Clean...ish
Greenlighter
- Joined
- Jul 18, 2013
- Messages
- 9
Personal Info.: I have been struggling with opiate addiction, mainly fentanyl, hydromorphone and heroin for about six years now and I am a 21 years old male. I began with snorting oxycodone at age 15 and quickly worked my way up to smoking and injecting any powerful opiate/opioid I could get my hands on. I have been off and on suboxone (buprenorphine and naloxone) for about three years (from 24 mg tappered down various times usually around 4 or 8 mg). I have tried to come off suboxone three times without success, excluding my ongoing attempt.
I tapered my suboxone dose down to 0.5 mg during the first detox attempt and in comparison to my current jumping off point of 4 mg I found the withdrawal process much worse at 0.5 mg. Which logically makes no sense except for the fact that I was in better physical shape this time.
About a month ago I jumped off my suboxone dose of 4 mg, for a week I endured the strange crazy making suboxone withdrawal process. I had scheduled an appointment with my doctor to discuss what our next steps would be. We discussed using something such as adderall (amphetamine and dextroamphetamine) or ritalin (methylphenidate) to curb the dopamine cravings with the idea that this would, in conjunction with the standard medications, clonidine, diazepam and loperamide would help deal with even more of the psychological and physical symptoms.
We also discussed using a short acting opioid (SAO) such as hydromorphone or hydrocodone for 30 days after the week of suboxone detox that I had just completed to alter the withdrawal symptomps that I would experience (suboxone withdrawal = long, dragged out, and mentally tortures V.S. SAO withdrawal = short, intense, tortures yes, yet mental and physical improvements happen very rapidly which in my opinion is much easier to deal with)
All this to say that my doctor was very impressed with the extent of research and hard work I had devoted to this, so he told me he would look at the plans I prepared for him as well as doing his own research himself and then get back to me.
Two or three days later his nurse called but as I spoke to her, I heard my doctor in the background trying to make sure the nurse said what he had told her to say verbatim. She told me that as much as he would like to try the SAO detox method he could not due to a lack of medical evidence supporting its efficacy. Both the doctor and nurse seemed like they wished they could help with my SAO plan.
Just after hearing from the doctor I found an article online talking about a trial opioid maintenance program in Vancouver that is using heroin and hydromorphone injections three times a day as opposed to suboxone or methadone.
I took this as a sign that I should attempt to purchase a large amount of one of the super short acting opiates and use them for three to four weeks with the intent of changing my withdrawal experience.
So I embarked on a 21 day hydromorphone journey, in the begginning I IV'd a few of them but as my quit date came closer I stopped IVing and did them all intranasally until I jumped off.
I definitely seem to have changed the withdrawal to that of a SAO (as opposed to a long acting opiate withdrawal like suboxone or methadone that doesnt peak until day three or four) even before dosing with the plethora of symptom negating medications.
I seem to be having an extremely easy time of it (comparatively). I have been using the clonidine and diazepam fairly liberally, where as the adderall I am taking half of the beads out the 15 mg XR capsule crushing them up and swallowing them at approximately four hour intervals.
I have also been using Immodium (Loperamide), Advil (Ibuprofen), Ginger capsules and cannabis whenever I feel necessary.
Please contribute your praises, criticism, improvements or similar experiences
Thanks, Clean...ish
I tapered my suboxone dose down to 0.5 mg during the first detox attempt and in comparison to my current jumping off point of 4 mg I found the withdrawal process much worse at 0.5 mg. Which logically makes no sense except for the fact that I was in better physical shape this time.
About a month ago I jumped off my suboxone dose of 4 mg, for a week I endured the strange crazy making suboxone withdrawal process. I had scheduled an appointment with my doctor to discuss what our next steps would be. We discussed using something such as adderall (amphetamine and dextroamphetamine) or ritalin (methylphenidate) to curb the dopamine cravings with the idea that this would, in conjunction with the standard medications, clonidine, diazepam and loperamide would help deal with even more of the psychological and physical symptoms.
We also discussed using a short acting opioid (SAO) such as hydromorphone or hydrocodone for 30 days after the week of suboxone detox that I had just completed to alter the withdrawal symptomps that I would experience (suboxone withdrawal = long, dragged out, and mentally tortures V.S. SAO withdrawal = short, intense, tortures yes, yet mental and physical improvements happen very rapidly which in my opinion is much easier to deal with)
All this to say that my doctor was very impressed with the extent of research and hard work I had devoted to this, so he told me he would look at the plans I prepared for him as well as doing his own research himself and then get back to me.
Two or three days later his nurse called but as I spoke to her, I heard my doctor in the background trying to make sure the nurse said what he had told her to say verbatim. She told me that as much as he would like to try the SAO detox method he could not due to a lack of medical evidence supporting its efficacy. Both the doctor and nurse seemed like they wished they could help with my SAO plan.
Just after hearing from the doctor I found an article online talking about a trial opioid maintenance program in Vancouver that is using heroin and hydromorphone injections three times a day as opposed to suboxone or methadone.
I took this as a sign that I should attempt to purchase a large amount of one of the super short acting opiates and use them for three to four weeks with the intent of changing my withdrawal experience.
So I embarked on a 21 day hydromorphone journey, in the begginning I IV'd a few of them but as my quit date came closer I stopped IVing and did them all intranasally until I jumped off.
I definitely seem to have changed the withdrawal to that of a SAO (as opposed to a long acting opiate withdrawal like suboxone or methadone that doesnt peak until day three or four) even before dosing with the plethora of symptom negating medications.
I seem to be having an extremely easy time of it (comparatively). I have been using the clonidine and diazepam fairly liberally, where as the adderall I am taking half of the beads out the 15 mg XR capsule crushing them up and swallowing them at approximately four hour intervals.
I have also been using Immodium (Loperamide), Advil (Ibuprofen), Ginger capsules and cannabis whenever I feel necessary.
Please contribute your praises, criticism, improvements or similar experiences
Thanks, Clean...ish
