• HEALTH & RECOVERY
    Welcome Guest
    Posting Rules Bluelight Rules Thread Directory 1 Thread Directory 2
    Mindfulness Links Addiction & Mind
    Sober Living Partner Program (SLiPP)
  • H&R Moderators: VerbalTruist | cdin | Lil'LinaptkSix

Tapering Tapering off subs - scared but excited

And, if I do say so myself (again), you are doing fucking awesome in all regards 2dark.
 
Thanks again TPD, it's always reassuring to hear that :)

Well yesterday I stuck to just my 2mg dose in the morning and that was it. I did take one propanolol later in the afternoon and overall felt fine, didn't feel the need for klonopin or suboxone. I think it's the mental part of things that gets to me when I let it - I really overthink things, as I mentioned before, and I was able to mostly avoid that yesterday. And so far today has been going well - I took my 2mg dose in the morning and have been feeling fine.

I know based on what I've read that I may not even feel the effects of this current taper until 48-72 hours later, so it'll be interesting to see how things go Sunday and Monday. I'm working both days but I plan on bringing propanolol and klonopin with me in case I find myself really not feeling well.

But for right now I'm on day 2 of being on 2mg and I'm happy about that, and my body feels good as well :)
 
I myself was on suboxone for 2 years and I have plenty and a doctor but I need surgery and as of the first I have new insurance so I've begun to taper on my own and this thread is giving me so much hope! I'm down to 1 mg in the am and .5 pm and I'm doing ok, I agree that when I stay busy and work it is so much better, I'm sleeping fine and we'll I don't eat much ( the reason I need surgery) my story is crazy as that I had 8 surgeries and no issue ever then I moved and this state LOVES to perscribe meds and my body got addicted first then my mind and it led me down a dark scary road but thankfully I was pulled out scary thing my mom thinks I'm "cured" and can't understand why I can't just tell the doctors I had a problem in the past?? Well anyways I'm really trying the last few days I'd like to be off them
 
People who think substance use disorder is the sort of think that, like something like syphilis, can be "cured" (like, what would that even look like, a lobotomy?) generally have no clue about the first thing concerning substance use or substance use disorders.

Sounds like you're doing pretty damn well though Shelly! Keep it up :)

2dark2see said:
But for right now I'm on day 2 of being on 2mg and I'm happy about that, and my body feels good as well :)
Click to expand...

And I don't think you could ask for more. You're like a role model with this shit 2dark ;) I'm sure you'll run into a hiccup or two of some kind or some degree (though of course this is hardly necessary, only playing the numbers/probability when it comes to opioid tapers and detoxes), but you are still handling this bull by the horns :)
 
Good luck Shelly, sounds like you're doing great!

I was able to stick to 2mg yesterday but I did end up taking 1.5mg klonopin in the afternoon, mainly to ease anxiety and the physical symptoms of anxiety that I was feeling. And today I've been able to stick to 2mg as well but I did take a propanolol as I headed off for work this morning.

So overall I'd say things are going well but I have had times where I've used some meds to help with certain symptoms.
 
2dark2see said:
Good luck Shelly, sounds like you're doing great!

I was able to stick to 2mg yesterday but I did end up taking 1.5mg klonopin in the afternoon, mainly to ease anxiety and the physical symptoms of anxiety that I was feeling. And today I've been able to stick to 2mg as well but I did take a propanolol as I headed off for work this morning.

So overall I'd say things are going well but I have had times where I've used some meds to help with certain symptoms.
Click to expand...


Hell yeah Shelly! your real close .5mgs is great if you can get to .25 it will make it so easy then to jump best of luck!


2dark2see, your doing great also! 2mgs is great! your getting close. You were getting nauseous on 8mgs in the beginning probably because 8mgs is a pretty good amount, most docs dont have a clue and prescribe starting doses of 8mgs or even 16mgs which is really alot!, i think 1mg sub is equal to around 20mgs oxy. good luck!
 
