Hey all,

Just have a few questions and concerns as Im 2 days away from starting my sub treatment. First i guess one thing Ild like to state is that Im gonna be at about 60 hours of withdrawal instead of the 72 hours. Is this a HUGE deal? Is it still possible to make it thru by that time successfully? Only reason its not the 72 hours is because of the appointment was that day or I had to go all weekend without any help. So on this thursday at 3:30pm I have my first appointment to start the treatment. My next question is on those nights in order to sleep is it ok if i take valium? this is the only med I have to help me sleep those wonderful cold sweat/leg kicking nights. I have about 10 5mg generic valiums. I never took valium with methadone so I dont have a benzo/methadone addiction. Im actually on level6 at the clinic and get 2 week takehomes. Anyway I guess so far to sum this text up my 2 questions would be.....

1. Is it still possible to make the jump to Suboxone successfully if its not the full 72 and only about 60 hours? If not is there anything I can do to help make my withdrawal worse like forcefully run to sweat some stuff out?

and

2. Can I take valium on the 2-3 nights while going thru withdrawal?


any help/ insights are hugely appreciate as im pretty scared and nervous but also a bit excited to make this jump.

[Robert_325]

If you take valium while in w/d no one can judge the severity of your w/d so no you don't take ANYTHING. You need to be at a minimum score of a 26 on the COWS (clinical opioid w/d scale) worksheet. Here is a link to the worksheet and how I suggest using subs. If you want my help let me know. God bless.

sub therapy
http://www.drugs.com/forum/featured-...apy-50887.html

COWS worksheet
http://www.suboxone.com/pdfs/OWR.pdf

First off thank you sir.

By the time I had read your post it was already the next morning of my 2nd day of detox. I had used valium that night to try and sleep and it didnt work. Which in all honesty really suprised me. I am now at this point a Zombie on the morning of my suboxone day. 3:30 today is when the appointment is. I know ill make it... its just hard when you cant sit still, have chills, yawn constantly, and just generally feel like a slug...etc. Im sure ya know what im talking about. I have been really nervous of the possibility of going into the hyper-withdrawals or whatever they are called. But its hard to imagine feeling worse then this. Who knows right? Methadone is such a rediculously strong long lasting drug. Its crazy that I didnt feel like i was in full WD until basically this morning. Either way wish me luck.

Hey Robert or anyone else with suboxone knowledge. I have successfully made the switch to sub and am beyond thrilled that Methadone is out of my life. I am trying to get stabilized at 8 mg atm. Because of the rediculous damage methadone has done to my body it has been hard to know when to take it. I guess what I mean is I have no idea how long lasting this drug is. Say I do get stablized at 8mg is it better to take 4mg when I wake up and then the other 4mg later on in the evening? Or should I take the 8mg when I wake up because it will last all day?

thanks for your help.

Chris

[Robert_325]

Take it 4mg twice a day. That's it.

[bev49]

Im really really happy the induction worked for you, cbm. I was kinda nervous about the 60 hour thing. Every ones body is different. I also switched from many years on meth to sub. My transition was smooth. You shouldnt even feel the drops. Sub has a half life as long as methadone. It stays in your system awhile but still, its suggested as a 2x a day drug. I take mine once a because im used to taking methadone that way but 2x a day makes it easier at the end. I would say don't go up in dose and don't stay on too long. They say if you get off within a certain time frame, its almost a piece of cake. Good luck to you!

Im really really happy the induction worked for you, cbm. I was kinda nervous about the 60 hour thing. Every ones body is different. I also switched from many years on meth to sub. My transition was smooth. You shouldnt even feel the drops. Sub has a half life as long as methadone. It stays in your system awhile but still, its suggested as a 2x a day drug. I take mine once a because im used to taking methadone that way but 2x a day makes it easier at the end. I would say don't go up in dose and don't stay on too long. They say if you get off within a certain time frame, its almost a piece of cake. Good luck to you!

Thank you very much. Yea to be honest it was about 57 hours from my last dose. But because i was coming down fast to get to the destination of 30 mg the methadone dose literally had me in w/d that day. So it was about 4 bad days for me. Either way I couldnt be happier now that I am off methadone. The first thing I noticed was now when I walk outside and its hot I dont start sweating within 5 seconds. And the methadone weight is coming off too. anyway..thank you for your help. God Bless.

