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Opioids Trying to switch to sub, but no WD after 36+ hrs

BlueSosa

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Joined
Mar 5, 2007
Messages
20
I have an opiate habit that is very unconventional. I am a daily user of fentanyl nasal sprays (the powder dissolved in saline water), and I have used enough to bring my tolerance to astronomical levels (500 mg not mcg per week). It sounds impossible, but several years of uncontrolled using and constant reducing every few minutes can get you there. If you don't believe me (others haven't), please read the rest of my thread anyways, because I'm here for help not to debate how 'badass' my addiction is.

Also, I tried to 'gauge' my addiction interns of other drugs and I found the following to 'make me feel okay' (nothing makes me high anymore): 8 x 80mg OxyContin crushed per day or 2 g per day of good quality H IVed.

After this terrible adventure, I have decided to quit using and go on a bupe/subutex taper. I have 100 x 2mg subutex stockpiled for this day and have read about the importance of induction in order to avoid precipitated WDs. I was told to use the COWS sheet and wait till l reach a 26. I was also told that for short-acting opiate addictions, this would be 12-24 hours.

Well here is my predicament: I'm past the 36 hour mark and I'm feeling very mild WD symptoms, if any. A bit of sweating. Loose stools once (not heavy diarrhea), a bit of yawning, but nothing serious. I slept fine for 2 straight nights, albeit using benzos and benadryl.

Could it be that my body is acting differently this time and WDs will only kick in later? I've been through CT attempt before and I usually feel like crap after 12 hours.. not this time!

Or (and I know this is a LONGGGG stretch) could the continuous use of fentanyl every 5-10 minutes over the last 3 years have somewhat damaged my receptors so even the WD effects are not normal? I'm just fishing here, because I'm completely at lost.

I don't know what to do... Look, I'd love to be the world's first opiate SuperMan that gets no WD, but I know that doesn't exist. I want to switch to subs and taper, but I definitely don't want to risk precp. withdrawal.

I would appreciate ANY advice! Please....
 
Yes that is a crazy amount.. is it fentanyl from the pharmacy, or a fentanyl analogue ordered from somewhere? Those analogues vary in strength quite a bit!

But if youre not feeling like shit, why rush into inducting?

- Hopeless 7nos
 
Yes that is a crazy amount.. is it fentanyl from the pharmacy, or a fentanyl analogue ordered from somewhere? Those analogues vary in strength quite a bit!

But if youre not feeling like shit, why rush into inducting?

- Hopeless 7nos
It is not from a pharmacy so the strength could be questionable, but it is supposed to be Fentanyl HCL and not an analogue. I did start at 10 mg per week a few years ago, which used to get me high, and go to the current level for pure maintenance. During the last year I was consuming it intranasaly (dissolve 300 mg in a nasal pump) and would pump several times an hour 18 hours a day, in addition to every couple of hours at night.

I've also substituted with 200 mcg/hr patched worn PLUS 100 mcg/hr patch chewed and that didn't get me high. Same for 8x80 mg Oxy a day and 2 g of #4 H a day.

I'm not bragging, I'm just saying that I know for a fact that I have a serious addiction. And I'm not complaining that I don't have WDs but I'm just in awe because my plan was to stop Thursday in order to induce subs on Friday. Today is Saturday and I fell 90% fine which makes me wonder WTH is going on with my body, and if I'm 'permanently damageg'. I'm in the stage where I just can't continue my $1000 per week habbit and continue destroying my beautiful family.

I'd love to be the one person on the planet not to get WDs but I'm more scared that something else could happen that would harm me. I just wanna be done with this!!!

I don't know if it changes anything but I'm on Wellbutrin, celexa and a wide-range antibiotic from a recent infection. Do any of these mask WDs?
 
