suboxone success rate???

[bolpak]

Has anybody come off suboxone after 5yrs?  Will I have to take this the rest of my life??  How long will it take for my brain receptors to be cleared out of the suboxone because I feel like a nonemotional mess! How many people are coming off this stuff because everyone that I have ever referred to treatment or met in,  are either back on drugs or still on suboxone.    Whats next??

[catchiec]

You must of been one of the first people to start sub and I doubt many people have been on sub for as long as you. Sub has only become so well known and so used within the last year and a half or so. I really think you are going to have to ask your doctor for anti depressant pills and start a very slow taper. After you have been off sub for a few months then you can probably start thinking about weaning off the anti depressants. After five years the physical withdrawls are gonna be bad enough. I really cant imagine getting through the mental withdrawls without anti depressant pills.

[stacey2324]

Im not sure what the rate is but i went off suboxone to methadone a year later when i started useing agian because i couldnt afford suboxone and im fine!

[bolpak]

I've been under the guidence of a Dr. for my entire addiction..  The doctors are the ones that got me into this mess..  I've been on suboxone for 5yrs. now and have tryed stepping down, weaning off and any other way you can try,  even cold turky which lasted for 1 and 1/2 months.. Only the help of a church after trying kept me from taking my own life..  My councler now is **** but thats the best you can do when your an addict and you have to use whats available...  Ones thing for sure,  long term addicts are not coming off suboxone,  even the ones that want to...

[nulife]

Once you feel normal again, you have extra energy , you are no longer in that loop of addiction, things just feel awesome. This is referred to as the "honeymoon phase", you want to shout it to the world, you tell anyone how great it is.you want to turn everyone on to this fantastic new discovery.

Sort of like the way somebody turned us on to drugs for the first time because they thought they were great too!

The Reality-
While on sub, your pupils are still pinned, you ARE still taking a opioid every single day, you are still constipated all the time. Sub is really strong, and the life is so much longer that your dosing is less frequent. So your old habits are initially broken. You say to yourself, why would I want to get off this when its making me feel so good/productive.

Post-Induction- (if you get started on the right dose)
You feel GREAT, everything you imagined it would be it delivered on.. You feel normal again.(being a addict you may even experiment with a little extra just to see if you can feel better than normal) (a lot of people get started on way too high of a dose so they feel dizzy, nauseous, and get that infamous bup headache)

The TRUTH-
You really are not as normal as you think. Your perception of the real normal was distorted by your previous drug use. In actuality you are just not as high as you were before, being a partial agonist it only gets you high to a certain level. Your perceptions, feelings, actions are just slightly distorted. If you dont believe this, give a small piece of sub to a straight person and ask them how they feel, I tried that little experiment it wont be normal

The Failure-
After being on sub for a random amount of time- (usually 6months to 3 years) you begin to realize that you are beginning to feel foggy, distant, or removed. Your dosing will be needed to get out of bed, it will become your morning cup of coffee, you will plan your life around your dose, your old DOC behavioral habits will begin to revolve around the sub. normal will become disgusting.the fog will get worse and worse. Your fatigue will get more frequent. This is caused by a combination of decreased neurotransmitter production and temporary shut down of specific receptor sites.

Trying to stop-
Every week you swear to yourself you will start to taper, you make declarations like quitting smoking (by summer I will stop) every time you see the Dr you mention quitting or cutting back, he/she just smiles and gives you another script. You start to feel guilty about dosing around others, you realize that this is just another drug. With sub or MMT since the life is so long your brain loses this event horizon its just always high. This is one of the reasons that the wds and PAWS/Rebound are so notoriously long with longer life opioids, the receptors have shut down that naturally produce because they are unused. On sub your brain is always flooded with med. With other opioids these receptors still fire occasionally when the drug wears down, this is why wds are not as long from other drugs, and PAWS is more infrequent.

[bolpak]

I've done all of the above.  I tryed taking a slow approach and got all the way to 1/8 tab taking 5mo.!  Day 3 normal w/d  day 6 new w/d symptoms taste, smell all screwed up so bad I cound'nt even drink water without it tasting like metal,  hearing,  all screwed up,  I even had to have the tv turned down because moderately loud noises cut right through me.  Sight,  all screwed up because when I went out into the sun my eyes hurt so much I had to wear glasses.  These were on top of the normal w/d I had hoped never to feel again...Whats next??