Let me just add ... everyone is different, but in my particular case, I was abusing oxys to the tune of 50-80 percs worth of oxycodone a day for well over three years (with years before of off and on vike and perc 'recreational use'.
Once my world crumbled around me completely, I moved to a family house in the mountains, and I switched over to subs (a condition of my residence there). I started at 16mg/day, did that for the first couple weeks, then dropped to 12mg/day for about 4 months. Then I dropped to 8mg/day for about a month. Then I dropped to 4mg/day for another month, then to 2mg/day for the last month.
At no point did I have any real discomfort from the reduced dosages, although at 2mg/day, by the time 20 hours or so rolled around, I started getting 'antsy' for my next dose, I'll admit
I also had my aunt living nearby, who helped me by holding my pills once I got down to 4mg/day. I doubt I would've pulled off the taper on my own, to be totally honest.
I then stepped off at 2mg, after a total of 7 months on Subs. It took about 72hrs before I was in full-blown w/d's. These lasted about 4 days where they were pretty bad. If I hadn't been under mommy's lock and key, with no car, no money, and completely dependent on my mom for financial support, I probably would not have made it through the worst of it. It got pretty bad for awhile, mainly due to the lack of sleep.
On day 6, after not sleeping for 3 nights, I started bawling and told my mom I needed to go to the doc for some comfort meds. She agreed, I went to my sub doc, and he gave me clonidine, neurontin, and ambien to sleep. I used these, over the following 2-3 weeks, exactly as prescribed. I can tell you that pretty much as soon as I started taking these, I felt WAY better. I finally got to sleep on night 6, and woke up on day 7 feeling like a MILLION TIMES better than I had the day before. I was probably at 80% of normal by day 7.
From that point on, no matter what niggling effects hung around, I was pretty much ecstatic that I wasn't feeling like I had been for those four bad days. I can honestly say I've almost never felt 'depressed' again ever since those days, almost 2 years ago. And that's cause I KNOW what really being 'depressed' feels like, and whenever I feel a bit down, I think back on those days, and it makes me feel like 'things ain't that bad' ... pretty quickly.
It did take a solid month to really return to normal, but I really never felt 'bad' again after the first week. It was just that weird combination of fatigue and jitters that comes from too much adrenaline and not enough endorphins, insomnia, the runs, and some mild nagging aches and pains.
I also started on AA and NA meeting on day 3 of my withdrawals, and went nearly every day for the first few months (note: this means, in the WORST of my W/D's, my ass was parked at meetings every one of those days!). This was a HUGE help to me. I read lots of recovery literature, started praying (just cuz I was told to do so, not cause I really believe in fairy tale beings-in-the-sky ... but I do believe in doing what you're told to do by the wise folk at AA/NA!), and really tried to 'walk the recovery walk'. I got a temporary sponsor, a good friend who's been clean via AA/NA since 1/1/2000, and talked to him often.
Bottom-line, despite a long stint abusing large amounts of opioids, and being on subutex for 7 months, I never had anything like what one would call PAWS. Like I say, after about a week, I felt about 80%, and after a month I was at about 95%, and at 100% after about 6 weeks (that's how long the mild insomnia drug out for).
My experience, along with the experiences of many others I've talked to and read about, leads me to conclude that the PAWS is at least partly a function of failing to properly taper down to a low dosage of Subs before quitting them.
Also, PAWS can most definitely happen to people who've never even taken subutex or methadone, but have instead just come off of oxys or heroin directly.
Anyways, as I say, find a way to taper down nice and low before you quit, and I don't think any of you ladies are going to suffer from PAWS. None of you did the kind of abuse I did before I started subs, and I never got 'em, so y'all should be aiight. In your case Tish, I think the tapering is especially important, cause you've been on subs for so long...
Take Care
