I was on Suboxone for 5+ years. I jumped off cold turkey at 8mg. I only had slight W/D after the 3rd day. My hands and feet sweat but that was about it. I felt pretty good besides the sweats. It wasn't until day 14 that I got really sick. I had about 10 days of hell. Cold sweats, crawling skin, hot/cold at the same time, extreme fatigue, restless legs, aches, and I was running a temperature.

My Blood Pressure was really high. Thankfully my Doctor called in a prescription of Catapris and it helped a lot. It's a blood pressure medication and I'd recommend people look into it if they are about to get off Opiates. Seroquel and Catapris allowed me to get 2-4 hours a sleep a night. Which made a big difference in my morale. I hardly slept or ate, I hardly moved except to use the bathroom, get water, and go to meetings. The more active you are the easier it is, but crawling out of bed can feel like the hardest thing you'll ever do.

It is totally doable. If I can get off it after being on it for 5 years, you can too. I have been off Suboxone for a month and I feel better everyday, still have very mild W/D, but its very manageable. If anyone has a question shoot me a PM or post here.

thanks for the encouraging post, i have been on suboxone for about 6 years, first 16mg a day and now i have gotten down to about 3mg a day. My brother has been on it also for several years and recently he ran out at a time when his dr was unreachable and i was out of town and he had no other options but to cold turkey it. He was taking 8mg and when he knew he was about to run out he took 4mg then next day 2mg then next day 1mg then quit. He was in pretty bad wd days 4-7, then day 8 started feeling better mentally although physically not too good still. But he said once he started to feel some positives mentally it gave him the encouragement to know he was getting better and would definately not go back. Now day 14 and he says all wd are pretty much gone aside form some lost sleep but thats getting much better also. He did have some antidepressants and muscle relaxers that he thinks helped alot. This is really encouraging to me and im thinking about tapering from 3mg where i am now to 1mg or so over next week and quitting myself. I have read horror stories and hope this story encourages some of you and gives you the motivation you need to get through this.

Trying to ween
 

Hey guys. I've been on subs for 4 years now and desperately want to stop. I starting weening over a two week period and felt fine. After 3 days with no subs I starting to feel horrible. Night 5 was the worst for me. Now in on night 6 and again I felt so bad I had to take a quarter of one tab. My question is do you think this means I have to start all over. And the other is on what day could you really feel yourself getting better

Anthonator, kudos to you getting yourself clean. Just a couple of post ago from Dispatches on 4-26-12. Notice he/she didn't even go into major withdrawals until day 14. So the day you start feeling better really is the day you start feeling better. Depends on how long and how much you've dosed. Also age and physical condition. You know, it's going to depend. How's that for vague. Get with your doctor. The doc will give you a taper program, which flexibility can be agreed to. It's not set in stone. Possibly on averages of success.

However you did go 6 days clean into withdrawals and took a quarter(2mgs). No you do not have to start all over from my experience. Now you know your threshold. At least you had a reserve. So many here feel they have to flush everything and go C/T to get out of this. Putting themselves in dangerous situations. Many try to work, drive, take care of there kids, trying to live normal, while going through extreme withdrawals. It's not necessary in IMO.

For me it's been slow taper, skipping as many days as possible, dosing the lowest dose, until able to function without it. If that's not possible or maybe like some, who prefer withdrawals believing the agony will serve as prevention. I read a blog on here from dragonfire613, who gives a day by day quitting C/t.Check that out. Anyway Best to you and good luck in your recovery.

struggling with suboxone
 

I am down to 0.3 mg of suboxone and I'm having trouble turning this over to my HP. I've been on it off and on for 5 years, most recently for 20 months. I am very active in NA and I'm working more of a program than I ever have before. I have 14 months clean (not counting suboxone). I fear the sleeplessness and restless legs more than anything. Any advice? Is it all in my head at this point?

...

Casey 3 I'm trying to figure out the same thing. I tapered down to 2 mg every other day. My sub free days are no walk in the park but it's not anything I can't handle either. I hear I should just be able to stop, but I can't yet. I'm too scared of life with nothing after 10 years of drugs.

My Suboxone Experience
 

Good Afternoon Everyone,

I have to tell you my Suboxone story. I hope you all learn something from it. Feel free to comment. I'll try and keep this short.

I hurt my back severely in the summer of 2011 and then re-injured it in 2012. Those two injuries, along with severe degenerative arthritis led to me being in very severe pain. I have 2 herniated disks in my lower back, and 2 bulging disks. I went to a pain management Dr., and was put on oxy 10mg 3x day. That lasted about 2 months, then I was upped to oxy 15mg 4xday and morphine 15mg ER 1xnight to sleep. I was on that for about 6 months. Then I ended up needing more. Went up to oxy 30mg 7x day at the worst for about 4 months. After weaning myself back down to about 150mg oxy day I went to my family Dr. and confessed my problem. He referred me to a Suboxone Doc. I went to see him on a Wednesday. I had 2 30mg oxy's left. He told me he could not write the prescription for a date earlier then FRIDAY, so I knew it would be a rough couple of days. So I waited as long as I could until I needed to take something to ward off withdrawal. I took 1/2 of one 30 mg that night, took another 1/2 Thursday morning. Took a quarter at 10:00AM, and then another 1/4 at 2:00, then another 1/4 at 7:00 and a bunch of sleeping pills to go to sleep. Withdrawal was REALLY bad at this point, about a 16 on the COW scale. Friday morning I woke up about 5:00AM and was in ROUGH shape. I had heard about precipitated withdrawal, and was TERRIFIED of it, but I was at least a 20 on the COW scale by now, so I took my last 1/4 oxy (7.5 mg) and called in to work telling them I would be in at lunch because I wasn't feeling well. I drove to the pharmacy at 8:00 and dropped off my prescription and waited the 15 minutes for it to get filled. I went into my car in the parking lot and ripped off a small, 2mg piece and put it under my tongue. Nothing. Nothing happened. I waited 1 hour of nothing happening and ripped off another 2 mg and put it under my tongue. Nothing again. Still felt the same. So I waited another hour and ripped another 2mg piece off and put it under my tongue. About 15 minutes later it was like a light switch came back on! I felt NORMAL. No withdrawal anymore. No sickness. Just felt Happy. No euphoria, but Happy. A warm, satisfying feeling of normalcy. It was awesome.

