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Posted: May 31, 2017, 4:46 PM
I am on Day 24 of NO Suboxone. Had 3 back surgeries throughout the 1970's then suffered from lots of pain during my late 40's. I am now mid-50's. Took Norco during late 40's until I was 52 realizing I was addicted. I was running out of my Rx early then buying them from friends. I was afraid I was going to accidentally OD which would devastate my family so I came "clean" with my husband and family, sought addiction treatment - got on Suboxone along with out-patient treatment. Stayed on Suboxone for 2 years and 3 months. Toward the end of my Suboxone use I was down to the 4/1 sublingual strips, tapering off slowly because I wanted to get off of it. I went into FULL BLOWN withdrawals and even on Day 24 now I still feel so sick it is unbelievable!!!! I had to miss a full week of work then have struggled coming to work the last 2 weeks. I have forced myself back to the gym but cannot believe I still feel as sick and as bad as I do. I almost wish I had never gotten off the Suboxone. I really feel so sick I just wish I was dead so this would be over. Nothing I do helps. Any suggestions or encouragement that this is soon going to be over would be so much appreciated!!!
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Posted: May 31, 2017, 6:18 PM
Hi there. That's awesome you have that many days clean! More than I have done. I'm almost off them Subs. I would think there's no turning back now. From what I hear from people your almost there. Keep going your strong you've proven that from so many daýs clean. How are you holding how?
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Posted: May 31, 2017, 10:19 PM
Congratulations on you clean days. It takes along time for our bodies and brain to heal from all the abuse. Stay strong and I promise you in time it gets better. One pill to many thousand never enough. Stay strong for today..
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Posted: June 1, 2017, 1:15 PM
Half-way through Day 25. I keep thinking "if my headaches will just go away ... if I could just have some energy." These are the 2 remaining withdrawal/recovering side effects. People ask me how I do it and my answer is that I JUST KEEP PUSHING THROUGH!! I have a huge network of support - including my boss and co-workers (I am in a professional position and am thankful I've been able to hang on to my job - I was very honest from the beginning). I cannot wait until I hit the 30 day mark - it is my hope that at least either the headaches will be gone or I will finally have some energy. I don't eat exactly like I should but when it's all you can do to get up, get ready for work and make it through the day, you have to cut yourself some slack. I've been downing the carbs but also eating my daily amount of fruit. And, lots of water!! Now, if I could just incorporate some veggies - maybe that's where I can get rid of these 2 remaining side effects. I have also just now gone back to the gym which isn't easy. I have to push myself. The mind is a powerfully amazing tool if you will just push yourself. If you are struggling with Suboxone withdrawals or are getting ready to go off Suboxone, the best advice I can give you is to make sure you have at least 1 person, if not many, who will support you through it because this is BY FAR the hardest thing I've ever done. Even at Day 25, I still feel like crap and think "this would all be over if I just went back on the Suboxone." But, like the pills, I want off the merry-go-round bad enough. You HAVE TO WANT IT. YOU HAVE TO FIGHT FOR IT. You CAN DO IT!!!
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Posted: June 1, 2017, 6:05 PM
You can do it you are doing it. By far the hardest thing I have ever done. My two cents I to was waiting for that magical day 30,60,90 ugh awful. 6 months in I was clean, excersing eating healthy. No caffeine or sugars it triggers our natural Dopamine,they say the first year be mindful. I was doing all this alone other than message board's few friends and family. All the way through 6 months every one kept telling I needed a support group,NA, I fought it the whole way til the last month. I'm just a few days shy of 7 months and I can tell you if you work it it works. I'm actually not feeling lonely, depressed,but I'm happy each day, I'm finally sleeping. So if this helps just one person suffering from this Disease, Addiction... Stay strong for today...
