suboxone withdrawal need to know!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oxycontin addiction lead to a 4 month methadone taper which lead to a 2 month Suboxone "taper". I put the word taper in quotes because I made the very dumb mistake of abrupbtly stopping suboxone when I reached a 4-8mg daily dose about 10 or so days ago. This was mostly due to ignorance about the drug- I assumed that it would be a significantly easier kick than the opiates or the methadone I had been doing previously.

Do not underestimate the potency of Suboxone. It can be a wicked b***h. Maybe I am particularly sensitive to this drug, but I've read a lot of people's accounts and I find a lot of common ground with them.

The first couple of days without Suboxone were actually not too bad. Some mild insomnia coupled with intense dreams. After 4 or 5 days had passed I thought that had already seen the worst of it and I was home free. Heck, I didn't even experience any flu-like symptoms. Pretty benign, this suboxone stuff. Nice "soft landing" as they say in the pamphlets. Well not so soft, at least for me.

On the SIXTH day free of suboxone I started getting the worst withdrawal discomfort I have ever experienced. The first symptom was severe lower back pain. The kind of pain that is always there and offers no comfortable position to be found. Then the insomnia kicked in. I have had a lot of experience with insomnia, but this was a new strain entirely. I literally could not sleep at all that sixth night,.... and then the seventh night,..... and then the eighth night. I would lie in bed sweating like a summer piglet; tossing and turning. The nerves in my skin became super-sensitive to the point of my having to turn off the small oscillating fan in my bedroom because the breeze felt awful on my skin. These three nights were entirely sleepless. No dozing off for a minute or two. No sneaking in a quick dream or a head nod. Nothing. Nada. Finally on the ninth night I was able to drowse off for one blessed hour during which I dreamed that a mother was trying to teach her little boy to poop into an extra large litterbox instead of a toilet.

During the sleepless nights and tired days I felt like my bones were trying to escape from underneath my skin. I had some cramping in my legs and back. It was generally mild, but it was CONSTANT, as was the prickliness in my arms, legs, and neck. Somewhere around the eighth day the back pain subsided, only to be replaced with even more aggravating total-body discomfort.

All of this was accompanied by deep depression and suicidal thoughts. Feelings of hopelessness, loss, and waste were almost overwhelming, and I said to myself a few times that I wanted to blow my brains out. I do own a firearm, and right now I'm glad that I didn't act on those thoughts.

On the eight night I was so desperate for relief that I started drinking heavily. That didn't even help dull the pain entirely. I just felt bloated, exhausted, and still awake.

So this morning I decided that I couldn't take another night of cat scratch fever and I went back to the doctor to refill my bottle of suboxone. $300 for 30 8mg pills. Pretty nice little moneymaker, huh?

Now that I know what I'm dealing with, I will have a plan in place for a much more gradual taper. Six to eight weeks should do the trick. I will go from the 8mg tablet to 1/4mg daily dose over the course of those weeks.

When I was leaving the doctors office I couldn't wait to get the bottle open so I could get well again. I popped that 8mg tablet and purely on will alone, scared up enough saliva in my parched mouth to get that sumbitch to dissolve. Within 5-7 minutes the jitteriness started to subside, the feeling of being on the edge of panic went away, a little hope flowed into my heart and I didn't want to die anymore.

I truly hate that a pill has that much power over me right now. Of course it is me that gave it that power. I pray that in 6 weeks I will be free of suboxone and all other drugs and alcohol. Later on, when the urge to use hits me, I can refer back to this post and remember what I will have to go through again if I do go on another spree and survive it long enough to try to get sober again.

i would agree with your last statement. i would suggest not taking it for long. below is how i just kicked. i did it at home with all pills i mention bought off the street if not available over the counter.



in this last month i kicked a 4 year large amount heroin habit. it took 2 tries, the first i waited 48 hours till i took a 8mg sub, i then took one more after 24 hours so i was only using it for 2 days.



