What anti depressant is typically used after long term opiate addiction?

[Ziggy stardust]

How long have you been freed from the beast of burden?

It's been a little over six months since I stopped suboxone. I was on opiates for literly decades.
I'm sure it's PAWS. I'm just hoping the motivation and joy for life returns soon.
Thank you for the links.

 

[Vaya]

It's been a little over six months since I stopped suboxone. I was on opiates for literly decades.
I'm sure it's PAWS. I'm just hoping the motivation and joy for life returns soon.
Thank you for the links.

Congratulations on your six months of living again, sir! *hats off* That's an amazing accomplishment - Don't let the PAWS get you down. As with many things of this nature, it will be temporary - however protracted it may be. Stay strong.

PS: before anyone starts I have a psychology degree n spent four years studying counselling n mental heath.

Cool - me too! Mine's specialized in Biological & Evolutionary Psychology, though, but the school of thought your post sounds most like it reflects is that of Health Psychology, which I personally love. It's a nice challenge you posed, for sure!

 

[Eveleivibe]

dr's are so ready to dish out the ssris for any reason at all...a little anxious? screw deep breathing, here take some zoloft! broke up with your s/o and sad? dont let the sadness out, dull it out with some prozac! just quit a life long dependence to opiates and are having trouble feeling normal after the first week? dont go outside and be active, have some lexapro!

a very good friend of mine was given lexapro in pretty high dosages when he quit using dope. said the stuff made him feel exponentially worse that he just started using dope again to correct the imbalance that the lexapro caused in the first place. just a few times using dope again and he said he felt back to normal. did a little bupe taper and was great for like a year. he was kinda forced into quitting so i knew it wasnt going to be the end of his dope using days (it wasnt) one thing i can say that im happy about it that i have never ever taken anti depressants of any kind. in rehab they gave me mood stabilizers and atypical ad's like seroquel and trazadone, but after one time of taking them i said fuck this shit, how can anyone function like this? talk about zombification. i guess thats the point tho right?

Extremely true. My GP put me on citralopram to 'deal with opiate withdrawal.' Biggest mistake of my life!!!! Changed my life completely, made me impulsive n self-destructive. In my opion taking SSRIs after opiate withdrawal is the worst thing anyone can do.

 

['medicine cabinet']

^yup. It further alters your neurochemistry. The best thing for quitting opiates is to quit them! Lol i know that sounds redundant and believe me i hate when i was using and ppl say why dont you just quit? Ohhh yea why didnt i think of that? Just quit? No actually i like having an alarm clock of sickness wake me up and having to beg borrow and steal to get a fix so im not on the floor writhing in agony.

But once you actually get done kicking, taking more drugs just causes more imbalance. I cant say with any certainty that ssris dont have a place in medicine despite them being dispensed from everything to a panic attack to addiction...but they are certainy no panacea tho drs and big pharma would have you think otherwise. I dont think ppl who get talked into taking them (i mean non bl ppl essentially, ppl that dont know ambien from zolpidem...bad pharm joke..) anyways, i dont think ppl realize how strong these drugs actually are in terms of effecting your brains chemistry and changing your mood and way of thinking and essentially your personality. How one class of drugs can "help fix" so many different kind of conditions is beyond comprehension. I mean who will be the first pharm company to make something like Normitol? The pill that makes you normal? Doesnt seem to different than the days of patent medicine where every snake oil concoction just had tons of cocaine and opioids in them. Balms curatives and all the other weird things that were supposed to fix everything from gout to liver failure....ahh im going off on a tangent again lol.

 

[Eveleivibe]

Hiya med cabinet,

Lol normitol... That give me a giggle. I always quote Morthius questioning 'real to Neo in the Matrix - in reference to normal "What is Normal? Define normal." Just like "reality is a perception n can differ from one person to so is "normality," in my opinion. And jokes aside, it would not surprise me if some pharmaceutical company came up with some "Normitol" type pill loln would be interesting to see what they did n classed as normal.

Believe it or not before I was put on citralopram I was EXTREMELY anti antidepressant meds as there are no proper tests for depression- it is ASSUMED that a lack of reuptake of serontonin is a cause of depression (funny how they prescribe for postnatal depression but don't think of other hormonal factors that play a part as is the case in pre-menstrual syndrome (PMS). Think I just went onto citralopram (celexa) because I was in the midst of opiate addiction n started fixation with taking pills n the more the better. In other words I was messed up n have been on them 13 months now - another reason not to give to ppl during / recovering from opiate addiction because most ppl's heads are not in the right place to make a proper decision re starting anti ds.

God I hope that hasn't come out wrong as I have a habit of saying things in the wrong way n offending ppl.

Take care,
Evey xxx

 

[lovegluegunnin]

I don't have any information to benefit you, but I can say that you have an awesome fucking username.

 

[Feelin-u4ia]

I would look into a mood stabilizer for this period... I believe that they can be beneficial in dealing with paws and also may facilitate a quicker recovery time. Something to explore with your physician. Congratulations on getting and staying clean, how many months are you off the opiates?

I concur, Try decently high doses of 5-HTP? its <pretty cheap per bottle> but could be worth it if it works, and you wont get addicted!

 

[Charles Ferdinand]

I'm really really sorry to bump this old thread but I wanted to contribute that might be interesting to those who will use it as a valuable resource in the future:
I once read an old and obscure article published by Jonathan Ott in a journal about using an ultra-low dose naloxone (but I mean ULTRA LOW, as in a few micrograms) to cure opiate withdrawal (so basically skipping withdrawal), to reverse tolerance to opiates and to cure paws.
As I remember, he speculated that naloxone might bind first to receptors that cause tolerance and withdrawal (he was right as there are three Opiate Mu receptors: Mu1, Mu2 and Mu3, the last one being the one responsible for addiction and tolerance). He tried it on himself and published the case report in that article as he was addicted to Codeine.

I don't think the journal is available freely (you must pay or be part of an institution that has a copy or something) but here's the information and link for the
"Obviation of Opioid Withdrawal Syndrome by Concomitant Administration of Naltrexone in Microgram Doses: Two Psychonautic Bioassays" by Jonathan Ott in the Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, 2006 (Vol. 38, No. 1).
https://doi.org/10.1080/02791072.2006.10399833

I'd be wary of holy grails and panaceas but I thought this might be worth a shot as it involves the use of a drug that would be pretty much harmless in the doses suggested (it wouldn't be able to precipitate withdrawal) and to people who're already past acute addiction and just suffering from withdrawal, it wouldn't make withdrawal worse and in people with paws it wouldn't make it any worse; besides there's precedent, as Flumazenil has been found useful in reducing Benzo PAWS and also in avoiding Benzo WD altogether, and is already been used in a detox facility in Italy to detox patients painlessly in one or two days.
I hope someone might find it useful or at the very least interesting.
Congratulations to anyone who has achieved sobriety, stay that way for God's sake and good luck!

 

[Debbie Combs]

Ya think? I actually have Naloxone in my medicine cabinet