Thanks everyone for your support! Well things are going really well with being on 2mg daily of suboxone. I had been stable on 3mg daily and felt ready to taper down so the 13th was my first day of taking only 2mg. So now I'm on day 6 of only 2mg and aside from a couple of days in the beginning where I took an extra dose of klonopin and/or a couple doses of propanolol, things have gone surprisingly smoothly.

My plan is to stay at this dose for awhile, at least a couple of weeks, and then go from there. I have enough suboxone to do an extended taper and so I might as well not rush things, especially if this is what an extended taper feels like - meaning I'm hardly feeling any negative physical symptoms of slowly tapering. And thanks to the advice from people in this forum and from other threads I've read about sub tapers, I'm glad I didn't follow thru with my early plans of doing a very quick taper.

And this may sound weird but one of the best parts of going from 3mg down to 2mg is that now I'm only taking my sub dose as one single dose in the morning instead of splitting it into 2 doses, which is what I was doing up until this point. I used to take 2mg in the morning and 1mg in the afternoon. That afternoon dose was challenging sometimes bc if I was working at the time I would normally take it at, it was hard to do bc I work around/with people and bc you have to let those damn strips dissolve under your tongue, I'd have to find a way to sneak off for a few minutes to be alone (where I wouldn't have to talk to anyone, and that's hard at my job) and take my dose that way. I wish these were pills you could just quickly swallow like any other med and get on with your day instead of these damn strips!!

Oh well... just venting a bit there lol :) anyway, I feel really good about how far I've come since December 9 - my first day sober...
 
Nice work! I'm really proud of all the smart, hard work you're doing keeping on top of your goals with this. Keep it up! :)

p.s. use listerine or another ethanol based mouthwash directly before taking you Suboxone. Not only will it help it absorb through your mucus membrane more effective, the strip will also dissolve on contact. No more waiting around for that shit to dissolve! It will go like butter on a hot knife :)
 
Kicking ass 2dark2see, on your way man to kicking that ball and chains off trust me where im at in paws the suns not always shining but all the bad shit combined dont feel nowhere as heavy is that fucking ball and chains i'll never put that back on. No fucking med is gonna follow me around in my pocket everyday that without it im fucked!. I'll do plenty fun drugs alcohol or weed but never will i be controlled like i was on ops for over twenty years no fuckin way!. best of luck
 
Well yesterday was a less than stellar day in many regards... work, regular day to day life, etc, and in the early afternoon I took 1mg suboxone. This wasn't planned at all, and I'd actually been doing well for almost a week at just 2mg. But I took the extra 1mg and it helped with some things - some mild physical stuff I was feeling, but of course it didn't help with the mental stuff that was going on. Taking an extra mg of suboxone certainly wasn't going to change some work crap that had come up, but I took it anyway.

I'm not sure how much of this was just the addict in me taking something when certain things get rough, or if even part of it was due to feeling some mild hot/cold flashes and sweating a bit. Well hell I didn't even try taking some propanolol or a klonopin, I just went to the extra suboxone, so I guess this was mainly the addict in me.

On a side note, I'm trying to resign myself to the fact that February is going to suck at work. I work part time (by choice) and I just got my schedule for February and they have me down for doing 38 hrs the first week, 36hrs the second, 38hrs the third.... you get the idea. I took this job bc I only want to work part time and they told me in my interview that I'd be working about 15hrs a week. This month it's been more like 25 hrs a week but I'm ok with that, but I'm not ok with working essentially 2 hrs less than full time. I talked with my boss and they basically adjusted my schedule so I'm working about 33 hrs a week. There are many reasons why I'm only wanting to work part time right now (too many to get into right now) but it just sucks knowing that February is going to suck.

A couple people have said "well try and look at this as at least you'll be making more money".... well I can assure you the money isn't worth it. Yes, I do have debt on my credit cards due to buying oxy, but at the same time my day to day needs are not in jeopardy (my apartment, food, clothes, car, etc). Long story short is that I'm transitioning back into working again after having been off for a long time due to illness (1 stroke, 3 mini strokes, depression), and the reason I looked only for a part time job was to help ease the transition back into working and keep things as mellow as possible. That's why I didn't want to go from working 0 hrs to 40hrs so quickly.