(i waited the 2 days to take it cause i had tried once a year before with little info on the drug and took to much to soon and went into withdrawls a thousand times worse then any other opiate. i was curled in a ball on the floor puking every few seconds and sh**ting myself and screaming for three days, litteraly.)



and i only took it for 2 days cause i was worried about getting addicted to it. well i had no withdrawls from the sub's but i could tell when it was all out of my system that i had not completely got over the heroin withdrawls, but i toughed it out. a few days later i relapsed.



the second time i kicked i would suggest to anyone. i took my last hit (weening down before hand as much as possible) and a few hours later took a large amount of benzo's, i slept into the sickness as far as i could. i also stared out with dramamine and anti-diarrhea pills along with a prescription mussel relaxer, these almost kept all the with drawl symp's away. the dramamine kept my stomach perfectly fine so i could keep taking pills (i usually puke alot when i kick). i kept taking more benzo's each time i woke up till i knew i just could not sleep anymore, the benzo's gave me a nice blurry state so whatever misery i was in at least isn't so bad in hindsight.



this time i waited till only 36 hours to take the 8mg suboxone, i felt my tolerance was way down from having gone through this like a week ago. i took 8mg a day for 3 days, i then went down to 4mg for 2. i was then worried i was going to be addicted so i stopped for like a day and a half. i seemed to get the slight feeling of withdrawl symptoms at around 24 hours that only lasted for a few hours and went away. i felt much better then the first time i kicked but still a little crappy. after a day and a half i figured i was not addicted and took 4mg for the next 2 days, not so much to feel better as to have it in my system as a safeguard for relapse. after those 2 days i stopped again and the same thing happened, a feeling that opiate withdrawls were just starting to come on that only lasted for 2-3 hours.



and that was it. i have not taken anymore and have been fine. you will deffinately notice when it is out of your system cause you will be depressed as hell and get cravings.



you will not feel great, but from all i have read and all the people i have met no one ever does after any opiate kick. and the longer you were on the worse it will be. we have done alot of damage to ourselves. and as far as i have heard and seen we will be depressed, and never sleep well for the rest of our lives.



for the first few days to weeks try to get sleeping pills and mussel relaxers to help you cope, long term i say get a doctor to prescribe anti-depressants and sleeping pills.



we all need to realize it's just gonna a bit. but you cannot use it as an excuse to get back on opiates.





from all the hundreds of stories i have read online about using sub long term to kick either most people out there don't know it's just gonna suck a bit after kicking or suboxone is really addictive, which goes against the drug, it's awesomeness comes from it's ability to keep you well but tell your brain to start making and releasing what the opiate you got addicted to up.



but who knows. we all guinea pigs from the pharm industry. besides, where is the profit in a drug that the patient only needs to take for a week? this could have been made and perfected long before now but theres good money in keeping people on methadone instead. i believe it is only now coming around do to the crisis of the medical industry getting so many addicted to oxycontin and other powerful opiates and getting alot of bad press for it and the abuse on the street.



just my 2 cents. but i suggest this kick, it really worked for me, but the biggest key to quiting is truly wanting to. if you don't truly want it right down to the core then those cravings will just get you to relapse.

My husband and I just went through Suboxone withdrawl. We were on it for about 2 years. Our doctor closed shop and we had to find our own new doctor so we decided tto taper off and quit. The last two months we were down to taking 1/4 every other day and we still went through withdrawl hell!! Our symptoms didn't start until day 3. The next 3 days are a blur of aching joints, no appetitate, panic attacks and just generally feeling like ass. It's been 2 weeks now and we both feel better but I still have severe panic attacks and yesterday I woke up feeling like I did on day 4 of no Suboxe. I'm glad it's over and I hopefully will never go back to eating lori's again.

I've had a six year opiate habit. EVERYDAY. Mostly hydrocodone, 60-100 mgs per day at times. Sometimes Oxys, sometimes morphine, sometime phentynyl. You get the point. I weened down to around 30-40 mg of hydrocodone per day and then stopped. Then started taking suboxone. I IN NO WAY took it as directed. I broke off a little corner of a suboxone pill and would take just enough to keep my physical withdrawal symptoms from killing me. I wasn't that concerned about mental withdrawal. I just didn't want my stomach to explode, have false pains, and restless leg syndrome at night resulting in insomnia. These were the traits of my previous failed attempts at stopping. While using suboxone I experienced NO physical withdrawal beyond some mild stomach issues. I played the suboxone game for around a month I was literally breaking off little chunks - I never ate more than a 1/4 of a pill at once. One tablet would often last me 3-4 days. I have since stopped taking suboxone - it's been over a week now. The first three days were a little hellish. Stomach issues and one evening of restles leg anxiety that kept me up all night - pretty mild considering my experiences coming off opiates cold. Now I'm pretty much done. Still a little mild stomach nonsense.

