Author: Diary of a Quitter
Posted: Sat Sep 24, 2011 1:29 pm
| Bboy42287 wrote: |
| But hear me out whether you detox of methadone or suboxone it is going to be hell no matter which drug you are on. But if you switch to suboxone you are going to have to go through that hell not once but twice. Because you will have to detox for a day or two off the methadone to start the suboxone and with how long it’s half life is who knows how long it might take for you to get sick enough to start Suboxone. |
This is totally not true. Quite a few of us have detoxed off Suboxone without going through "hell." And at the OP’s low methadone dose, I doubt that he will have to wait that long between his last methadone dose and induction onto Suboxone.
CompLitDoc – I think you will find many different opinions about switching from methadone to Suboxone. I encourage you to read through some of the stories in the Stopping Suboxone section of the forum. We have had several members successfully quit Suboxone by tapering down to a really low (microgram) dose over a long period of time. We have also had members do a quicker taper as a way to detox off of full-agonist opiates.
Some of us had an easier time of it than others, but all of us experienced at least some withdrawal. I think the people who reported the least amount of withdrawal and PAWS were the ones who tapered really slowly and exercised a LOT at the same time. But in all my time as a member and moderator here, I don’t recall anyone who got on Suboxone for 100 days and then just easily stopped because their receptors were somehow healed.
I think some healing can occur during the tapering process, as you force your body to start producing it’s own endorphins again. And some healing must occur because you are not constantly reinforcing the response-reward circuit in the brain by being triggered, getting high and going through withdrawals constantly.
Nevertheless, you are the best judge of your own situation. You’ve been on methadone for a long time and if you really think that you’re unable to continue tapering then maybe it is time for something new. I do wonder though how drastically you were reducing your dose as you got down around 5mgs? I ask because the inspiration for my Suboxone taper came from information about tapering from methadone – mainly that once you get to really low doses, the recommened drop would be like 10% of your dose every 2-4 weeks. So if you’re on 7mgs you would drop to 6.3mgs and that should be tolerable. Then you repeat when you’ve adjusted to the new dose, dropping to 5.7mgs, etc.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that maybe you could just finish your methadone taper if you take it slower. I know it is tedious as hell, but that’s how a lot of us have gotten off of Suboxone. It took me over 4 months just to go from 1mg of Suboxone to 0.2mgs, which is where I quit. Whatever you decide to do please feel free to use us for support along the way. Good luck!
