Author: tearj3rker
Posted: Wed Nov 23, 2011 1:17 am
This has been an ongoing issue for me and my. I’ll try to paint a picture.
When I was on methadone, every few weeks I would start to feel like my dose wasn’t working, that it wasn’t "holding me" like it once was. I’d tell my doctor at my monthly appointment, and my dose would be raised by around 10mg. I’d start treatment on around 60mg, and end up on 100mg+.
I chose Suboxone this time because I felt it didn’t have the same problems, at least nowhere near as bad. I’ve been on it over a year now, starting on 6mg, then shortly after going to 8mg. A couple of months later I noticed I was waking up with mild withdrawals, aches in the legs, goosebumps, and I hated getting out of the shower, and was slow to get going. My doc then split my dose, morning and evening. I actually relapsed and used heroin, and found it worked to fill these "gaps" between doses. Eventually it took over though, but I managed to pull up and get on with life.
So my dose got bumped from 8mg to 12mg, and it has been fine for a few months. Apart from the hiccups in the middle of my liver treatment, I’ve been withdrawal free. Until the last couple of weeks. Again I’ve started waking up with aches, goosebumps and shivers. It’s quite mild, but it definitely makes me very slow, and it effects how my day goes. I then have to lug myself to the pharmacy to get my morning dose, but withdrawal does make me lazy. Also these withdrawals between doses have started to make me "look forward" to my Suboxone in a similar way to looking forward to heroin. It can’t be healthy.
My issue is thus. I could increase my dose to fix me up again, but it will probably be a matter of time before this happens again. There is some fear that for me, Suboxone possibly like methadone in how the dose climbs over time, only it happens much slower.
I also plan to taper at some stage, and if my dose climbs to 32mg, that will be a much harder task.
Fortunately, even with my morning withdrawals, I haven’t wanted to use at all. I was even getting some Viet food on the local heroin strip and I didn’t even notice the dealers. So something bigger has shifted in me. But even still, I don’t know what to do. Should I increase my dose and become a sexual recluse, but withdrawal free? Or stay on this dose and hope that I will eventually adjust?
It’s a difficult one, really.