I know the story is that you can't take suboxone and get high because of some sort of "ceiling effect" but thats just ****. I know people right now who use it recreationally - in much larger doses than I was taking. I also know multiple other people who have started or been on the program with mixed results. The one's who've been unable to get off it are the ones that eat 3-4 suboxone pills per day or more because that's how much they need to get off a little. One person I have watched use 5 simultaneously.

If you really want to get off opiates don't expect it to be some sort of miracle drug that is just going to do everything for you. It's going to make your physical withdrawals at least dealable - your mental withdrawals are up to you. The key here is that its going to take some effort and commitment from you individually. It isn't going to always be rosy - there will be few days when you stop using suboxone that you will feel like ****. Plan on it and organize your life around it. And then, if you really want to be free of your monkey, you can be.

By the way, once you've gotten off and you think your withdrawal has stopped, even if its weeks later, don't be stupid and think "I think its Ok for me to eat a lortab again now without getting withdrawals again". Trust me I've tested that, you'll just have to start all over again.

I've been on suboxen for about 9 months, and like most of these Doctors they say the withdrawals are minimal/mostly phsychological(He still wants me to stay on the stuff saying when I've stopped, after getting on with my life, tha i wont feel much)

What a load of sh*t. I've come off over a 1000mg a day oxy habit, and while that was pain beyond words, this hurts like an sob. I tapered down to a little less than 2mg a day(for 5 months). One if my friends told me to taper down with lortab/percocet for the first 5-7 days(she known people that have had success doing it this way. I'll let you know how it works but I seem to be very sensitive when it comes to withdrawals.......It takes me atleast up to a month and a half to totally feel recovered.

I've heard Wellbutrinxl helps.......Yes No?
Anything else?.........benadryl...anything else?

I was on suboxone for a year to get me off of heroin, and three days ago I got off of it. I could of stayed on it longer but I was so sick of it. I was taking 2 mg for a year and even with just two my doctor had me cut down to a half then fourth and now nothing. Honestly I did it even more gradually than that like a half, third, fourth, of a pill cuz I got too sick everyday. I am not as sick as ive been in the past, its the third day and I have hot and cold sweats and my legs are tingling, and cant sleep but ive had much worse. I cant believe some of your doctors had you come off of it in a week from a really high dose. Ive been weaned off of it for months. it can be dangerous to do it quickly and withdrawal can kill you if your heart doesnt beat right and ive actually gone to the hospital from heroin withdrawal cuz i thought i could die. my advice to anyone just starting this pill is that it can be helpful especially in the beginning, to get off of heroin especially. heroin is worse for you but suboxone is an opiate also. it gives you a kind of a high in the beginning which makes it just as addictive. It basically replaces one drug with another and coming off of it will be hell

Your posts are all very helpful because I think to some extent we have all gone thru the same thing. I had a 90mg hydro habit started after a football injury. had a blast with them while maintaining a productive life and career. I went to a facility in Palm Beach and slowly weaned off the sub by dr's orders, finally ending after 6 weeks at .5mg. i had minor w/d symptoms...felt like the flu mostly. after having simple oral surgery I got hooked again and once again went on sub to detox. it was a different pill this time, small orange....last time it was pure buprenephrine i think b/c it was brown and looked like caramel....anyway I have never experienced anything like this. NO sleep, NO appetite and absolutely no energy. went back to small amts of hydro just to live my life and then back to sub. off and on for over 2 yrs. I am going to try to wean off sub once and for all this time, but nervous as hell because i know whats coming. i would advise anybody to be very cautious with sub...i think its the devil in disguise and takes much longer to feel normal after coming off. I contacted the original place i went in palm beach and they basically said there is no alternative. anyone familiar with the "waissmann method"?

