No Withdrawals From Suboxone
Before I rant; keep in mind suboxone is a “good” thing…if used correctly. I used it to get off of oxy and vics and to cut off the lifestyle I was living completely. It worked for me. Been off the sub for a long while now and for me; I just don’t have any desire, let alone any cravings for any opiates.
NO WITHDRAWALS FROM SUBOXONE WHEN YOU TAPER….
People ask me about my taper and for additional suggestions. What I have or had written down in my Taper 101 post was my final taper, the literal last step. It was not my first attempt to taper down to like zero before I jumped off. Before I took this final decline, taper or what ever you want to f-ing call it; I went up, down, sideways, couple donkey kicks and so on when it came to my dosing…and the reason of course was…cause I didn’t want to go thru withdrawals.
My Doctor, who in a way was just great because she just went with what I wanted to do…was also being though a patronizing hypocrit, but in a nice way I guess. “Brian, you have been on the suboxone along time now, you have been at 1mg or 2mg a day for a while…” She goes on to say with her heavy educated middle eastern accent (that was kind of hot and so was she) “Brian….see, you are down to such a small dose of the suboxone that it is all mental, you won’t feel any withdrawal symptons especially at the dose you are at, it’s all in your head, but what ever you want to do, you tell me”. “What ever I want to do….”…*lol* “Well, lets see, I want to rent a UH-1 Huey and fly around Southern California and or Garden Grove with a loud speaker and firecrackers…” (I know a little out there and I am kidding…I think)
I thought it was funny that my Doctor asked my girlfriend to come in with me on d-day minus whatever it was (which my gf had gone with me before); I think though at this time it was more to give me that push that I needed cause really I wanted to stop and get off the suboxone but I did need a little knudge or a 5 pound steel candle holder to the forehead. I had some questions though, that I had asked a hundred times before but I was a little more direct and specific this time. So I asked the following (or we did).
- “Are you serious, because I have tapered so much I might not feel ANYTHING, like NO withdrawals, nothing”?…She answered “Yes Brian…at the dose you are at (which was like .25mg in the am and .25mg in the evening or even less) the suboxone shouldn’t even be working anymore or doing anything for you”.
- “How many of your patients have successfuly quit suboxone and have any of them complained about withdrawals”? Her answer to me was “Alot of my patients have started and stopped the suboxone and I haven’t had any major complaints yet”.
- My girlfriend jumped in and asked “Out of those people that have successfuly stopped suboxone, how many have relapsed on either opiates or the suboxone and or have stopped and you haven’t heard from again”… OH SHIT…DING, check mate on that questions. My Doctor was like a deer caught in the headlights of life ”Uh, times up, we talk again soon ok, call me if you need anything”…(Like what would I need? A tranquelizer gun for myself when I jump off the suboxone?) Fucking hillarious,… I thought. I literally laughed to myself and thought ”Oh boy…Im fucked”.
To be told to your face that there is ZERO withdrawals from suboxone is just wrong in the literal and sarcastic sense. It’s like aguing the color of the sky “The sky is blue”…. “No the sky is Black”…. “NO, the SKY IS BLUE!”…and so on… The sky of course is blue but, put into a dark room with sleep deprivation listening to Journey for a couple years and being told “The sky is black and drives a 87 Nissan Pathfinder and it will pay all your bills”…. you’ll eventually believe it. It’s the BS with a benefit kind of thinking; if I am getting the milk for free, who cares where the cow shits (*L*). My point in being is that you’re gonna want to believe what your doctor says even when everyone else says the opposite, even by sure experience. Bottom line, suboxone is a great tool to put it in neutral stress free and cruise….but cruise knowing you are going down a hill that either way your brakes are working at 10% and you’re fucked when you hit that wall at the bottom. It’ll suck either way, but it’s better than the unknown rollercoaster ride of opiates.
Unfortunately, you can minimize the damage of the suboxone withdrawal syndromes by tapering but it’s like equivicating it to a full nuclear strike versus a small tactical one, either ways it’s gonna be a f-ing mess. There is no way a doctor, good or bad can look you in the face and tell you that “If taken exactly as I am going to prescribe this and going by my comic book dosing guide and BMW Owners Manual, you will feel no withdrawals or maybe just a slight discomfort for a day or so”… If have a cool Doctor who will work with you and “LISTEN” to you, they’ll take what I suggest you say with a grain of salt, if they suck and have a stuffed dolphin on the wall and a squirrel on their head it might not go so well…either way…who cares… Tell them the following if in the event you are given this line of shit from the aforementioned ”You sir/mam are full of shit…..but…what can you give or precribe me beofore I jump off the suboxone to put down a large elephant for about 12-14 days”….