I realize I'm being pessimistic about February, and maybe things will turn out better than I think they will, but for right now I'm still pissed off about them pulling this crap with my hours - scheduling just enough hours so they don't have to pay benefits but at the same time essentially working me full time.

Ok, rant over.......,,,
 
Last edited:
I fully understand working part time. Work is good distraction but not when it becomes too much. When i was doing my long ween on some days maybe once a week i would cheat a couple mgs it really helped me to do things i had to get done and really never set me back. As long as you have it in your mind you will get there and dont look ahead so much only adds more stress and depression take each day one at a time. good luck
 
Thanks... yeah work has been a great distraction and so far I've enjoyed it most days but I really really really don't want to work full time right now. Oh well, I'm kind of stuck for next month but at least I know March won't be as bad.

Yesterday I stuck to my 2mg suboxone dose in the morning but ended up taking an extra klonopin in the evening. Hopefully today will just be a regular day... I'm stuck at a very tedious training seminar for work but at least it's a partial distraction for the day. This road to sobriety definitely hasn't been a smooth one but I suppose it's good that at least I'm still on this road lol
 
Well I'm now at 12 days of taking just 2mg suboxone a day. Oh actually I'm at 11 days at that dose bc I did have one day about a week ago where I took 3mg instead of only the 2mg. But essentially what I'm trying to say is that it was 12 days ago when I tapered down from 3mg to 2mg a day.

And with the exception of that one day where I went back to the 3mg dose, and a few days where I've taken a propanolol or klonopin (I've only taken an extra klonopin 2 or 3 times in the last 12 days) things have been going fairly smoothly.

In my last post I kind of ranted on about work stuff and I'm happy to say that things are looking a bit better regarding that issue. Ive spoken with my boss a couple of times since that initial time I talked with her about my hours, and I'm feeling better about things. I'm still really not happy about February but my initial anger has subsided a bit, now I'm just at the very frustrated level lol... but seriously, I did submit a schedule change form stating that I can only work a max of 25 hrs per week. Apparently when a person submits that form the changes have to be implemented within 2 weeks from the effective date. I technically could have put the date as "effective today" and that would have forced them to change/reduce my hours for February. But knowing that our schedule is already out and that having to reduce my hours would have really put my boss in a tough position, I decided it wasn't worth it for February and I ended up putting the effective date as March 1. I know I'll get thru February (I just won't enjoy it that much) but I decided I'd rather do that than get on my bosses bad side so early on. And I know she appreciated that I didn't state my hour change as effective immediately, we had a good conversation about this stuff.

I just know that had this stuff happened a couple of months ago I would've just used this as yet another excuse to use and/or increase my daily dose. It's nice to see some progress bc sometimes I get stuck in the day to day stuff of life and don't feel like I've come far at all, but sometimes I'm able to step back and look at the bigger picture and actually see some progress.
 
You have indeed come quite a ways 2dark. I've noticed from changes in how you're posting that you sure sound a bit more level headed these days - more self confident in where you're at and the direction this is taking you - which is quite the good sign :)

Keep up the good work moving forward in your life!
 
Kickin ass 2dark! Keep tapering the lower you go the easier wds will be and trust me it was a pleasant surprise for me when i jumped after my long taper wds had barely nothing for me. Hoping it turns out this way for you too!
 
Thanks for the feedback guys :)

I've been doing well with the sub stuff. I'm amazed at how I really haven't had any cravings... it's been great. I don't know if it has something to do with my opiate history or not.... basically for a couple years I've been getting my monthly rx for norco and going thru 150 pills in 10 days at the most. So for the rest of the month I would maybe use any benzos that I had but as for opiates I only used when I got my rx, so I always had a couple weeks each month where I wasn't using/going thru WD. Then around early August of last year I started buying oxy and very quickly was using 150mg a day oxy.

But then in early December I decided to get clean and started with the subs so.... I'm thinking maybe my cravings aren't bad bc of how I used... well who knows, I'm still so early in this process that who knows what's going to happen as I taper down on the subs....

