• Select Your Topic Then Scroll Down
    Alcohol Bupe Benzos
    Cocaine Heroin Opioids
    RCs Stimulants Misc
    Harm Reduction All Topics Gabapentinoids
    Tired of your habit? Struggling to cope?
    Want to regain control or get sober?
    Visit our Recovery Support Forums

Opioids Can anyone give tips on how to sleep during opiate/opioid withdrawal?

Pregabalin or gabapentin or phenibut, in that order. Great RLS and mood relief, masks a lot of symptoms of moderate withdrawal. I've gotten sleep this way the most.
Benzos of course, but may be trading in a can of worms for a can of ripe human shit.
Loperamide for diarrhea relief and general relief at the risk prolonging withdrawal with high doses. I don't like when people recommend taking mega doses of it. Can help you sleep though.
As was said, stay the hell away from diphenhydramine unless you feel like sawing your arms and legs off.
Cannabis can be really helpful for some, but not for me. Quite the opposite.
I haven't had succcess with much else honestly.

Or, of course, if you are a capable human being, tapering using another opioid such as kratom. Or worst case, suboxone or methadone. If you're like most of us, you'll be trading one addiction for another. Same goes for the benzos.
 
Even in super high doses it isn't really a high. If I had to describe it I'd call it methadone light. What happens when you're in withdrawal and you take a high dose is it relieves all of your withdrawal symptoms for about 24 hrs (not just the diarrhea). So my last detox I took 45 pills the first day. maybe 35 the next, and you just taper off dosing once a day with pretty much zero symptoms. Some stores here sell 96 count bottles of 2mg loperamide. The reason you have to take so much is to block up the proton pump so that the loperamide is transmitted into your blood stream and your brain giving central opioid effects sufficient to attenuate withdrawals. People recommend taking a proton pump inhibitor like omeprazole to assist with getting the lope into your bloodstream, too.

What is possible with lope is to react it with something like acetic anhydride to form the acetic ester of loperamide. Because of the ester it is taken up into the bloodstream by the proton pump instead being returned to the gut and will have the full effects of other synthetic opioids that are similar in structure. Also, you can use much much lower doses than regular lope bc with the ester you don't have to blockade the proton pump in order to cross over into the blood stream.
The guy who owned the forum where I learned about acetyl lope used to synthesize it (it was a synthesis forum). Not long after he had multiple strokes and died. I still don't know if that was a side effect of using acetylloperamide. God only know what other shit that guy synthesized and used over the years.
Not a proton pump. It's the p glycoprotein pump at the blood brain barrier that renders lope peripheral. I don't think omeprazole inhibits that (cuz it's mechanism of action is low pH dependent).
 
I second this after being on the fentanyl patches for over 2 years while waiting on spinal surgery for 2 slipped disks scoliosis and hips that are twisted and pop out of socket. I'd had enough after the surgery and decided to go from 25mcg to 0 against my drs advice thinking I've detoxed of heroin a lot of times even with zero meds in jail more times than I care to remember. But oh no this was an entirely different beast think heroin withdrawal times ten intensity and it lasts for so much longer I didnt get more than 30 mins of broken sleep a night for over a month. The depression cramps sweats and sickness were that bad I'd often find myself in a heap on the floor naked from being so hot then cold wishing to be knocked out knowing that one patch would end all this pain. But also knowing I had zero chance if getting any as I'd informed my dr . I should of got the first week or so out the way tapered and let my dr know once I was past the hellish part. Like you nothing or no amount of money would see me taking fentanyl again. if heroin is the devils dandruff then fentanyl is the devils crusty nob cheese (apologies LOL) Youd have to experience it to know what I mean.

Although when you first play with fentanyl wow the patch lasts 3 days and those 3 days are bliss nothing comes close the feeling of being wrapped up in cotton wool inner warmth and self belief nothing matters for 3 whole days. No drug comes close in the terms of high but the same applies for the withdrawals, you dont want to play with her she is a bitch to leave.
About 12 years ago I went cold turkey off of a list a mile long of meds I was receiving from my pain management dr. I had chronic and acute pancreatitis and it is widely regarded as the one of the worst pains a human can endure, even above cancer, as the pancreas is basically just an organ made of bundles of nerves. When it becomes inflamed it is not tolerable. I don't care who you are, I don't think any human could take it without ending their life after MAYBE a week (without meds). I've given birth twice and acute pancreatitis made that feel like a paper cut.

Long story short, after three years of being a loyal and rule abiding patient I called his office to see if I could up my dosage because I was going through a particularly nasty bout and trying to handle it at home. Bear in mind I'm rule abiding, had just seen him two weeks earlier etc. The nurse said flatly "He's going to need for you to come in immediately for a pill count.". There was some back and forth and I told her there was no way I could come in, that was the whole reason I called. She told me that if anyone ever refused a pill count they were immediately banned from the practice.