I hope everyone understands that 1/2 of this is true and 1/2 of this is satire or more elegantly put “a fucking joke” to a certain degree. I tried to have fun with this so you, like me wouldn’t stress from all the bullshit sites out there either telling you “you’re gonna be totally fine and running a marathon 2 days after you quite suboxone” or “You’re fucked and it’s all over, join AA and find the Easter Bunny… On a serious note in regards to the Doctors; if you are going to prescribe something, know what the fuck it is and what the side effects are or at the least tell people what to expect. Granted it is a GREAT new line of hope when it comes to prescription aids to help people with opiate dependency; the drug is on the up and up but the doctors are on the dumb and blind train it seems…alot.
No Withdrawals from Suboxone?
Yes, you will go thru some kind of withdrawals and either way they will suck… If you do taper, it can be a hell of alot better though and it feel just like the flu (bad flu for a while) versus Hell revisited.
This whole post, info or whatever is in response to alot of e-mails asking me if there was a way to get off of suboxone “withdrawal free”. From my experience and countless others that have contacted me, regarding this question…the answer is “No, you can’t walk Scott free…it’ll suck” but you can atleast contain the damage if you take your time and taper slow. Remember though why you took suboxone, understand that YOU made this choice (with help from family or on your own)… and if you got your life back on track… THAT IS THE WHOLE FUCKING point… So yes, it’ll be shitty, but hopefully it’ll be the last straw for you and you can walk away from this whole experience… I did and have. This was updated (9/4/09) and I have been good since 08 with out even the slightest thought of even looking down the opiate road again.
Hoped this helped even though it was depressing and not very positive…
“Better to be prepaired then un-aware”
Brian
Suboxone Taper
P.S.
There are alot of Doctors out there, like mine that just kicked ass and worked with me. I look back and realize my doctor told me what “I WANTED TO HEAR, cause I probably would have just went on”. I want to thank my doctor here in So-California and also Doctor Jeff Junig (www.suboxonetalkzone.com) who helped me ALOT. Just a great guy…and friend…and I mean this guy was a friend to me and still is.
Comments (10)
I have been on 16mg for 1 year. Tried to stop cold turkey and lasted a month, but just couldn’t do it. This website gives me a lot of hope. I didn’t work so hard to get off the other stuff just to end up dependent on a legal narcotic. My doctor has prescribed klonopin, which will be another pain in the ass to get rid off, but my anxiety attacks had me pretty paralyzed. I think anyone who has gone through w/d has to have a general fear of experiencing anything like that again. What through me off of the halflife. I quit other things and after about 2 weeks I would be feeling much better, but mentally, this was the worst. Depressiong was horrible, eating was non exsisting and no one understands. I feel like I will be tapering off of this for the rest of my life, well maybe not that long, but for a few months to come. I just want to be done with it all. Thanks for all the advice. There really isn’t anything out there for people inquiring how to get off of suboxone. Michelle
It’s 10:30 pm and I am sitting ay my computer searching for answers about why my suboxone taper is so hard. My doctor said that at 2mg I should just stop and put up with mild wd’s for a couple of days and then I would be fine. He is a well respected addictionologist – why doesn’t he understand what my body is going through? Just going from 2mg to 1mg makes me feel like I have the constant flu. It was day #4 on 1 mg and I had to take another 1 mg this evening because I can’t function.
Shit, I feel really desperate right now. It feels like I will never get off this crap. I don’t know how to do this and I am scared to death because the Doc said he would cut off the subs at the end of this month.
Okay, if anyone has any suggestions about how to do this please respond – I really need some help.
I agree absolutely, including the fact that will will not see the lower dose tabs soon, if ever. The same issues are involved with methadone clinics, and attempts to make the jump to “zero” from something other than the larger doses clinics seem to think appropriate. It is indeed fact that micro doses of suboxone, in the .5 mg range would be very nice. Preferable at the physical size of the 2 mg so that dosing at smaller quantities might be practical, especially at perhaps .25 mg, by simply cutting a .5 in half. I mean seriously, 8 mg tabs are so freaking very powerful, and I can’t see really needing more than that, EVER. Doctors often prescribe several of those a day!!