im saying this to try and help you in the future never completly trust your dr's judement always use some common sense judgement he dosent have to live with the results

I have been on suboxone for just over a year. I have a great doctor who really cares about me and wants the taper to be as slow and safe as possible. I read a post about weaning down from 8mg in week. YOUR DOCTOR IS NUTS. I weaned down all the way to 1/2 of a milligram over a period of months, and stayed on 1/2 miligram for two weeks till I felt normal. Then I cut a 2mg pill into eighths and took 1/8 of 2mg pill for a week. Today is day 3 and a barely have any withdrawals, maybe a slight bit of anxiety. The key is to taper down very slowly so your body(brain) can catch up (or get used to it). It amazes me how uninformed many of these doctors are out there. It's such a ne drug that these doctors have no clue and when a patient complains, they will look at us as an addict with no tolerance to pain. Luckily I struck gold with my doctor. Hope things work out for everybody.

Mike

Let me u this,
My addiction to heroin started over ten years ago. Money was not an issue and I ended up doing anywhere from 10 to 20 bags a day of serriously strong heroin. I for one can tell you that there is something that happens to you when u hit the high side cap of narcotics. I would strait up fall out and have sezures from mass doses of heroin. This would happen if i shot more than 12 bags @ once not limited to any specific "street" name. I guess what I am trying to say is, I highly doubt that there was somehting else in the heroin that was causing this.
I realy saw no end to my addiction. It turned my life absolutely upside down. I tried to quit heroin with meth. After a while, my addiction went from heroin, to methadone and benzodiazapines. I hate to glorify drug use but taking meth and benzos is like siting in a warm glass of milk in fetal possition!. IT IS REDICULASLY DANGEROUS!!!
Methadone is the devil of all opiates and i do not suggest its use to anyone who wishes to lead a normal preductive life. Meth addicts have this warm mono tone about them. Its very noticable and un-attractive
I have found a new life with Suboxone. I take a small dose by comparison too! I have gone a few days without and there are withdrawls but...they are NOTHING compaired to Methadone withdrawls. or heroine withdrawls. they are very rounded withdrawls and although consistant, they are but a fraction of how bad you feel withdrawing from meth or heroin. I have done it all! ANd i can honestly tell you...DONT EVER TAKE METH !!!! People who have no idea what they are talking about will tell you that withdrawl from narcotics is similer to flu like simtomes. This is because they have no idea what they are talking about. Comparing these 2 is like saying that drinking beer is similar to riding a bike!!! lol
Meth withdrawl can last for a month strait. People in prison commit suicide because they can not handle it and there is no way to elliviate it. It is the worse thing i have ever gone through. You have not lived until you experience what it is like to stay up for 3 weeks strait while dry heaving every 10 minutes. sorry about the spelling but.....
3 things i can recmd. 1) dont do heroin or any narcotics. 2) if you do, do NOT use meth to quit. 3) if u have to, use Suboxone to straiten your life out. The withdrawls are not that bad. I do not crave heroin or any narcotic anymore. On the plus side, because Suboxone has naloxone in it, it is very hard to get high I speak from experience as I did try in the beginning. This drug blocks other opiates and make it very hard to get high. You would go broke trying! lol

my boyfriend and i are in the same situation as u are. we have been on the suboxone for about 9 months and everything was going great. the doctor prescribed 8 mg. to him but we only took 2mg. in the morning. my boyfriend told the doctor months ago that he wants to get off it but the doctor said he wasnt ready. we barely had a habit before going on the program. we spend more money on the suboxone every month than our rent!!!! we decided that we were going to get off of it outselves so we dwindled it down to about 1mg. a day then to nothing and this past week had been the worst week of our lives. we ended up taking vicodin just to get through the day and when that ran out we relapsed. this drug should be used ONLY to detox with!!!! not as an everyday thing. the first month we were on it i didnt take anything for about 4 days and i was fine. now i feel like a damn slave to it.