[intelmetal]

cmb572, I am so happy for you ! Making the switch is huge. You are quite possibly on your way to being 100% clean in the near future ! If you did well tapering down on the methadone so fast, I think you will do well tapering off the subs. I was on very high doses of methadone for years and am now CLEAN. I switched over to subs in May 2009, and finished up July 19, 2009. It took me 75 days to taper from 8mgs per day to ZERO. I consumed just under 22 8mg subs total, for the entire deal. I still have ( actually my wife has ) 23 8mg subs left over, which I need to flush down the john. If you are interested in how my progress went, locate my thread " Intelmetal's own thread ", there is some good info on it.
Talk to you later. Good Luck !
Steve

cmb572, I am so happy for you ! Making the switch is huge. You are quite possibly on your way to being 100% clean in the near future ! If you did well tapering down on the methadone so fast, I think you will do well tapering off the subs. I was on very high doses of methadone for years and am now CLEAN. I switched over to subs in May 2009, and finished up July 19, 2009. It took me 75 days to taper from 8mgs per day to ZERO. I consumed just under 22 8mg subs total, for the entire deal. I still have ( actually my wife has ) 23 8mg subs left over, which I need to flush down the john. If you are interested in how my progress went, locate my thread " Intelmetal's own thread ", there is some good info on it.
Talk to you later. Good Luck !
Steve

Thank you very much. I also wanna get off the subs relatively soon but my doc and mother think I should stabilize because were moving back to the area where my drug use first started. See how I am there for a month or 2 and then take it from there. What do ya think? I dont think itll be the end of the world...Every persons case is different ya know. Who knows....

Either way ty and God bless

[purpledog]

hey cmb. lucky you, good one. i made the jump from methadone and got it wrong and went into a narly withdrawl. but after a few days i was ok in the end.
you have noticed weightloss already?? how long has it been.
ive been on subs now for 9 weeks today exactly, and i have dropped from 12mg, down to 2.5mg.
everyone is different, but i wouldnt hang around too long on the stuff, and i know how hard it is to come off methadone, done it once before, and silly me got back in again.
but i have not noticed any of the drops on subs and thats what everyone told me. so stabilize but dont sit too long would be this kiwi's advice.
hope all goes well for you

yay, i for sure have no methadone left im me. it takes a bit before it gets out ya know. and i have noticed my motivation has come back and thats great, i am no longer a lazy nodding off fool, who thinks its all good to do f all on the couch after work. now im working on my garden instead of doing drugs and im lovin it. its gonna reward me bigtime and it makes me feel good.
hope you can find something else as well, subs make you practice feeling normal before you really are. heh heh

goodluck
purpledog

[bev49]

kiwi, i would love to see a picture of the beautiful garden you talk about so often. I googled where you live and my god, the flowers and trees, just beautiful. Where I live its all about hte concrete .
CMB, I agree that it probably isn't very wise to stay on too long. Like methadone, it will definitely hook you and then you have more to deal with getting off. I'm almost done but have been on quite a while. I am bringing it down to the smallest possible crumbs and hope to succeed. You know you and what you can handle. Good luck!!

[kindwon]

@intelmetal

Originally Posted by intelmetal

I still have ( actually my wife has ) 23 8mg subs left over, which I need to flush down the john.

Don't flush 'em. Protect the health of the nation. Water treatment plants have a ********** of a time getting chemicals and medication out of our drinking water. Crush them up and mix with coffee grounds or something vile and throw them in the garbage. Future generations will commend you!

[bev49]

Good thinking kindon. My husband was an engineer for NYC Dept of Environmental Protection and worked in water treatment plants and was involved with water purification. It's a whole big deal, purifying the water, harder because of all the ******** we flush and dump.. Good for you. This post was SMART !!

[intelmetal]

cmb572, I do not recommend staying at 8mgs for that long. After you feel stable at that dose, you should reduce your dose by 25% to 6mgs per day. When you get stable at 6mgs, reduce to 4.5mgs and so on. It usually takes about 4 days for the half life to catch up, that is why it is common to reduce every 4 -5 days. I personally would go a little faster early on, as the drops are not that noticeable at the higher doses. When you get down to 2mgs or less you might have too make some adjustments ( percentage drop, days at a given dose, etc. ). Stay in touch so we can make some suggestions.
We are here to help.
Steve

[intelmetal]

kindwon, I will not flush any medication down the toilet, it was just a figure of speech. I know better than that, but thanks for posting it here for everyone to see ! I am also a concerned citizen and hate polluters.
Steve

Hey All,

First off thanks for all of your support and kind words. I agree with getting off it fast. The only problem im having at the moment is that when I wake up I feel pretty ********py till I take the sub. But I figure that wont be so bad once I stabilize.

I put on about 40 pounds of methadone weight. Weight that I gained on methadone and weight that I for the life of me couldn't lose on methadone. I put in more then a Month of running every single day and eating like 1k calories if that... a day. I lost 3 pounds and then couldnt lose anymore. It was insane. I even got my thyroid tested to see if maybe it was that. It wasn't...In fact my thyroid was more on the faster side of being normal then slow. So making the switch to suboxone has helped me in that area as well. I lost about 12 right away from the withdrawal stage and have seen a few more drop since. I havent even started working out yet either. So I have high hopes for losing it all and getting back to the 175 I was a few years back....although I would be thrilled if i even got below 200 pounds at this point. Although I really think its possible now that Im off of methadone. I dont know what it is about methadone that doesnt allow you to lose weight...(my doctor explained it to me and so did my counselor but i forget sorry...lol)

So all in all heres to sobriety and losing weight!

May God be with you.