Hey all =) So its been over a month since I have been on here. The last time I was on I was a complete suicidal mess ; ( BUT a few of you here gave me some really good, compassionate advice. Some of which I have followed & some I still plan looking into. Thank you Ezm8 (who now appears to be newbie-one), Expanse, and Happydude_60!! If your just curious about my experience so far w Suboxone & what I think about it skip to the last paragraph. Everything from here through the 2nd from last paragraph is just little details leading up to my use of Suboxone, which if your not bored you may not care to read. In fact I strongly suggest you skip to the last paragraph & just read that if your not REALLY bored, bc this is fairly long. So here is what I have done about my addiction (& depression) since I have last been on: The day before Thanksgiving, after having gone through my prescription & was sick (overheated, sweating, everything) as well as having self medicated w plenty of Vodka, I called my mother & broke down. I begged her to help me w my addiction. So she picked me up the next day & w plans on taking me to a certain rehab after Thanksgiving. While at her house I looked up this rehab & discovered it was not what I wanted. I was willing to do rehab but only if I could do suboxone maintenance. But this place didn’t do that. After all my insurance was ending the last day of the year & I just couldn’t waste time. Im ashamed to say that at Thanksgiving I begged my brother to go buy some Vodka & he did. Horrible, I know. I was just so miserable physically & mentally. And we had to keep that bottle of Vodka secret bc my mother (an addict herself) is VERY strict about sobriety. Which is good! But dear mother doesn’t understand the misery of opiate addiction ; ( So fast forward to me going back home after Thanksgiving. Im not even going to talk about my alcohol consumption anymore cus its just disgusting & embarrassing. But anyways, I find a treatment center online. I go & HATE IT. The people there are mean. All there is to do there is smoke. SO I picked my smoking habit back up again, which sucks. The counselors & nurses were SO inattentive. All the counselors seemed to wanna do is watch porn, take selfies, & go on Facebook. I know this bc while feeling so ignored the whole time & in the midst of several anxiety attacks I would go see if a counselor could help & this is what I caught them doing. So that is why I was being completely ignored by them. Watching porn and taking pictures of themselves was apparently much more important than doing their job & helping save a drug addict’s life. I should add that when I called my insurance company they told me this place did Suboxone maintenance therapy. Which it turned out they didn’t. It was just a plain old detox center. Moral of this part of my story, make sure that wherever you go to get treated for your addiction, that you do adequate research on it first to make sure you will get GOOD treatment as well as the exact type of treatment you are looking for. Read the reviews, ask them questions over the phone. I know this sounds SO obvious but sometimes us addicts are such a mental mess & feeling so desperate that we might skip over this. OR just not do enough research. I was basically in a state of psychosis so I wasn’t making any good judgments at all. So upon coming back home & feeling so unbelievably frustrated…I go online & search for Suboxone prescribing doctors. I find one really close by & make an appointment for (YAY) the next day! I go in to discover I FINALLY made a GOOD decision bc this doctor is AMAZING! A kind, compassionate, understanding grandpa of a doc..lol (I went online to discover he is 82 yrs old. Cant help but wonder why he hasn’t retired yet) He writes me a prescription so I can get over to the pharmacy right away. For some reason he sends me to a “Ma n’ Pop” type pharmacy (Im assuming he knows those chain pharmacies are a pain in the ass to deal with…so quick to red flag a person). But anyway, the pharmacy is great. Doctor is great. Getting the treatment I want. YAY! I can live again…I can actually be happy again =D I am at the end of my quest! …well, maybe.. So here is my experience w Suboxone so far: The first night I took it, omfg did I get HIGH. That amazing feeling again! I felt so good, off just 4 mg (which actually isn’t that little I found out).I felt like I just snorted 3 maybe 4 of the (*drool*) 30 mg Roxies. Slightly more sedating though. And I finally had what was prob the best sleep in my life! (thank you Jesus!) No more