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Posted: July 13, 2017, 6:43 PM
To the person that created this post, I feel your pain and have felt your pain. I don't know what compelled me to come on this msg board but here I am. I am someone who was on subs for over 2 years 2mg/8mg tab a day. Unlike most, I didn't have a heroin addiction or an O/C addiction but did have a Percocet/Vicodin addiction. I was taking about 10 vikes a day and started taking multiple perc 30's there after.
It started out when I hurt my back and being out of work for 2 1/2 months and being on p/k's for a couple years. After a while I didn't realize at the time but my back was a lot better but I kept telling myself that I was in pain. I didn't realize that the pills had taken over my logical/realistic sense of thought. After being on and off the painkillers for probably 10 years, I decided I wanted to stop. I even told my dr that I think I may have an issue & that I didn't think it was a good idea to prescribe me the pills anymore. He gave ,e one last script as a taper down prescription. The problem was, if I had the pills, I wasnt gonna taper......and I didn't. Well lucky for me (I thought) I had someone I knew that had a much worse addiction than mine and was taking suboxone for the withdrawals. I had quit in the past for a short time and I had a difficult time with the w/d's and maintaining a 9-5 job and putting on my happy face. So I decided that I would take suboxone to help with withdrawals. I had taken it twice in the past but a very small amount but it had helped unbelievably with the restless leg syndrome which to me was possibly the worst of all the symptoms. Well here I was getting off of the p/k's and I was on the road to recovery. Then, after a while, I found myself now needing the subs to keep those w/d's away......and I was also enjoying the way it made me feel which I didn't notice the first go-around. At first, a strip would last me 3-4 days. After a couple months I was up to a half a strip a day. After a few more months, I found myself wanting/needing it more often to the point where I was up to a full strip a day and it was increasing in small amounts. Fast forward about a year and I was needing at least a full tab per day otherwise, my mood started to change. I became irritable and whenever things didn't go my way, I pop another little piece in. After a couple years of being on subs, I decided that it was time to stop. My girlfriend and I had discussed the possibility of getting married soon and she didn't know. One day, I couldn't connect with who supplied me. I was jonesing. He went away for the weekend and I was completely out. I must e called or texted him 20 times trying to find out where he was. I would e driven to another state to get a strip if I just knew where he was. After the weekend and being unbelievably miserable for all of it, I made the decision that I was going to just keep going. I mean, I made it thru the first few days right? The worst of it was over right? Oh my oh my how wrong I was. On day 4, I called in to work sick. I couldn't function never,I don't the fact that I hadn't slept in 3 nites. My connect called me and said he was sorry that he didn't let me know and that we could meet up. I took a deep breath and told him "no"....."I'm gonna quit." He said good for you (in a non-sarcastic manner) and told me he was there if I needed him (that if I got weak, he'd hook me up) I was sick to my stomach. I did not know much about this drug when I decided to self prescribe it and let me tell you, I wish I had. Days 5 & 6 were a nightmare and still hadn't slept. Sweating, somewhat comatose to the outside world and sleep deprived, I was miserable. I decided to start doing some heavy researching and found these forums. I had read how long this can last and about PAWS. I was petrified. By the way, after calling in sick on a Monday, I called in sick the rest of the week as well. I figured after the weekend, maybe I'd feel a bit better. Day 7, things seemed a bit brighter for lack of a better term and I was like "finally, the pivoting point". And then day 8 came. Monday morning and time to go to work.....but I still hadn't slept. I literally couldn't motivate myself to get out of bed to go to work so I called in and said I still felt horrible and thought I had pneumonia & that I was going to the dr that day to find out what was wrong. I proceeded to call in sick every day that week as well. I dealt with the public and had to be "happy" 90% of the time at my job & happy wasn't an emotion I knew anymore. The following Monday came.....and by the way, still hadn't slept. That's right, no sleep at all. Not even a 20 minute doze off. Everything was feeling surreal & trying to sleep was a nightmare itself. The RLS was horrendous and I can't overstate that enough. The following Monday I went into work. I sat at me