There was times in my heavy, heavy opiate use like that, where I would use so much it could take a couple days for WD to set in. It is normal for heavy users like yourself for WD to take longer than 12-24hours, but I am a little puzzled about how it hasn't set in yet using fentanyl, because it is very short acting, but I could imagine heavy use, short acting or not, you can still saturate your receptors with it and it will take longer to vacate. You haven't taken any other opiates at all in the last 24 hours?
 
whenever you read about something like withdrawal periods, there are ALWAYS those who are more than one standard deviations away from the mean, most probably, you are just one of these people.
Give it another 24-48 hours, it is a strange predicament to WANT to go into withdrawals FASTER, but I understand why you are confused.
Good luck, even once they start to hit wait as longggggg as you can and start slow, going up 2mg every couple hours (do NOT start at 8mg regardless of how huge your tolerance was).
 
Well celexa and fentanyl are metabolized by the same enzyme, CYP3A4, so I'm not sure if that is slowing down the excretion on the fentanyl or not, but it may be a contributor..


- Hopeless 7nos
 
I don't think that bupe will hold you, given that it's only a partial agonist with a ceiling.
Let's do some math:
You take 500 mg fentanyl per week, that's around 70mg per day. Fentanyl is around 120 times more potent than morphine -> 70*120 = 8.5 grams of morphine per day
Bupe has a ceiling at around 32-56mg, so let's say 40mg and is around 30-40 times more potent than morphine (those numbers are only estimations) -> 40*35= 1.4 grams of morphine per day, so even if those numbers are too low I don't think that bupe is enough for you.
Imo your best bet it to taper with the fentanyl to a point where you can switch to either bupe or methadone.

Best of luck!
 
There was times in my heavy, heavy opiate use like that, where I would use so much it could take a couple days for WD to set in. It is normal for heavy users like yourself for WD to take longer than 12-24hours, but I am a little puzzled about how it hasn't set in yet using fentanyl, because it is very short acting, but I could imagine heavy use, short acting or not, you can still saturate your receptors with it and it will take longer to vacate. You haven't taken any other opiates at all in the last 24 hours?
Not a single opitate! 36 hours ago, I popped 150 mg of Oxo IR with my last fent spray but that's about it.

I'd like to add something that might be a factor (or not)... my last 2 days with fent, I was diluting my spray by 50% (adding 10 ml of water to 10 ml of solution) per day.. so my last day was just 25% of my normal dose. But it's still a big dose, especially with the 150 mg of oxy to top it off.

If you've experienced this in the past, it might be exactly what I'm going through. Tonight will mark 48 hours though... could you think it could go even longer?
 
Well celexa and fentanyl are metabolized by the same enzyme, CYP3A4, so I'm not sure if that is slowing down the excretion on the fentanyl or not, but it may be a contributor..


- Hopeless 7nos
Have you experienced this or heard of someone who has, at a significant level.

Thank you!
 
I don't think that bupe will hold you, given that it's only a partial agonist with a ceiling.
Let's do some math:
You take 500 mg fentanyl per week, that's around 70mg per day. Fentanyl is around 120 times more potent than morphine -> 70*120 = 8.5 grams of morphine per day
Bupe has a ceiling at around 32-56mg, so let's say 40mg and is around 30-40 times more potent than morphine (those numbers are only estimations) -> 40*35= 1.4 grams of morphine per day, so even if those numbers are too low I don't think that bupe is enough for you.
Imo your best bet it to taper with the fentanyl to a point where you can switch to either bupe or methadone.

Best of luck!
Your math DOES make sense, but for some reason I was able to key WDs at bay for 2 weeks by going on a 45 mg of methadone taper (with 5mg off every 2 days).. I just didn't have the motivation that I had now. This is the only thing that gives me hope.

Perhaps the feet I was using was not pure, but I cannot deny how I had an absolutely tolerance to 500 mg of oxy or 2g of H when I ran out a couple of times!

What do you think?
 
Your math DOES make sense, but for some reason I was able to key WDs at bay for 2 weeks by going on a 45 mg of methadone taper (with 5mg off every 2 days).. I just didn't have the motivation that I had now. This is the only thing that gives me hope.