nightmares about being tortured or baby kittens being tortured. I would get the most violent, scary, horrible nightmares for so long ; ( So anyway, come morning I wake up the earliest I’ve woken up in a long time. Happy about life again. I take 4 mg (takes about 30 min to set in) and get that euphoria again but not as strong. Later in the day take another 2mg, then about an hour before bed another 2 mg. My doctor suggested I take the 2mg before bed so that I get good, happy sleep. And I did ; ) Happy, happy dreams. I think I was Alice in Wonderland in one of my dreams & was talking to flowers. Lol! Oh I forgot to mention, Im prescribed the Suboxone sublingual films. Ok so 3rd day..still euphoric but much less. Taking 8 mg throughout the day. After the 3rd day I couldn’t feel any euphoria anymore just energy, uplifted mood, and slightly buzzed. The buzz being a kind of floaty feeling. Not super floaty, just subtly floating. Im not craving. Im up doing stuff & feeling like I was before I ever touched any drug - except marijuana. So basically feeling like Im 17 again, haha ; ) ..After about a week and a half though, I started to feel like the Suboxone wasn’t working as great. It might have been the after holiday blues, but I started sleeping a lot again. I started feeling somewhat depressed again, was getting cravings, and feeling tired. I know its most likely bc my opiate receptors are now so saturated & I have quickly developed somewhat of a tolerance to Suboxone. Apparently one’s tolerance does develop quickly w Suboxone as it is pretty potent & also bc of how it works on the brain, which Im sure you guys already know. So.. yes it IS still working, but just in my opinion maybe not enough. Bc I am craving and having feelings of sadness & lethargy again. However I am not NEAR as tired or depressed as I was before starting. This is where I cannot decide if Suboxone really is a miracle wonder drug or not. A few days ago I decided on taking less and have been taking 1-2 mg at the start of the day & 1-2 mg at the end of the day. I don’t want my receptors to be overly saturated and my tolerance so high. And I feel just the same taking 2-4 mg a day as I would taking 8 mg a day. Probably even feeling it a little more! Not high, just a little more energetic & all that stuff again. So yea, less really does seem to be more w Suboxone. In my opinion taking 4 mg or less a day is really the best way to go w Suboxone. 2 mg a day seems just as effective as 8mg a day, if not a better. Then every once in a blue moon if you wanna feel a little more than just that “ok” feeling you can up your dose & prob get a little high. I believe this is totally possible. Correct me if Im wrong. It’s something I plan on trying soon ; ) As for the little bit of sadness & lethargy that the Suboxone doesn’t cure, well I plan on getting a therapist & maybe trying acupuncture like Newbie-one suggested ; ) And in the meantime Im making sure to watch as many funny movies possible & laugh as much as I can as well as get lots of sunshine & exercise. I believe that these 3 things – laughter, sunshine, exercise – are vital to one’s happiness. Other than that, Im gonna just try to work through it. All in all, I strongly suggest that you do Suboxone if its something you have been thinking about. It may or may not be the wonder drug many claim it to be but it is way better than you think it is ; )
I forgot to mention how Suboxone works for pain. Well for me, not that great. I have scoliosis and degenerative disc disease. So I would say my pain level has gone from like a 7 to about about a 4 or 5. It is still way better than any OTC pain med though & my best guess? Like taking 2 Norco 10's...maybeee 3
Hey, that's great if you feel better. Way better suboxone than methadone, that's for sure. But you still don't sound like you have any serious interest in quitting, just in not being sick. Suboxone can't quit for you. Cravings are not a result of physical dependence, they are your learned behavior (partly learned because of that dependence, but that doesn't mean they disappear along with it). Pain is a thing, and "pain management" in the US is an authoritarian joke - I know this seriously works against you in even being in a position to want to quit - but weed is a very viable option for pain relief, if you don't have it get a recommendation and look into strains for pain (and for an opiate exit drug). The right stuff can have considerably more painkilling potential than OTC pain meds. It can be especially effective when mixed with aspirin or similar.