desk and just stared into the abyss. I was there for 10 minutes and it felt like I was there for 10 hours. People were asking me how I felt and I couldn't tell them I was "dope sick". I just said I still felt awful and I had pneumonia. After what seemed like 3 days had passed (it was only 30 minutes) I walked away from my desk to a back office where there wasn't anyone there yet. I sat there and began to cry. I'm a grown man and I was crying at work & couldn't bear to let anyone see me this way. I'm no little pathetic guy either. I'm 6"2 220 lbs and keep my emotions even keeled 95% of the time good or bad. I sat there for about 20 minutes and decided I had to tell my boss what was really going on. I had no idea how long this was going to last but the thought of even trying to stay focused throughout the day was something I couldn't even process. I was out of work that whole week as well. 3 weeks of work gone and day 20 and I still hadn't slept. Nothing felt or seemed real. I was in the twilight zone. Happiness was a distant memory and what did the future hold. I wanted so bad to just make it all end & there was one easy solution....lit I couldn't give in. I had come this far and what would those 20-21 days of torture have been for if I gave in now. I was in it for the long haul. My gf had called me one night and asked me how I was doing. (She hadn't known yet what was going on because I was in a long distance relationship. When she asked me, I didn't say anything for about 10-15 seconds and started to cry & told her I wasn't doing well at all and I was in a world of hurt. God bless her because she stood by my side while I went thru this. I had a planned date to go and see her in a week or two if I recall correctly. When I got there, I was "happy" to see her but not the way I usually was. It was forced and by no fault of hers. I know she didn't fully understand what i was going thru. I didn't talk, I stated off into space. Slept maybe 35-45 minutes a night but tossing and turning and keeping her up half he night. After about three days she said we should go for a ride just to get outside. It seemed like it might have been a nice day but nice/happy/optimism were things I didn't understand anymore. Part of this may have been due to the fact that in about a month, I had gotten about 8 hours of sleep total with all of that being after day 20. We were driving in the car and I actually dozed off for about 30 minutes or so & when I woke up, I was miserable. I began to cry but tried to turn my head because I was ashamed of myself for not only crying in front of my girlfriend but because what the f did I do to myself? I thought I was bettering myself by quitting all these things but I was void of all happy feelings and thoughts and I was probably not very fun to be around. All in all, during the visit, I got a few hours sleep but now it was back home.....to be alone & try to function at work. Each day at work the smallest things would cause me to lose my temper (something I very rarely do). This went on for about a month or so. Another month passed and I decided it was a good idea to just "needle" my boss to the point where I got fired. My newly acquired piss poor attitude had lost me my pretty decent paying job that I was at for almost 5 years. All due to one small strip that goes under your tongue. If you are still off the subs and I pray that you are even though I don't know you, stay strong. It's such a long process for some and not so much for others but I did quit cold turkey and I tend to think of myself as resilient when I put my mind to something. If you are still suffering, you are going to find that your mind will play tricks on you that you didn't know were possible. During my whole withdrawal time, there was one hung that gave me hope. It was reading the success stories and the words of encouragement from others. One little statement that someone posted kept me strong when I felt weak. One teenie, tiny statement. Someone wrote "you can't always have rainbows without a little bit of rain". For some reason, this phrase just clicked and made sense. It let me know that I wasn't going to be happy without first going thru some misery. From there on out, when I really got down, I thought of that phrase and even though I couldn't yet quite see it, I knew there was light at the end of the tunnel. All in all, it took me about 4 months to START to feel somewhat normal again. Sleep was still sparce but ever so slowly improving. I had to go thru (for me personally) the worst, most traumatic time in my life I have ever experienced. Some people's experiences for some reason aren't quite as bad but everyone reacts differently to a degree I guess. My decision to stick it out was THE BEST decision I had ever made. I quit on August 20th of 2015 and 6 months later in February of 2016, my girlfriend and wife to be had told me she was