I got PISSED. (I'm Italian, and sometimes we let our tempers ruin us). I bristled at the insinuation that I was a drug addict and did the dumbest thing any woman has ever done in the history of the world. I took every bit of meds I had and flushed them, and decided that the only way to prove I wasn't doing anything nefarious was to stop taking everything. WOW, right? What an idiot.

I was on 240 10 mg norcos, 100 mcgrm fentanyl patches, 2 antidepressants, 25 mg ambiens a month, - PLUS all the pancreas meds too! And BP meds, I have heart problems too. And I flushed it all. I lived alone, I turned off the phone, told no one (except the nurse that I would not be coming back), and just white knuckled through the most unimaginable hell a human can possibly go through. Maybe I was hoping to die, I don't know. Or maybe my pride just ruined me. Or both.

Believe it or not, I powered through most of the severity in just a week. I don't know how (Maybe God is Italian and took pity on my prideful idiocy?) but I did it. I like to think back on that and know I can get through anything, but time is a bitch and I find myself going through another withdrawal right now that would take forever to explain. I'm 12 years older, and I don't know where that ballsy chick went. I'd kill someone for anything right now to help mitigate. Off topic, I was trying to find info if small amounts of alcohol could help with a tramadol withdrawal that is kicking my ass. Or should I just go ahead and put on the toe tag and call the coroner if I do that....
 
Dopamine agonists, maybe your grandpa's pharmacy has you some - while not first priority like pregabalin but they have potential, as a good part of withdrawal is actually dopaminergic (what's why docs who give antipsychotics for withdrawal are just creepy) and at least in rats they have shown to eliminate withdrawal syndrome. Pramipexole makes me tired as hell at 0.5mg.

Clonidine didn't help me at all but its said to do good.

Avoid caffeine like the plague.
 
Yeah dopamine releasers really help take the edge off, sometimes if I'm withdrawing or reducing and so feeling a bit of withdrawal without the full thing, it helps me a lot to take a little amphetamine (not too much though), or even propylhexedrine, as it releases dopamine and helps me feel less depressed and even helps with the physical symptoms some. But it is nowhere near as effective as gabapentin or even better, pregabalin, which has a downstream effect of increasing many neurotransmitter levels in the synapse. Gabapentinoids are amazing for opiate withdrawal and in sufficient dosage can nearly entirely block all of the symptoms.

Dopamine direct agonists are not the same but they do help with restless legs which, if you experience that badly with opiate withdrawal (I do), can really help. The restlessness is why I can't sleep during withdrawal, so it can be a godsend.
 
Lol. I was on 4 -5mg prami daily with 25-50mg cialis and was a walking hard on for weeks.

Great drug
Interesting, why did you go so high - do you like high dosages (>1mg) better than lower ones?
Did you experience any withdrawal from quitting / not taking it at this dosage?

I'm trialing it to counter high prolactin from SSRI (9 years venlafaxine, now 40mg fluoxetine) and morphine - like it so far, but most pronounced effect was initial tiredness, 0.75mg knocked me straight out ... now on 1mg, the tiredness has gone. Clears the brain fog a bit, nice so far but pretty subtle.
 
Benzos seem to be the only meds I can't tolerate in high doses. Haha I started them while living in a drug free treatment center for adults. By accident I blacked out a few times and they would always call an ambulance. I have no memory of the rides to the hospital or the time I spent in the ER. Apparently I was still articulate lol and produced urine samples without pissing on myself or the toilet.
I got this from zopiclone - doing stuff like cooking a meal and eating it, including the cleaning up afterwards (sometimes), without remembering any tiny bit of it. But these are strange drugs anyways, zolpidem didn't cause any tiredness in me, I couldn't sleep on it - I'd say it even had some stimulatory edges. Then pagoclone which too was pretty unlike any benzo, not euphoric either but pretty enjoyable even without that. Dr.Nutt who proposed it as a booze replacement wasn't too far off even though I'd find deschloroketamine to be a better candidate. It causes drunkenness, disinhibition, stimulation at lower-ish dosages and black-outs, psychosis at high ones, just like good old EtOH.

Yeah, I too seem to tolerate pretty high doses of pramipexole, didn't do more than 1.5mg in 24h yet but it feels like there's some more room on the scale upwards as initial tiredness was the only side effect I got and this resolved with some sleep. Too bad they only sell ridiculously overpriced cabergoline here but given the cardiotoxicity maybe also for the better.

Pretty decent from that treatment center not to throw you out after the first incident. I don't like the zero tolerance strategy many of these facilities drive but after visiting the local university hospital's drug rehab ward, where they gave you a second, and if you provided a good explanation, also a third or fourth chance, I understand a bit why they do what they do. The majority of inmates there was continuing to do drugs, and I was no exception the first time.