Perhaps the feet I was using was not pure, but I cannot deny how I had an absolutely tolerance to 500 mg of oxy or 2g of H when I ran out a couple of times!

What do you think?
Well, those numbers are just theory, so it may work. I'd say try to taper a bit with the fentanyl and then go on buprenorphine.

Regarding your withdrawals: Fentanyl is highly lipophilic so your body stores it in muscle and fat tissue resulting in an unproportional prolongation of the half life with progression of taking it, so I guess it could take a few more hours or even days till your withdrawals get worse.
 
I am going to say taper the fentanyl as well before switching to bupe. You want the transition to be as painless as possible. I would taper over a month considering how fast the half life of fentanyl is. If it were methadone or bupe you were tapering you would have to do it much slower.

You may want to grab some comfort meds while you are experiencing the withdrawals waiting for your receptors to be clear. If you take the bupe before your receptors are clear you will have PW. PW is pretty gnarly.

If you are concerned about switching from a full agonist to a partial agonist you can always go the route of methadone.

All this is for naught though if you do not work on the reasons you use. Seek psychiatric help as it seems to me that you are self medicating something. Just my .02
 
Have you experienced this or heard of someone who has, at a significant level.

Thank you!

No I haven't experienced it, just seen that it was metabolized by the same enzyme, when doing research to answer you. Then I just hypothesized that it could be a factor. So it's only a theory at this point.


- SS373dOH Soul
 
Yeah IME withdrawals can be funny like that.

One month you may run out of pills and nearly immediately start panicking, feeling ill, and by the time 2 hours pass you're in full blown withdrawals.
Then the next month, you might run out, waiting for a repeat of last month's sickening degree of WD, but sometimes it just never really shows up......or sometimes it shows up sorta delayed fuse, and sometimes it shows up much less severe than you expect it to be.
I've been lucky in that regard, the worst part about withdrawal for me is pain & cravings ususally. But like I said, one month IME it can be really bad, the whole 9 yards, and then next month it could be mild....sometimes so mild you wonder what's going on in your body.
IDK how, or why. I have a consistent supply every month, no worries about dosage discrepancies, as I always get the same brand, take the same amount......but sometimes the WD just isn't that bad. Then again, sometimes it's really bad.

I figure it may have something to do with metabolism. Also if you're like me, and you go thru WD every 3 weeks or so, it takes much more of a toll than if you used for say...3 months straight, and kick once. In which case, you might be lucky enough to encounter only mild discomfort during withdrawal....really dodging a bullet.

Just remember no 2 people are alike, you may be just lucky enough to have a resilient tough body, and perhaps a habit that's not as severe as you thought, physiologically speaking.

Needless to say you have 200mg bupe on deck...that is PLENTY to taper over the next month or so.
Shit my bupe connect got cut way back, so i'm trying to make it thru my current bout of WD with Tramadol, Booze, & dank weed! And I have a doctor's appointment soon to get refills, and they'll test me for my pills, and I hope I don't show up buperenorphine, alcohol, tramadol, or anything else suspicious. I'm only saving literally 3/4's of one 10mg hydrocodone for the test, so I hope it's enough to show positive!

Less is MORE when it comes to SUBOXONE! Believe me....you can take a whole shitload, but you WON'T get a buzz or high (except MAYBE the first day). IME 2mg is PLENTY to relieve withdrawals for 24 hours....anything over that just makes me more sedated, and fucked up. Not in the good classic-opiate way though, but a more out-of-it detatched, unproductive kind of buzz.

So i'd say go for 2-3 mg per day, 2 mg in the am, 1-2 more mg's in the PM if you need it, not if you don't. Remember you may still crave the fentanyl, but that is NOT withdrawal, that's addiction!

As long as you're not shitting, coughing, crying, aching, or wishing you were dying, you're not in withdrawal.

Good luck OP, you got this...just commit and just do it. At least with subs you won't have to redose 6 X a day, lol....(though that's my favorite part...especially the 10pm oral bolus dose I take...my favorite). And before you dose the subs (if dosing sublingually) brush you're teeth, and rinse with alcohol-based mouthwash and the alcohol increases bupe absorption by about 25%.