pregnant. This is my first and only child and she is everything to me and that doesn't even to begin to describe what my feelings for my little angel is. If I hadn't quit when I did, how I. The world would I have ever been able to quit after my daughter was born and be a father to her? I thank God for giving me the willpower to quit cold turkey and he blessed me with something that no drug company ups ever make me feel this good about. She is now 9 months old and next month I will have been off the subs for 2 years....cold turkey. You may ask yourself when you feel miserable "what is the reward at the end of it?" For me it was 2 rewards. The first was getting my life back to where I wasn't a slave to a drug. The second was my beautiful daughter. And I'm not being biased when I say that, she is so cute and adorable and is the biggest blessing I've had and will ever have in my life.....a life that almost wasn't mine to have if I decided to continue to be a slave. My friend I've typed quite a bit and I don't care what most think of my post. My post is now here to try and help you or if I help just one other person get thru this awful drug withdrawal with something I wrote, then I may have changed someone's life for the better. I owe it to you and/or someone else because one persons post helped me. "Sometimes you have to have rain to have rainbows" and sometimes you have to walk thru hell to get to heaven. I hope God puts his hand on you and heals you and don't ever give up fighting. It's going to be a long long journey. It's been almost 2 years for me and I still don't sleep some nights. Is that from PAWS? I don't know but I never had that problem before and 2+2 equals 4. One thing I can say though is that I don't have the cravings anymore and I've even turned down pills without batting an eye because I never, ever want to go thru that nightmare again. If you are still going through it, please, for yourself and for a,brighter future, don't give up, don't slip up, don't make any excuse. Beat down and ride it out. It's a long long ride but it's worth it in the end. Good luck my friend, you are in my thoughts and I pray for you! Gary | ||
Posts: 1
Joined: July 21, 2017
Posted: July 21, 2017, 12:30 PM
Thanks for posting EF, and congrats on the impressive clean time. That's not easy. Hope you're still doing well? My 2 cents would be to consider going to an NA meeting if you haven't already. I've always fought this and personally I find them uncomfortable, but I did meet someone that made it off suboxone (multiple years clean now) and have been in contact with him a few times. I'm only 5 days clean from 4 mg/daily and no taper (I always fail at tapering anyways), so clearly I'm searching for answers too. But having a real person who knows what it's actually like and to meet up with was helpful for him and does help make it less hopeless for me. I know NA's not for everyone, but worth a shot I think.
If you have an update I'd love to hear it. And any other suggestions from anyone on overcoming the PAWS would be great. I've made it past 30 days twice in the past, I can deal with the physical but the long term mental battle is my biggest hurdle. Thanks | ||
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Posted: July 27, 2017, 6:04 AM
Hi there. I have been on subs for 9 years and decided to go to a detox center for 10 days to come off cold turkey. I was taking anywhere from 4-12 mg a day. The detox helped, but of course now that I'm home I feel pretty bad, which I expected. It has been 2 weeks. I'm not the kind of person that can taper as always take more and it was hard to do with that way for me. There are so many withdrawal symptoms from Suboxone it's ridiculous. I've tried twice in the past and failed, really hope this time it sticks. Its just very hard, especially when u have to work every day.
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Posted: August 5, 2017, 10:11 AM
Hang in there, you are doing great. It will get better. I was on Suboxone (32mg a day) for 2 years. I too wanted to just die and never thought I would feel better again. I took about 6 weeks before I could function again and go outside. I had PAWS for about 6 months. I have been clean for 3.5 years and I am so grateful to not be enslaved to opiates anymore. I did ween down to 1 mg but it did not help, the withdrawals were horrific. In my life, I went through opaite withdraws well over 100 times and the orange monster (Suboxone) was certainly one of the worst. Prior to suboxone, I had a horrific dilaudid and oxy habit. I don't have any advice, we are all just trying get through this the best we can. I just wanted you to know that it is possible to survive this, it will be the hardest thing you have ever done... but well worth it. I actual like myself today and that my friend is a miracle. Cliff
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