How was your prolactin level? I had 36.1ng/mL which is more than the double upper limit. But I also did serious amounts of drugs which seriously suppress the testes (sodium valproate - antagonist at the androgen receptor, also a very toxic beast as I had to learn the hard way / morphine, notorious for its T suppressing effects, weird that the substitution folks aren't as obese as one would think given that fact. I put on like 15kg while on opioid substitution without really eating more / 2-fluoro/deschloro-ketamine, at least the parent drug ketamine is known to suppress the testes, my theory is that arylcyclohexylamine dissociatives might be steroid mimetics, as DCK countered the suppressive effects of morphine, my libido only dropped to zero and my belly grew after ceasing DCK use alongside morphine / SNRI and SSRI, also notorious for increasing prolactin but by far not as bad as antidopaminergics/antipsychotics. Also increase in boob tissue only happened after stopping DCK.)

Thanks, somewhat confirms my theory that dopamine agonist withdrawal syndrome is more of a problem of the underlying disease progressing in Parkinson's people than of the drugs themselves. I got minor irritability and fatigue after stopping high dose memantine, which might well have originated from the NMDA antagonistic effects. Normal dose (20-30mg/d) didn't cause any withdrawal even after many months - it triggered the only manic episode so far instead, weird.
 
Benzos seem to be the only meds I can't tolerate in high doses. Haha I started them while living in a drug free treatment center for adults. By accident I blacked out a few times and they would always call an ambulance. I have no memory of the rides to the hospital or the time I spent in the ER. Apparently I was still articulate lol and produced urine samples without pissing on myself or the toilet.

Wow that is so excessive for benzos, especially if you were relatively coherent.
 
They never tested my prolactin. They just did basic bloodwork, took my vitals, etc. The urine samples revealed fentanyl. Was never able to detect any opioid like feeling while using those benzos.
That's something I love about this country here. You can just walk into an analysis lab and buy whatever analysis you desire. No prescriptions, no doctors. Most of the meds besides benzos (sometimes), antibiotics, some hard antipsychotics and opioids besides tramadol and codeine in combination are OTC. But they don't order you nothing, out of stock, out of luck, even when it's on the catalogue. Guess that's a side effect of low salaries.

Docs wouldn't have analyzed my T or prolactin even when we have solid evidence for opiates fucking with hormone levels. They only did always the n-th basic routine bloodwork which is required when you enter a hospital but didn't even check when I countlessly asked about my chronically high pulse. Oh, we'll note. Oh, did you mention? Oh, will be the meds, let's up the dosage. Back in Switzerland, so-called first world country. They're first about black money at least.
 
About 12 years ago I went cold turkey off of a list a mile long of meds I was receiving from my pain management dr. I had chronic and acute pancreatitis and it is widely regarded as the one of the worst pains a human can endure, even above cancer, as the pancreas is basically just an organ made of bundles of nerves. When it becomes inflamed it is not tolerable. I don't care who you are, I don't think any human could take it without ending their life after MAYBE a week (without meds). I've given birth twice and acute pancreatitis made that feel like a paper cut.

Long story short, after three years of being a loyal and rule abiding patient I called his office to see if I could up my dosage because I was going through a particularly nasty bout and trying to handle it at home. Bear in mind I'm rule abiding, had just seen him two weeks earlier etc. The nurse said flatly "He's going to need for you to come in immediately for a pill count.". There was some back and forth and I told her there was no way I could come in, that was the whole reason I called. She told me that if anyone ever refused a pill count they were immediately banned from the practice.

I got PISSED. (I'm Italian, and sometimes we let our tempers ruin us). I bristled at the insinuation that I was a drug addict and did the dumbest thing any woman has ever done in the history of the world. I took every bit of meds I had and flushed them, and decided that the only way to prove I wasn't doing anything nefarious was to stop taking everything. WOW, right? What an idiot.

I was on 240 10 mg norcos, 100 mcgrm fentanyl patches, 2 antidepressants, 25 mg ambiens a month, - PLUS all the pancreas meds too! And BP meds, I have heart problems too. And I flushed it all. I lived alone, I turned off the phone, told no one (except the nurse that I would not be coming back), and just white knuckled through the most unimaginable hell a human can possibly go through. Maybe I was hoping to die, I don't know. Or maybe my pride just ruined me. Or both.