But at this point, forreal, you have everything you need to make it thru this, it's really mind over matter at this point.

P.S. Delayed fuse, so to speak, could have something to do with the massive dose you use? It could stand to reason, that even with such a short half life, using everyday for no telling how long, you could have quite a bit of FENT stored up in you're fat cells (I believe it's lipophilic no?) in which case it could take longer for you're body to begin detoxifying.
Lipophilic drugs always take longer...think marijuana, stored in fat cells, hangs around for a month after stopping.

P.S.S. near the end of the sub taper, you could put 4-8mg or so of subs into a nasal sprayer with sterile water, and maybe a mild preservative, and spray it nasally like you did with the fent...may help control you're dose...but you know yourself better than I so if that's just gonna make you crave more fentanyl etc..I wouldn't do it.
 
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Well, I wouldn't taper with anything YET ...I would wait and let this play out. As an above poster said sometimes for whatever reason wd is bad, and sometimes just as randomly it's not

I had a fentanyl habit--buccal patches, nowhere near yours, more like a few mg a day (mg not mcg). But I went into bad wd within a day almost every time I stopped

So if you stay as lucky and never get sick--great!! If you do, then think about a taper or waiting until bupe can hold you (going thru wd until bupe takes over

Good luck
 
Update, I'm at past the 48 hr mark (more like 56) and I'm barely feeling anything. Tolerable back pain, some night sweats, feeling depressed, but nothing at all near what I've felt when I kicked before.

At this point am I in the clear? Should I abort my subutex plans? Or should I take 1 mg to be 100% normal?

Or am I still in for a very unpleasant surprise soon??

I don't want to sound like an ungrateful SOB but the element of limbo (not knowing if I should resume normal life or not for example) is scaring the hell out of me!!
 
Update, I'm at past the 48 hr mark (more like 56) and I'm barely feeling anything. Tolerable back pain, some night sweats, feeling depressed, but nothing at all near what I've felt when I kicked before.

At this point am I in the clear? Should I abort my subutex plans? Or should I take 1 mg to be 100% normal?

Or am I still in for a very unpleasant surprise soon??

I don't want to sound like an ungrateful SOB but the element of limbo (not knowing if I should resume normal life or not for example) is scaring the hell out of me!!
personally i would just keep waiting until you do feel very sick in WD before doing anything. no sense in starting bupe IF you're not in full blown WD. you may just be one of the few that don't get bad WD, count your blessings and just move on with life. good luck
 
Or am I still in for a very unpleasant surprise soon??

I hate to break it to you but it is highly probable you are in for some nasty WDs the next days. Your habit is quite unique regarding dose and length of intake so it is not surprising that you arent experiencing "normal" withdrawals in a "normal" timeframe and intensity. It may suck but I would wait it out until the symptoms get heavy and only then induce the Subs.

Its a bad comparison but when I kicked Subs the last time I felt relatively normal too for about 6 days (which is not unusual considering the half-life of Bupre) but on day 6 or 7 I woke up feeling somewhat ill, had some breakfast and suddenly all hell broke loose: Puking, cramps, sweats the whole shabang.

Try to listen to your body, as stupid as this sounds. And try to occupy your mind until then so you arent constantly thinking about when it will start.
I wish you all the best and try to update here. Bluelight is great for support :)
 
Update:I just passed the 72 hr mark without any major onset of WD. I slept most of the day (took some benzos and Benadryl) and woke up just as fine as I did yesterday, except with strong chest pain which I usually don't get when i WD. Is chest pain a symptom of WD usually?

*IF* I were to be lucky and not haves more than mild WDs, how long would fent WDs (again powdered not patches) last?

Right now I'm scared that I'll be over-confident tomorrow, go to work, and get ultra sick there. I wanted to take the weekend to withdraw and induce, but that defijitely doesnt seem feasible!
 
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