You have to “go there” as there are really no other alternatives, given the evidence and past behavioral motivations of drug companies. What motivations do drug companies have, and methadone clinics, to help get users off of their product? To help patients get better? Yeah, right. They are not bound by the Hippocratic oath, only the doctors are, and THEY listen to the drug companies.
I’ve been addicted to opiates since last spring, starting with vicodin and graduating to 80 mg oxycodone everyday. I would like to know, if anyone has any info, what kind of suboxone dose I would need to stave off withdrawl from the oxy. And, how successful is suboxone tapering… does it have the same ‘high’ effects as other opiates, b/c if it does, I don’t see how it will help me.
Thanks
This is from the Suboxone website and seems to be overlooked by many doctors. It will help, but there is still going to be withdrawal until full detox as the brain and body adjust. Patient may need tramadol/Ultram and valium in the interim.
5. Induction onto naltrexone
To avoid precipitated withdrawal, it is generally recommended that naltrexone be initiated 3 to 5 days after the last dose of SUBOXONE or SUBUTEX sublingual tablets following dose taper.
Prior to administering the initial dose of naltrexone, patients should receive a naloxone challenge (although not referenced in the literature, current best practice is that the initial dose of naloxone should be 1.0 mg followed every 15 minutes with an additional 1-mg dose until a cumulative dose of 4 mg naloxone is administered within 1 hour or until withdrawal signs and symptoms are observed) similar to that recommended following cessation of a full mu-opioid agonist, if they have been maintained on a chronic dose of SUBOXONE or SUBUTEX for a period greater than 7 days.
Hello, I am new to this site and needed information about withdrawl (obviously). I was told point blank that there would be no withdrawl from Subs. I have been on 24 mg a day for quite a while now and suddenly I can not have it any more. My “neurologist” who I had 100% trust and faith in just told me to DEAL WITH IT!! My back, legs, head, running water feeling, someone in my spine tickling from the inside felling is going to make me crazy… Last night I actually considered suicide as a viable relief…thank god Im not that brave. What in the world can I do? Tonight I am wide awake and to spine tingles away from full blown INSANE. I cant believe I was lied to and then told to deal with it…GRRRRR
yep we need a lower dosing option like for the prednisone i took 10mg’s. The doc gave me 1mg tabs so I could come off, 1 mg every 2 weeks. thats what we need for bupe
in response to dave’s post above… i am prescribed the 2 mg tablets, and i have litterally broken them into little crumbs since i found out i was pregnant (16 weeks)… i am taking approximately .05 mg per day…
yes, i agree that a 0.5 mg tablet would be easier, but atleast the 2 mg tablets can be broken into several little pieces….
-stacie
Dave, did you get my e-mail?
Hey Brian, this is Dave who just wrote you another email this evening and its getting late. Why don’t we all start a letter writing campaign to the manufacturers of Suboxone and insist that they come out with a 0.5 mg tablet. That way it would be easier to get those micro doses which are needed to help minimize the withdrawal symptoms? I’m dead serious. Maybe even a 0.25 mg. Then you could split it in half and get a 0.125 mg or even a 0.0625 mg dose. I worked in the pharmaceutical industry for a long time and the good old benzo’s, especially Xanax, had the same problem. The drug company’s suggested taper from their prescribing information was a recipe for relapse and the substance abuse specialists (ie psychiatrists who specialize in helping freaks like us out) all agreed that ANY benzodiazepine (Xanax, Ativan, and to a lesser extent Valium, Librium, Klonopin) should in reality, a patient should never decrease their daily dose by more than 10% each month. The solution early on was for patients to be given a diluted oral solution so that micro-doses of the drug could be given during the final months of the taper. Another strategy was to switch the patient from the short acting, high potency Benzo (Xanax, Ativan) to a longer acting benzo like valium and then tapering the patient off of that. I heard about a lot of successes when doctors used this strategy with benzo addiction. This is why you may have heard of heroin users first trying to switch over to hydrocodone (vicodin) or from oxycodone (percodan and oxycontin) to vicodin before switching to suboxone and tapering. The bottom line is that I am passionate about the fact that there is a huge need for lower dose strengths of suboxone. Don’t expect to see lower dose strengths soon even if the patients and the medical establishment demands it because I really don’t think think that the drug company who makes suboxone secret agenda is to keep patients on suboxone in order to keep sales up. Yep I went there! I welcome any and all comments and Brian once again feel free to edit any of this post because its after 1 am and I have to get up in 5 hours for work but I felt that what I had to say was just too important and I had to get it out.