Anyone use Suboxone for opiate WD?

[needinghelp15]

Want to taper off my Norco I've been prescribed for 10yrs. Was considering taking very small amounts of Suboxone for 3-4 days, less each day. Wondering if anyone ever tried that? Don't want to WD from the.subs!! Can't imagine I would, in such a short time

[needinghelp15]

Im def going to do it!!! Already tapering with my Norcos. I am 30 yrs old, and I want children. I will not take anything but tylenol when pregnant! My husband is on SSD, our income is very tight. If I were to miss a lot of work, Id loose my house, bc it's all unpaid right now.That's not an option! What do you all take to manage the pain that you have? Thats the reason I got prescribed

[weaver71]

If you offered a kid a deal, "I'll make the entire rest of your life better, if you will give me one month of feeling really sick," how do you think that would sound? Heck, I would have gone through a month of sick for a motorcycle. It's not a difficult decision to make, quitting drugs, but the insanity that drugs cause make a simple decision 'feel' like a mountain. Drugs make mountains out of mole hills. Let us know what you decide, commit to it, and we will support you. There is no wrong way to get and stay sober, as long as we get and stay sober. Whatever the cost, however long it takes, this is the most important thing you could commit to in the rest of your life. That was true for me anyway. All that I lost to detox, didn't even mean anything, not really, until I could see it with my own eyes, without my opiate goggles. Keep us posted.

[needinghelp15]

Thanks for all the info, havent made up my mind 100% how Im going to do this yet. Im starting to taper down on the Norcos now. I know it's going to take a long time to completely WD. Just thought micro pieces of sub would gwt me through the puking, ********, RLS, and ya know WANTING DEATH feeling, for rhe first 3-4 days

[motye51]

I have to agree with Weaver....we have to be willing to do, or lose whatever we have to to get clean.  The time that it takes might seem like alot, but in the larger picture.....it really isn't.  But it does seem like alot of people are under the impression that subs will keep you from w/d....which they do, that's why I took them, so don't get me wrong!!!, but eventually, you have to stop them too???  With my 7 year use of subs, it took a good year for my brain to start seeing some normalcy.....as if I even knew what normal was at 3 months clean.  It's one of those I wish I knew then, what I know now situations....Had I known the sub w/d was so much worse.....I don't know what I would have done b/c at that time I was in active addiction???  Maybe I need to think about that one for awhile?

[weaver71]

I copied most of this from another thread, I think it applies here.

The thing people fail to remember is, suboxone is an opioid and the longest part of healing is not the detox itself, but the return of natural brain chemistry, which takes much longer on subs than any other opioid. Methadone seems about the same duration, just a worse detox. Anyway, for your brain to start making it's own natural chemicals, one has to stop taking chemicals of similar nature, in this case, opiates and opioids. A few days or a couple weeks on subs doesn't cause a horrible addiction, like long term use does, but it does prevent the natural chemicals from starting up. What I felt, after i stopped subs, was the return of healing from years of use, the vomiting and such were past. Now, being that 1 mg of sub is approx 30mgs of norco, at 4 msg, it is as if you are on 120mgs of norco, that is not a small dose to quit. Hope this gives some perspective. There have yet to be discovered a painless way to quit opiates, we all have to just push through it.

Subs are great for chronic relapsers of strong opiates, so one can form a strong aftercare and get affairs in order. It gives time to work on the reasons we use, but as far as preventing withdrawals, they don't do that, though I have seen them reduce acute withdrawals in a couple situations. I wouldn't say that I have seen it work that way enough to suggest one go that route. Maybe it's time to play the flu card and simply ride this out. If you quit on a Thursday night, ride out Friday at work and you will be able to say, "I think I' getting sick," which is not a lie. If you aren't okay to work by Monday, you have a set up reason. It is worth rationing food, selling a car, quitting a job, or whatever, to get off opiates. I built a pretty good empire on drugs, then I lost it all due to drugs. I'm so glad to see my progress now and know I am not sabotaging it.

[motye51]

LOL.....all i could do was laugh with your second to last sentence. " I just want to get through a couple of days of w/d without feeling like death..."
Isn't that every addicts dream????  I know it was mine!  
You seem to have all kind of restrictions and things that HAVE to happen in order for you to decide to do this?  NO....you won't be done w/d in 4 days, YES, it's going to suck ***, YES, having your husband have his own prescriptions for opiates is going to make it alot harder to beat this, YES, when your pain mgt clinic see's the THC you will be asked to leave (more than likely)......that being said....you don't have much of a choice, do you? If you make a plan to do this and stick with it...you CAN do this....
I went from opiates to subs and the problem is YOU HAVE TO FEEL W/D...your going to feel it either coming off of the Norco's or suboxone....but I promise you, Norco's will be quicker and less painful than sub w/d!  I guess what I'm saying is no matter what, you have to w/d....if your ready though, there are things that can be done to make you as comfortable as possible while you do this?  
You have the same thought process that I did when I was where your at....you can't use for 10 years and then be "well again" in 4 days....you know what I mean??  I wished for it, prayed for it, begged for it....but it's not reality????

[needinghelp15]

I want to taper down with the norco, and thought taking tiny pieces of sub strips for 3-4 days less suboxone each day would get me through the norco WD. Assumed my main norco WD symptoms would subside in 4 days. Also assumed that When I stopped taking the pieces id sub strip I wouldnt feel like ****!! Tired of needing a pill to get through my damn day!! I am a strong person, with a not so addictive pwrsobality. My husband is prescribed roxy, and fent patches, so I will always be around them. I could deal with that, and not take anything. I just need to get through the couple days of WD without feeling like death, so I dont end up taking a damn pill!! I know it won't be preety

[needinghelp15]

Ok, so your saying if I use the subs for a few days to get off the norco,I'll withdraw when I stop taking the subs?? Ive been prescribed for 10yrs, and Im no angel, I take a Roxy every couple days bc the norco dont do **** for my pain after all these years! I want to do this bc I want children, and I got surprise mouth swab, and there will be THC in there, so I know my pain Management is gonna prob cut me off!! I also dont have insurance..ugh!! Cant afford to miss work, its unpaid! So need to be functional after 4 days. Have a friend who could get me a few subs. Ugh...idk?

[weaver71]

The original way subs were intended to be used was for detox was less than 21 days of use to get through withdrawal. The FDA passed sub use, with almost no research and it took off into it's modern way of use, the same way they use methadone. Sub is the fasted growing illicit drug in the world right now, it is very addictive and does get people high, especially those on lower doses or weaker opiates. There have been no long term nor maintenance use clinical studies done on buprenorphine, so the way you are describing using it is actually more proven to be effective than the way they are most commonly prescribed. The inventors actually did studies and proved that taken every 3 days is equally effective as taken every day, as far as folks keeping long term sobriety. I think the key there is, people trying to avoid withdrawal fail, people trying to work on inner peace and recovery succeed.

Now, that being said, Norco is in the weaker spectrum of opioids, while sub is the second strongest opioid on the market. Without a doctor, who knows how to use subs properly, I think that using buprenorphine for norco abuse is like killing a fly with a shotgun. It may kill the fly, but then there is a huge mess to clean up. If your self-medicating with sub doesn't work as planned, I think you need accountability of a doctor to know what to do next. I think of the most difficult drugs to detox from as, Methadone, Fentanyl, and then suboxone. Norco is way easier to detox than any of those, of coarse, that is simply my opinion. So, when the sub taper is over and the withdrawals come back, there will be nothing to make it easier, do you have a plan for that?