Believe it or not, I powered through most of the severity in just a week. I don't know how (Maybe God is Italian and took pity on my prideful idiocy?) but I did it. I like to think back on that and know I can get through anything, but time is a bitch and I find myself going through another withdrawal right now that would take forever to explain. I'm 12 years older, and I don't know where that ballsy chick went. I'd kill someone for anything right now to help mitigate. Off topic, I was trying to find info if small amounts of alcohol could help with a tramadol withdrawal that is kicking my ass. Or should I just go ahead and put on the toe tag and call the coroner if I do that....
Tramadol gave me the worst withdrawals I could imagine, which is odd given that it's one of the weaker opioids (must be due to the long DOA). I tried quitting cold turkey but 2 days into it I said "Fuck this I will sell my soul for this misery to end right now and never feel this way again". Not even a minute later I got a call from a dealer saying they had what I want. I got a chill down my spine after that, given I uttered those words and my wish was granted within seconds. I haven't had withdrawals since and that was around 12 or 13 years ago.
 
-Kratom .. to keep the worst at bay
- Seroquel
- phenibut, while it's still around, can almost erase opiate withdrawal in higher doses though that's not very safe for extended periods
- clonidine
Kratom never did much for me, but if worse comes to worst I'll try it again. As for seroquel, I tried it once as a teen and absolutely hated that shit. Made me feel like death warmed over.
 
Tramadol gave me the worst withdrawals I could imagine, which is odd given that it's one of the weaker opioids (must be due to the long DOA). I tried quitting cold turkey but 2 days into it I said "Fuck this I will sell my soul for this misery to end right now and never feel this way again". Not even a minute later I got a call from a dealer saying they had what I want. I got a chill down my spine after that, given I uttered those words and my wish was granted within seconds. I haven't had withdrawals since and that was around 12 or 13 years ago.
Yeah, this substance class is nasty indeed (the antidepressant venlafaxine is very similar to tramadol, both structure- and mechanism wise, it is just more potent as a SNRI and doesn't metabolize to the real deal, O-DSMT, but against common knowledge it's just the metabolite, besides that venla induces headache when taking too much too fast, I feel almost no difference between these two)

I've stopped counting how many times I tried to get off venlafaxine and never made it through more than 4-5 days of this anhedonic depressive restless fatigued jittery sweaty diarrheaic hell. Morphine is a walk in the park in comparison to quit, not literally but it's much easier and I was at 600mg/d.

Baclofen seems to work for alcohol, unsure about opioids. Only tried it once and low-ish doses did nothing, above a certain threshold it became pretty uncomfortable. Sweating, bad physical feelings, weakness - not what one wants to experience when withdrawing I guess. I'd say the NMDA antagonists/dissociatives are more promising and with phenibut it's the gabapentinoidergic activity which helps not the GABA-B one but YMMV, interested in reports!

Just recently I read that dopamine agonists like pramipexole or ropinirole which are used against RLS and Parkinson's, are able to block opioid withdrawal or a good part of it (in rats, that is, but it makes sense because opioids increase dopamine and dopamine-agonist-withdrawal symptoms read like opioid withdrawal).
 
Yeah, this substance class is nasty indeed (the antidepressant venlafaxine is very similar to tramadol, both structure- and mechanism wise, it is just more potent as a SNRI and doesn't metabolize to the real deal, O-DSMT, but against common knowledge it's just the metabolite, besides that venla induces headache when taking too much too fast, I feel almost no difference between these two)

I've stopped counting how many times I tried to get off venlafaxine and never made it through more than 4-5 days of this anhedonic depressive restless fatigued jittery sweaty diarrheaic hell. Morphine is a walk in the park in comparison to quit, not literally but it's much easier and I was at 600mg/d.

Baclofen seems to work for alcohol, unsure about opioids. Only tried it once and low-ish doses did nothing, above a certain threshold it became pretty uncomfortable. Sweating, bad physical feelings, weakness - not what one wants to experience when withdrawing I guess. I'd say the NMDA antagonists/dissociatives are more promising and with phenibut it's the gabapentinoidergic activity which helps not the GABA-B one but YMMV, interested in reports!

Just recently I read that dopamine agonists like pramipexole or ropinirole which are used against RLS and Parkinson's, are able to block opioid withdrawal or a good part of it (in rats, that is, but it makes sense because opioids increase dopamine and dopamine-agonist-withdrawal symptoms read like opioid withdrawal).
600mg of morphine?! Whoa! At the most, I can handle half of that (orally) and I've been taking painkillers daily for well over a decade.
 
600mg of morphine?! Whoa! At the most, I can handle half of that (orally) and I've been taking painkillers daily for well over a decade.
Heh and I thought my dose to be more average. I know somebody who also only ever took orally (or intranasal which with morphine doesn't make a difference) and she's on 2.4 fucking gramms every second day! This substance convinced me that people aren't overblowing their dosages for whatever reason..
 
2.4 grams?? Jesus christ. I was addicted to opiates heavily for 10 years and when I relapsed after 5 years clean I took 100mg of morphine orally and it was way too much... passed out and spent the entire next day throwing up over and over again.
 
Top