomnia is no joke. After a certain amount of time expect hallucinations and even seizures. BAD, and I mean BAD heroin WD would normally about 10 night with no sleep, maybe by the 8th or 9th day if I was lucky a 15 minute reprieve where I "slept".
 
I had similar insomnia as the OP. I can't remember how many days, but somewhere between 12-14 days I cracked and took some suboxone just because I couldn't sleep. It was particularly draining since I was purposely being physically active so that my body would be tired and I was reading a lot so I would be mentally tired. Despite my best efforts I just couldn't sleep more than an hour at a time. A number of 20-30 minute periods and a lot of time in a weird twilight of not quite awake but not quite asleep.

Unfortunately I started using suboxone somewhat regularly after that even though I had just tapered off opiates two weeks before. I just couldn't sleep without it. It felt like I couldn't "click" over to sleep state. After so many days your resolve starts to weaken. I'd like to think I could have gotten sleep if I had some aids like benzos or clonidine. Combining those two has gotten me to sleep a number of times.
 
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Luckily, you'll fall asleep before you die from sleep deprivation. During methadone withdrawal, I went for a little over two weeks with less than an hour of sleep each night. It was crippling by the end of the first week. MD's were extremely reluctant to prescribe any kind of sedative. It was apparent that I was reaching the brink of insanity to everyone I spoke to. I couldn't socialize or "care" about anything around me. My vision was fuzzy as if peering through an inappropriate prescription lens and my vision had trails like I get when using ketamine, psychedelics or MDMA. A pin drop or footstep in my periphery would cause me to jump up in fear. It was fucked up.

Luckily it passed and its nothing more than a bad memory now. My mind has been kind enough to forget the more excruciating parts. Are you abstaining from chronic diazepam (Valium) or is it just something you're using as an aide for your opioid, alcohol withdrawal? If it's only to be used short-term, then you shouldn't be worried about dependence. In the scale of priority, I feel that you getting sleep is more important, even if you're trying to be clean. A human being can't function to it's fullest without sleep. If the diazepam is out of the question, I don't see why you can't go higher with the clonidine (not a doctor). If you were to be prescribed .6 po daily, you could take .2 in the AM and then take .4 before bed. Although, if you're this far gone, it just might not be enough.

Good luck, withdrawal-induced sleep deprivation is hellacious.
 
Once you go through with it, and get to the point where you're somewhat okay. By somewhat okay I mean you can sit down, sigh and relax. Sleep becomes a precious pleasure.
 
StigmaShadow said:
<9 days on an IV MDPV binge. I think the world record is 11 days without drugs.
Click to expand...

Pretty sure a lot of people have done more than 11 days. Without drugs, im not sure. But with drugs, over 11 days is something I've seen way more than one would expect, like 2-3 weeks.

$0.02
 
Keif' Richards said:
Luckily, you'll fall asleep before you die from sleep deprivation. During methadone withdrawal, I went for a little over two weeks with less than an hour of sleep each night. It was crippling by the end of the first week. MD's were extremely reluctant to prescribe any kind of sedative. It was apparent that I was reaching the brink of insanity to everyone I spoke to. I couldn't socialize or "care" about anything around me. My vision was fuzzy as if peering through an inappropriate prescription lens and my vision had trails like I get when using ketamine, psychedelics or MDMA. A pin drop or footstep in my periphery would cause me to jump up in fear. It was fucked up.

Luckily it passed and its nothing more than a bad memory now. My mind has been kind enough to forget the more excruciating parts. Are you abstaining from chronic diazepam (Valium) or is it just something you're using as an aide for your opioid, alcohol withdrawal? If it's only to be used short-term, then you shouldn't be worried about dependence. In the scale of priority, I feel that you getting sleep is more important, even if you're trying to be clean. A human being can't function to it's fullest without sleep. If the diazepam is out of the question, I don't see why you can't go higher with the clonidine (not a doctor). If you were to be prescribed .6 po daily, you could take .2 in the AM and then take .4 before bed. Although, if you're this far gone, it just might not be enough.

Good luck, withdrawal-induced sleep deprivation is hellacious.
Click to expand...

That is the worst, I've been through the done withdraws when I got a rapid taper off the shit because I was a fucktard and would not stop taking benzos, I prolly went a week without sleep. I prolly wasn't on as high of a dose as you but a week was long enough it was horrible, then the next week I still couldn't sleep, unless at random times I would dozee off in the middle of the day and kinda still be awake. I ended up doing dope after that though I never even made it through the wds.... Methadone is no joke. Long term shit haha
 
Hey, I suffered from terrible insomnia during methadone withdrawal as well. The first 2 weeks were like a never-ending nightmare, the restless legs get a completely new meaning after quitting methadone, I was stoned with weed basically all the time during the first month of the withdrawal and it was helping me a lot with RLS and insomnia. Now I've got Suboxone to kick but this time I don't think I can use weed again as every time I smoked it after quitting benzodiazepines, it gave me very intense anxiety and derealization.
 
Only made 4 full days no sleep alcohol n phenibut withdrawal felt like four weeks but and on the fourth day shit got weird
 
Last night I didn't fall asleep until 5am, but got about 1.5-2 hours.
Man, it seems like people either get the stomach things bad and CAN sleep a little by day 4-5, or they basically suffer from the insomnia and are spared most other stuff. Would my fellow insomniacs here say that's accurate?
After the first 3-4 days all my stomach/bathroom issues can be easily controlled with OTC stuff. By day 5 I don't need anything and can eat normally again, but the insomnia is so bad.
I'm so glad I read all the stories about methadone from the net, definitely has kept me from ever considering it. The one time I used subs was one of my top 3 worst WD and I didn't even use 1 whole script. I hated that stuff so much I threw away the last couple without the slightest regret.
 
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