I’m now at .15mg per dose (twice per day), down from .25mg per dose last week. I’m dealing with some mild symptoms, such as some insomnia, chills, sweats, etc…, but they’re tolerable and hopefully will just minimize what I have to deal with when I kick it completely. Not sure when I’m jumping off, but at the pace I’m going, it should be sometime next month. I can’t wait to be one of those on this forum like you guys, in which I can say “I kicked it 30 or 60 days ago and I feel 10x better than I have in a long time”.

Still feel like arse however…just very weak and rather grumpy. I want everyone to get out. of my way and, ironically, to NOT ask me how I am faring.

Suboxone certainly helped me change my life for the better. I still have 22 of the 8mg filmstrips and its not been an issue worrying I’ll take one. Now back on Oxys wow, this far into detox I’d be flipping my bed over or searching under the wardrobe for any pill or crumb! Today its different…I know I can live without drugs and its just easier not to bother with them. Some people will never get off Subs (my sister)…but for myself at least it was the lifestyle changes, changing who I knew, and dealing with some deep personal issues…that’s the real change that has me becoming free.

FYI I set off taking two 8mg/day, but it was quite expensive so I dropped to 1/day after perhaps 6 months. After another six months I went to 1/2 an 8mg per day and stopped dividing the dose for whenever I felt I needed it. That was a big change because on pills and other drugs I got this instant need to do more, so I was getting high all day long every 30 min or hour. Dropping that cycle to once/day in the morning was the key to breaking that desire to constantly use.

Perhaps 7 months ago I became tired of NEEDING anything so badly…so I began a really half-arsed taper. It wasn’t a olan, I just took less and less as I felt like it. Toward the end I was making a single 8mg film last 10 days ( reco the film tabs since ta can snip them with scissors to very small doses). Finally I have a surgery a few months away and I’ll be damned if I risked anything due to my suboxone need…so I up and quit and its been rather easy to keep away from it.

What I’m saying is as someone who’s been in jail , rehab, extreme DT’s, getting clean, and then **countlesssssss** relapses, the best thing I think we can do is sort our lives out and address issues….toss those friends who may be alright, but around whom temptation lurks. Suboxone gave me a chance to learn to live without all that rubbish, and ya I wish I’d overcome the oxy DT’s straight away to begin with….but I’d been there a hundres times amd it didn’t work for me.

Your story is extremely encouraging! I’ve actually been there once before so I know what to expect when I kick Sub for good. After beating it about 5 years ago, I got f’ing stupid and cocky, thinking “man, it wasn’t so bad and this time I know to be smarter, so one Vicodin isn’t going to hurt” (after being clean from Sub for about 2-3 months). I’m still paying for that one POS Vicodin 5 years later, which obviously led to a relapse. I’m confident that there is a zero % chance I’ll ever recreationally touch an opiate again once I kick Sub. The 5 years I’ve spent on Sub because of that dumb slip up will remain in the forefront of my mind for the rest of my life and I simply won’t let myself make that mistake again.

BTW, I actually tried a Clonidine when I quit Sub 5 years ago, but only took it once because it made my already fatigued body even worse (and not in a good way). I know some people swear by it, but for me it wasn’t helpful. I’ll have a few Xanax & Ambiens ready for when I kick it. I know those need to be used with caution (esp Xanax), so I’ll only be using them when needed for sleep for up to a week-ish.

On a side note, for those of you working on reducing your dosage… When I was at a steady 4+ mg per day, I always felt like reducing was too hard and I didn’t want to deal with it. The truth is, in hindsight, it was a lot easier than I assumed it would be. What scared me was that initial burst of W/D feeling you get when you reduce your dosage. I would get a few chills, sweats, etc… and think to myself “uh oh, it’s about to get really bad so let me pop another 1/2mg or 1mg to prevent it”. What I came to find out was that when I pushed myself through that initial burst of minor W/D feelings, it never really got worse than that. It would actually got better within a day or two and not worse. So don’t get discouraged if you feel like sh*t a day or two after reducing your dosage, it never lasted long for me and always got better within a day or so.

Throughout my taper, there was only 1 or 2 times that I had to “cheat” by popping an extra few crums in between doses, but it didn’t set me back or ruin my taper.

I’ve been on Sub for almost 4 and 1/2 years now. Like many others, I started off around 8mg/day and worked my way down to roughly 4mg/day, which I had stayed at on or around for several years. About 6 months ago I switched from Suboxone to Subutex because I had read that the Naloxone in Suboxone can be the cause of headaches, which I’d been consistently getting since getting on Sub. The headaches have indeed improved, though I do still get them. I just get them less often now and they’re not as bad (for instance, I used to take 2 Excedrine to kill a headache and now I’ll take 1).

Aside from the headaches, some other negative effects of Sub are lack of interest in going out, doing things, seeing/talking to people, etc… I’ve read about other people experiencing this from Sub too, but FYI, with me it really didn’t get too noticeable until I had been on Sub for about 1-2 years. It has also hindered my sex drive (to put it lightly).

So for quite a while now, I’ve just been wanting off this stuff. It’s time and I’m ready to move on with my life, get out there & start enjoying life again, etc… About 5-6 months ago I consciously began reducing my dosage. At the time, I had crept up to 5mg/day, so I started by going back down to 4mg (2 doses per day about 12 hours apart). I worked my way down about 1/4 or 1/3 of a MG every couple-few weeks. Since I have to break up a 2MG generic Subutex, I’m always guessing how much I’m taking, but I can get it pretty close to accurate.

Fast forward several months to today… The last 2 days I’ve taken about .5MG per day (2 doses of .25MG). Prior to that I was taking doses of about .4MG. When the doses get down this small, it becomes more difficult to be accurate, so part of it is still a guessing game. I have noticed some more chills, goose bumps, minor sweating, etc… a few hours before each dose, but other than that, it hasn’t been too bad. I don’t really have a mapped out game plan. I just figure I’ll get as low as possible then make the jump when the time is right.

A couple of things to note that may be of interest to other Sub users…
Even when I was at 5MG/day, I would still get some minor chills, sweats, etc… within 2-3 hours of each dose. One time to test things out, I took 4MG at the start of my day and 1MG at the end of my day. 12 hours after taking that 4MG dose, sure enough, I got some minor chills, sweats, etc… in anticipation of that 2nd daily dose. That proved to me that it isn’t a lack of Sub causing the discomfort, rather it’s the habit of my body expecting it’s 2 daily doses.
The other thing is that I have a very difficult time if I try to go to 1 dose per day instead of 2. As mentioned above, even if I flood my body with 4MG to start my day, going 24 hours without another dose is extremely difficult. I know that with my current doses getting so low, the next logical step will be to dose once per day instead of 2, but that will undoubtedly be my biggest challenge yet. Getting down to .5MG per day has been a cakewalk compared to how difficult I thought it was going to be (i.e. a year ago if you told me I would be taking .5MG per day for my maintenance, I would have said “no way, it would probably be hell getting there”).

If anybody has any input or feedback about going from multiple doses per day to 1, I would love to hear about it. Were you initially like me, where you felt that 2 doses per day was too difficult? Did you use any specific methods or time frames, such as by gradually doing it (i.e. 14 hours, then 16 hours, then 18 hours, etc…)?

I hope my story helps somebody and I’ll be happy to assist anyway I can. Sometimes all we need is another person reminding us that it can be done because you or I did it.