Ok, so I was motivated 5 minutes ago to write a post on everything anyone could ever want to know about Vivitrol (extended-release naltrexone), but that is completely gone. I will just give a brief summary and if anyone has specific questions I can try my best to answer them. I have been doing opiates daily for 5 years (2 years oxys and 3 years heroin). I have tried to quit over 1000 times and nothing ever worked. I got on Vivitrol 9 months ago and it has done a complete 360 for my life. In order to get on Vivitrol, you need to pass a urine test for all opiates including suboxone, the company recommends 7-10 clean. When I received my first shot I was only 5 days clean and did not have any adverse reactions to the injection. If anything it made me feel a little better. Over the past 9 months I have tested the efficiency of this shot countless times, the same day as the shot, the day after, a week after, 2 weeks after, 3 weeks after, 7 weeks after (was on vacation and missed my scheduled one). I can tell you that it takes about 12 hours for the shot to take full effect, therefore if you use on the same day you get it, you can still feel about 25-50% of the high, nothing special though. Anytime after those 12 hours, you can do as many bags as you want (OD is still possible from a toxic amount of drugs in your system) and absolutely NOTHING will happen until about day 17. And even at day 17 you are still only feeling about 25-50% of the high that you should. Around day 24 you can start feeling about 75% of your high, but if you are on the shot correctly, once every 28 days, by that time you wouldn't be clean for your next shot. Now I know this is a harm reduction forum and I don't want to encourage this at all, but I have used from days 17-27 (12 hours before my next shot), and did not go into severe withdrawals, but it did initiate mild withdrawals, I still went to work right after and "survived". I have also used from days 24-27 and had no ill affect whatsoever from receiving my injection. Now, the times I have used within 24 hours of my next injection, I had already been on Vivitrol for months and am sure that it was still blocking almost half my receptors and that is why I did not go into severe withdrawals. If you used that close to your very first injection, I believe the outcome would be very different and very unpleasant. After receiving the injection, I can usually feel like a mini golfball size bump in my muscle and it is uncomfortable for 3-7 days, not painful just not very comfortable in certain positions. I'm sure I have more to say about vivitrol but just can't of it right off the top of my head right now, so if anyone has specific questions let me know and I will try to answer them.
I forgot, I have also tried drinking several times which isn't really fun until about day 17-21. If you drink before then, you just lose interest and motivation after a beer or two, and if you do power through and keep drinking, it is an uncomfortable "buzz" that doesn't provide any euphoria or numbness, just loss of motor skills and whatnot. But after day 21, drinking feels pretty normal.
EDIT: I forgot to mention, when I used 7 weeks after my shot, I OD'ed for the first time ever off of only half a bag of ECP, when I normally use around 2 bags at a time. Naltrexone can help reduce tolerance and with the long time period off, one is very susceptible to OD, so please be careful. I was luckily with someone who called 911 and I had to be Narcan twice, off HALF a bag.
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