hydrocodone/percs/tussenex.....you know whatever when the well ran dry i found this dr. through of all people my mother! he tried to hook me up with rapid 1 wk detox because i was only a year on the vic. but i was weak and i went back, he gave me 60 8mg tabs a month. then another dr. gave me another script for 60 more a month with 6 refills so i commenced to use four a day for a year. sometimes more. $6 a pill for a yr. wow i wasted a ton. all for sleep. i would rather stay awake a month than go back. i wasted the equivalent of my house payment on opiates for 2 yrs. the irony is i was the most outspoken person against people who whined about addiction....now as i sit here weeping mad at my own arrogance, my heart goes out to you all. I want the old me back so bad, for my wife,10 year old son, my 4 year old girl,and a 20 year old company i built that is crumbling around me. i know now why nero twiddled while rome burned.....withdrawal! good luck to you all and
God Speed The Plow!

Hi. I am new here and found this blog after trying to down dose myself off of suboxone. I previously had a painkiller addiction. Not a huge one (about 3 pk's a day 3 times a week) but a big enough one where I needed help to stop. My "drug dealer" told me about suboxone. He said he'd been on it for a few months and hadn't had any problems with painkillers. So, I made an appointment with the doc and got on suboxone. I have been taking half of an 8mg tab every day since July 9th (about 3 months). I am ready to stop taking it. 4 days ago I took half of a half, skipped a day, then took half of a half again yesterday morning. By last night I was feeling pretty uncomfortable (creepy crawly skin, hot and cold sensations) and when I was still awake this morning with my heart pounding I was starting to get scared. I finally fell asleep for a few hours but woke up feeling VERY ill. I took a tiny quarter and went back to bed. I woke up a few hours ago and feel better but really weird! I ate a bowl of chicken soup (I hadnt eaten since yesterday) and went to the drug store and bought Advil and some vitamins. After reading these posts I called my doctor because I realized how dumb it is to come off of it so quickly. I am going in tomorrow to get a wean down schedule. They are predicting that I need to wean for a month or so (because of the small amount I took and the timeframe of use). We will see what happens but gosh I feel strange. Kind of like the flu or something. Hard to function.
Your stories have really helped. I have realized that everyone is unique, therefore our experiences yet similar will all be different. I am open to any suggestions from former users that have stopped taking suboxone. I am ready for my like back now! Can I have it, please?

Been on 32mg x 3 times a day for 2 years taking suboxone. Today is day 12 and never once experienced withdrawals (maybe a mild runny nose from time to time). I guess I am one of the lucky ones....

K

i went to rehab 3 yrs ago for oxycontin. (was taking about 6 or 7 40mg a day, snorting them) i was fine when i was there but when i got home it was hell. my old neighbor was a heroin addict and introduced me to suboxone. in my town its so ridiculous to get them so i just bought them off him cause he was still using. i made a program for myself. i started at 2 8mg a day and now 3 yrs later im only taking barely 1 mg. once i ran out and i thought i was going to die. its now time again i cant find any. im definitely ready to be 100% sober but i know whats coming. i always said these were miracle pills and they are till its time to come off. i have done my homwork trying to find an easy way or for answers to make this easier. there are none. if this shows any comparison, i talked to a dr in a very well known rehab/detox center in miami that actually has detox for suboxone and they say that for oxys the stay is 7-10 days. because the suboxone is so much more intense the stay for that is 25-30 days. you wouldnt believe the little amount of suboxone im on right now and im scared to death because in 2 days what i have will be gone. i know whats coming and ive heard its better to get back on your original drug of choice. ive heard its almost the same for methadone but ive never takin that so im not totally sure. just to let you all know - and i know everyone is different - but my boyfriend is also going thru this with me and be prepared. you have NO IDEA how hard this is so whatever you can do to get help before you get off of them i suggest doing whatever possible. im not ready to die but i know im going to feel like i am very soon. :'( i hope im not scaring anyone but i would like to just let anyone know whats to come if they are on these or are thinking about getting on them. the sweats, shakes, panic attacks, and the hurt thats runs through your body is just unreal. try laying in bed and not ever being comfortable. it will happen. i hope this helps someone cause i wish i would have known. i was only trying to do the right thing for me, my kids, and my family and it ended up i took bad and made it into worse.