Anyway thanks again for the feedback. On another note I've been having some health issues that have prompted me to make an appt to see my neurologist (I had a stroke in 2010 and have a genetic condition that causes problems). So I'm going to be dealing with that.... I'm sure all will go well.... this time I'm on top of my symptoms and know what they mean as opposed to in 2010 and 2012 when I was having symptoms but ignored them until they led to a stroke..
 
You have done amazing-and handled things like a pro. you are braver than many. Im nervous ash hell - on day 5 of not using dope. I aquired 3.5 sub strips and used 8 mg 1 & 2nd day, 6mg 3rd day and was going to skip a day and use last 2mg today- but used it yesterday Today no subs -feel ok, not great ok.

My plan was to cut those strrips into small pieces and do a 3wk taper. I felt so bad though and wasn't getting alot of relief So that plan didn't work asl planned. My nerves are a little frazzled worrying that w/d is going to come on and I dont have comfort meds.

I admire what you accomplished :)
 
It's been a little while since I've been around and just wanted to update... overall things are still going really well. I'm still taking 2mg suboxone a day but will begin tapering down to 1mg in 2 days bc I only have 8 of the 8mg strips left so I've got to start tapering. I had originally planned on tapering to 1mg much sooner but thought about it and figured that since I have enough sub to do this long taper I might as well use it that way. Also things have been going well on the 2mg so I figured if I didn't have to change that dose right away then I'd just stick with it as long as possible.

Now here's the part of my recovery journey that I'm not proud of but was a good wake up call for the future. When I had my monthly appt norco rx in early February I had to take a couple norcos in order to test positive. I did take 3 norcos and felt nothing and went to my appt and all was good..... until I had a medical emergency that landed me in the hospital for almost 3 days. Long story short, I had a new dissection in my left vertebral artery (basically a tear in the artery). Side effects of this condition are what put me on pain meds to begin with.

Well I ended up taking some norco over that period of time and purposely stopped taking the suboxone for a couple days, knowing I'd be taking norco and I wanted to feel that high again. I had that stupid thought of "oh I can take a couple and it won't affect me and my addict brain" but boy was I wrong. I went through about 30 norco in 2-3 days and at one point had gone back to taking a dose that I took back in my addict days when I had a tolerance built up and I found myself puking my brains out for about 5 hours.

I'd like to say I learned my lesson and that won't happen again, and I hope it won't, but one thing I've learned is that this road is definitely not linear, definitely not a straight line from being an addict to being sober.
And unfortunately I really do have a condition that can cause a lot of pain - and this time when it happened I'm just lucky I avoided another stroke. So somehow I've got to figure this out... figure out what to do when I'm in severe pain and in the hospital or at home and need something more than ibuprofen.
So that's how things have been with me. I am happy to say that after that 2-3 day binge on norco I went back to the suboxone and haven't strayed since. I didn't call up my dealer for some oxy. And I regretted what I had done almost immediately after I did it, although I can't lie, I did enjoy the high... until the puking my brains out started lol...

Well I'm seeing my neurologist today and hopefully we can come up with a non narcotic pain med solution!
 
Try and look into ketamine, it is used to treat breakthrough pain these days I seem to remember. Hard to find doctors who specialize in it as it's such a novel use of the medicine, but it works really well for that purpose. And it would have none of the issues for you that opioids hold.

Other than something like that it seems like you're left with three options:

  1. Total abstinence from opioid medication and dealing with the pain using CBT/MBSR/behavioral or non-pharmacological techniques to manage your breakthrough pain (this is viable, it just requires you to learn the skills, which can take some real effort).
  2. Taking a maintenance dose of an opioid medication that has minimal side effects, promotes stability in your life and doesn't promote further craving (this is likely going to end up being something heavy either morphine or methadone).
  3. Learning the skilling needed to restructure your lifestyle and cope with stress in healthier ways that make it possible for you to keep a prescription for opioid medication around without running to it and popping a few pills whenever you feel like it, and only using it as prescribed.
(3.) is probably the ideal situation, but will require a period of abstinence for you to learn the requisite skills.

Good luck 2dark! Let us know how you appointment goes!
 
Last edited by a moderator:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top