Yea I'm glad I didn't go the Methadone route either. I think that would have just created more problems for me rather than make my problems less. A guy at the detox told me that Methadone sinks into your bones. If that's true then FUCK I can't even imagine how horrid the withdrawals must be! Or even just the addiction itself! In a world where there would be an endless supply of Methadone & people NEVER overdosed does it only seem doable I guess what I wrote in my "experience w Suboxone" paragraph was more like a trip report. I kind of wanted to report to readers the way Suboxone made me feel so they could get an idea if they were curious. After all, better to write a trip report for Suboxone than say, Heroin. So then I could inspire people to hop on the Suboxone train & live a better life. What are your feelings on Suboxone? I do think I left out some details though, like what are my plans to do w it, etc. Personally I think it's pretty great. I'm living again. And for the first time in years not at all thinking about suicide. After years of getting sick & feeling hopeless I basically became psychotic. My plans are to stay on it a long time BC 1)My back pain (which it does an okay job helping. Not as good as the Oxy) and 2) I'm an addict. If I stop the Suboxone I will blow all my $$$ buying pills. BC I will be severely depressed again and I'll crave. And I'll be non-functional. The Sub doesn't get me high. It just makes me a functioning human being who can feel happiness again. It really does not get me high at all. That was just the first 3 or 4 days or so. If anything, like I said, I feel its not enough. BC I still get sad & tired. But then again its not near as bad as it was without Sub (sad, tired). I can almost entirely function again without being high. And. Ofcourse, BC I'm an addict, I'm going to play around w my doses every once in a while to see if I can get high. Weed is an okay option that helps w certain types of pain for me. Never felt it really worked for my back pain but I'll try it again. The problem is I can't smoke weed any place other than home cus it makes me really paranoid if I go out. More so when I'm alone. If I'm alone & outside while "high" on weed I get extremely paranoid and scared. Also if I'm high on just weed and not on anything else, no Sub, not even Diphenhydramine allergy pills, & I'm at home I just fall right to sleep. So it feeds into the tired, depressed, sleeping alot cycle. It is good on top of the Sub though for a little extra added pain relief & anti-anxiety/calming effect. what do you mean when you say "pain (or "pain relief"...sry on my phone can't see) in the US is an authoritarian joke?"
^^^ wow I wrote alot for being on my phone. Wanted to add that another amazing thing the Sub has done for me is really help w the sweating part. I used to sweat unbelievable amounts while addicted to Oxy. It was so fuckin gross =/ Even after weeks of being off it I would still sweat alot. I hated it so much. So uncomfortable!!! But since starting Suboxone I don't sweat profusely or just abnormally at all anymore. I did get a few sweating episodes in my sleep at first but I think that was due to my needing to dose again. Like I maybe took 2mg at 9 pm and then went to bed at 4 am. BC when you first start taking Suboxone it doesn't last the full 24 hrs. It has to do some building up in you or something like that. I do wonder why I would sweat so much even a month or more after going without opies though. It felt just so dirty and uncomfortable..and frustrating. AND embarrassing! Going out being around people n sweating like that
I'm glad you found something that helps. Hopefully over time you can gradually taper off of it. Yeah, Methadone isn't the way to go. The thing is, it's very potent and has a long half-life, up to 36 hours. So if you take it every day it tends to build up in your system. It can be lethal. Also, the long half-life results in a very long wd period. When coming off Hydro the worst is over in a week or less. For Methadone, the wd's may go on for a month. The only benefits I see for it would be that you can obtain it legally without having to mess with a street dealer and possibly avoid disease by using dirty needles. It sounds like you've got things to keep your mind busy, so you should do ok.
I have been on suboxone since August 4, 2008...was actually in a legitimate dr for first 5 years. Started at 16 mg a day (which anything past 8-10 is a waste), an by the time he retired 5 yrs later, I was on 8... Because of the bureaucracy that goes along with these programs, I chose to purchase them on the street, so to speak, after that....no way I am going thru another IOP or AA program...and yes, it helps my pain immensely. I have spinal stenosis, degenerative disc disease and 6, (yes fucking 6) bulging discs. 2 in my neck and 4 in my lower. I have bad days still where I can't get out of bed because my back is out for absolutely no fucking reason, but it happened more when I was prescribed fentanyl .... My point is that I have maintained 1-2 mg per day for a few years and have 0 craving for anything else, I do not get a buzz off of it, I never want to take more than (self) prescribed. It saved my life. Period.