I have been on it for 3 weeks now, and will be off of it by the end of next week. You can do it. It is worth it.

Thanks and God Bless.

TJ, thank you for sharing your story. Very huge for me right now.
My wife has been on subs for about 3 years and has gone cold turkey. Working on her 4th day. Very sad watching what she is going through. In order to relax, she makes herself a couple "stiff" drinks. Not the safest thing to do but, it seems to be ok.
After reading other posts, my nerves have calmed down a bit.

coming off of subboxone
 

I started taking subboxone about 2 1/2 yrs ago. I started off on 16mg a day n worked my way down to 1mg a day. This is now my 4th day not taking anything n I really feel crappy. Can't sleep, body aches, cold chills and hot flashes. I thought about going to my family dr to see if he could give me aything to ease the w/d symptoms. Is there anything he can give me???

almost went the suboxone route....
 

Definitely do yourself a favor and taper slowly.

When i decided to get clean off of methadone, my psychiatrist gave me 2 options. Suboxone or a long monitored taper. I had already taken myself down to about 25-30 mgs. Per day but needed help for the rest.

Doc said the suboxone could put me into instant withdrawals and that scared me enough that i decided to try the taper, which ultimately worked but looking back, i wonder if it would've been the better choice as i almost couldn't complete the methadone taper. That was a rough one.

I think tapering is the always the best bet over going cold turkey.

Yes it can be done!
 

Hello,
Just wanted to tell my story also.. I started out on suboxone a year and 3 months ago at 24mgs a day. Then my doc started to cut me down little by little until a couple months ago to 2mg strips a day. I could never help myself and would always take more than prescribed which was a big problem. I finally got tired of taking them and didn't want to go back to the doc. So 2 weeks and 3 days ago I took the jump from 12mgs a day! Which was huge! I don't recommend anyone do that because the pain was almost unbearable. Days 4-10 were terrible but not I don't feel so bad. My legs still ache and I can't sleep that good, but I swear it is the best thing I ever did. I didn't know if I could take it or even make it through but I did even when I could get some more if I wanted. So for the people out there that think they can't do it... You can!! You just have to put your mind to it and tell yourself that you have to!!

Good to know
 

I've been on subs for a little over a year now, I started with 8mg a day and tapered down to 2mg. I recently moved and have ran out of my medication. I had no idea how intense or how long this detox would take. Today was day 7, I felt I would loose my mind. I'm a college student with a part time job in neuro research, my addiction has been kept secret. It was so hard to function this week, the sweats, shivers, aches, and frequent trips to the bathroom are testing my sanity and making me feel worthless. Today I decided to clean up the house a little, I came across a piece of sub I had long since forgot about.. I took it. It was probably about a milligram.. I hate myself. I fear the process will start all over again and I am in tears right now wondering how I will get through this. It seems never-ending. I'm so uncomfortable in my own skin, I can feel myself starting to panic. Your story is encouraging, I just hope I'm strong enough. Is there anything u can do to make it more manageable? I've been taking hot baths when I can, I tried taking meds to help me sleep but they just made me more tired, when I do fall asleep I wake up after about an hour or two.. How did u get through the days? Did u find ways to function and sleep? Any advice would help.

Thanks for listening, Cortney

It is going to suck for a little while longer, theres no getting around it. But you can do it. Last night I actually slept for about 6 hours which was great. Just stick it out and you will feel better after a couple weeks. What did I do to make it more manageable.. I took some vitamins, drank cranberry juice and def took really hot showers. That helped relax me some. I haven't taken any sleeping pills or such like some people say because I have a job where my attention is a must at all times. The days were long at first but by day 12 I started to feel better. Of course my stomach and legs were hurting still but I just told myself I had to do this.. I wanted it so bad. You have to want it so bad that you'll take the pain. I only slept a couple hours for the first couple weeks too but I drank some coffee when I got up and forced myself. Walking really helped my legs I can tell you from my experience. Good luck Cortney!! You can do it!! If I can jump from 12mgs a day to nothing, you can def do it!!

ive read most of the posts on this thread but im just wondering how many people that are coming off subox are still able to go to work while they are .and when i say work i mean labor physical work and mental. my job isnot exstreamly hard every day but most of the time it is .i normaly take about 1/6 of a strip a day ,but sometimes a little more ,but never more than a 1/4 .i have been on it for 2yrs and never took more than a 1/2 a day since on it .i have tried to quit a couple of times but always end up take some agian because i cant work without it .im going to try to take a smaller dose and see how that goes for awhile .but i cant aford to miss work so it scares me to think about how im going to do my job .how long will i be sick if im on a small dose for awhile or will it matter?

I came to this site about a year and a half ago when I was searching what it was like to come off Suboxone. After reading all the posts here, I was absolutely terrified and anxiously anticipated the final days of my taper and the days to follow. And guess what? NOTHING HAPPENED. I was fine!!